Obama energy budget: all about cleantech, shale

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President Barack Obama's budget includes more money for clean energy and energy efficiency.

The gist of President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal is more money for clean energy, less for fossil fuels, and what fossil fuel money there is should be spent with a heavy emphasis on shale research and development.

First, the clean stuff:

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is getting $2.3 billion for cleantech. Included in that amount is $310 million to make solar energy cost competitive by 2020, $95 million for wind energy and $65 million for geothermal systems. But the main focus is energy efficiency, which is getting an 80 percent boost from last year's allocation.

Along those lines, the budget also allocates $310 million for the Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Program to expand R&D for energy efficiency technologies for commercial buildings and continue to develop standards for appliances. This is a 41 percent increase over this year’s budget allocation. The federal government will be walking the walk as well — it will be doing energy efficiency upgrades to the tune of $2 million for its federal buildings.

The DOE will also get $290 million to develop technologies that save energy during manufacturing processes and to come up with advanced materials that do the same. This is part of the president’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, which he announced in Pittsburgh last summer.

Another $350 million for clean energy research is slated for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. That’s for things like solar, energy storage, carbon capture and storage and advanced biofuels.

Read more, including what's in the budget for fossil fuels, in the Pittsburgh Business Journal.