Quote of the Day: Amy Jaffe on Alternative Energy

I really think it has to be a national initiative. There are groups of people who have called from an Apollo-style national initiative in science, [an effort that is going to take decades]. And so it's really important to start focusing on the science today.

[We won't see any real progress] until we have a real direction. You're going to spend a billion dollars a year for ten years, just on fundamental science because the kinds of technologies that are here with us today are technologies that require huge breakthroughs, especially in storage technologies.

[In the space program, milestones were set and met. Technologies were developed to meet each target.] The same thing needs to be done in energy. We need to set goals and targets. We need to know where we need to be in what year. We need to lay these things down together so we understand the science that's possible at which time in which fields, so we understand what fuels are going to provide an escape from emissions and which ones aren't, and that we have a coordinated national policy."

—Dr. Amy Jaffe, associate director of the Rice Energy Program at Rice University in Houston, Texas, quoted in in Present At the Future: From Evolution to Nanotechnology, Candid and Controversial Conversations on Science and Nature by Ira Flatow (2007, Collins)