The climate picture, at least from where I sit, isn’t pretty: Developing a sustainable global energy system will take time and the clock is running out. I attended the MIT Energy Conference, subtitled Accelerating Change in Global Energy, this past weekend. The conference gave a broad view of energy in today’s environmentally and economically constrained world and conveyed the magnitude of the challenge. I didn’t sense much doom and gloom at the conference, however. The feeling was more of a recognition of the hard realities and a girding for a difficult battle. Rep. Jay Inslee attempted to rally the troops with his keynote speech. He reiterated the need for Apollo Project-like renewable energy funding, and he offered a vision of American ingenuity once again leading the world to a brighter future. He also made it clear, however, that congressional Democrats are solidly behind the administration’s cap-and-trade initiative and there won’t be a serious push for a carbon tax anytime soon. Automotive industry analyst John Casesa and financier and environmentalist Theodore Roosevelt IV separately raised the specter of the recession sparking a bout of protectionism that could hinder efforts to tackle the climate crisis. “We have to resist at all costs economic nationalism,� said Roosevelt. “It’s the fastest route to mutually assured destruction.� One idea I heard in the biofuels and energy storage sessions is the need for emerging energy technologies to have multiple “value streams� in order to be economically viable, at least until a firm price on carbon emerges. In the case of biofuels this means getting more out of biomass than just biofuel, and in the case of energy storage this means using the storage for multiple purposes like grid support, bulk storage for renewables, and frequency regulation. Another highlight was American Electric Power’s Ali Nourai describing the utility’s Community Energy Storage pilot project. The company plans to put batteries in neighborhoods, each capable of supplying several hours of electricity to four to six houses. The batteries will have the same aggregate capacity as the utility’s recently deployed centralized storage units, but distributed storage improves security and makes it easier for the utility to respond to local outages. The cost of the batteries should go down because the technology is the same as batteries being developed for electric vehicles. For a lengthier take on the story, see Martin LaMonica’s post on CNET. On the research front, Ford’s John Viera said the company is devoting more of its R&D toward electric vehicles than hydrogen. The company is also, not surprisingly, providing less money to universities and other outside researchers. The company is also telling universities what it’s looking for rather than perusing the available research, he said. At the same time, the company is planning to collaborate more on its advanced R&D, which it used to keep in-house. Neha Misra of The Energy and Resources Institute probably summed things up best during the Energy in Emerging Economies session: “Renewable energy will scale,� she said. “The question is by when. Putting a price on carbon is very important.� Eric Smalley is the editor of Energy Research News. He has written about technology since 1987 and has freelanced for many publications including Discover, Scientific American, Wired News and The Boston Globe on topics ranging from quantum cryptography to global warming.