Whatever. But it but the fact is, p. V. Modules available for about 80 cents a watt. And a reminder, the longstanding holy grail has been about 50 cents a watt. I mean, this is tremendous progress. In fact, now its the soft costs that we have to work on more to to get those down. And, again, you see the cost in deployment. Ill pause here just to say that a harbinger of what is coming is when energy incumbents start to seriously reexamine their Business Models in the face of whats happening. So many of you have seen today, for example, there are some, shall we call them, discussions going on between the Solar Industry and utilities, for example, in terms of how are how are distributed p. V. Systems paid for electricity back to the grid, how are things like Distribution System costs shared, et cetera, et cetera. Well, you know, it was only a few years ago when nobody cared. But the message is, in all of these and i have two more to go through you know, the future may not be always 10 years away. As i believe a lot of these technologies are beginning to establish their their their positions and certainly with policy actions on on the climate front will only be helped helped further. Another another example, l. E. D. Lights. The last five years, again, cost of superefficient l. E. D. s fallen more than 85 and and sales, a big surprise, are taking off. The today were up to aut 20 million fixtures. And there are many attractions to the l. E. D. Of course, the problem is, lets say for your 60 watt incandescent light bulb equivalent, were talking now about 20 for that fixture. 25,000 years of life. 25 times that of an incandescent bulb. So other than having this upfront capital cost, the economics are clear, especially with using only 20 of the power. In fact, the estimate is the lifetime savings of that one 60 watt incandescent bulb replaced by the equivalent l. E. D. Over its 25,000hour lifetime are well over the cost of one bulb. But you have to make the upfront investment. But thats coming. As an aside, ill say there are this does not even count the hidden costs of what you may need to do to replace the bulb 25 times, particularly if you if you have a hotel, lets say, lights way up. The maintenance person, the ladders, et cetera, et cetera coming in, the osha violations, who knows, the so anyways, so, you know, there are also hidden hidden savings which can be very, very substantial. And finally, for electric vehicles and batteries, again, this shows a factor of two reduction in the batteries in just a relatively short time. That can go back to our to our tesla discussion where the costs are becoming much more affordable. But in but the real message is that if we come down another factor of four, were getting into the range where where vehicle electric vehicles of significant range and much more mass appeal become possible. So, you know and this deployment, the green curve, just to give you a reference point, i mean, we may be talking about 100,000 electric vehicles this year, much more than was predicted only a short time ago, and this rate of increase in the early stages is substantially greater than that we saw for hybrid vehicles. These are inherently simpler vehicles, high performance, et cetera. So thats just kind of a sampling of these kind of four Different Technology areas where i think there still is often a persistent idea that these are somehow decades away. Well, i think a lot of energy incumbents are beginning to think in a in a different way. Im getting how am i doing on time . [laughter] i probably should okay. Im going to switch to then a last a last topic and thats going back now to how i started when i discussed sandy and climate climate preparedness. Again, the president s Climate Action plan basically reflected a major i would call step change in recognizing adaptation as one of the highest policy goals while favoring mitigation but recognizing that we cannot turn away from from adaptation. We are now bringing a suite of technologies and policies to meet this challenge. This morning i was in new jersey in see caucus signing an m. O. U. With governor christy and the new Jersey Transit corporation. What this is, is i think a perfect model of rebuilding in ways that are going to be resilient to the future. The project which will be designed by our Sandia National laboratory i should say sandia has already designed 25 micro grids for military installations, but now this will be adapting their tools to a civilian environment, a Critical Infrastructure environment basically the transit in the. Anish corridoin the. Anishin northeast corridor. Were talk about distributed Generation Assets in the micro grid clearly exceeding 50 megawatts. And the idea is, again, that this will take a a key part of the infrastructure, including, by the way, for manhattan. That is a an important evacuation corridor for manhattan if theres a major a major problem. It will address resilience. It will address economic benefits by providing what is, in effect, a smart grid. So these are the this is the way that we are also and the president put forward for us to be thinking about this resilience. Its not just about building sea walls, as important as that may be, or about elevating elevating structures close to the close to the close to the sea, but its also about building smart as we readdress the infrastructure and use this as perhaps an opportunity to develop the 21st century 21st century infrastructure. The in fact, the i should say here in new york, my understanding is the sea level in new york harbor is about a foot higher than it was a century ago and so we begin to understand the sensitivity to all of these all of these climate Climate Actions and we applaud new york for a number of the steps its taken including, by the way, establishing a green bank for for efficiency and clean energy technologies. I would just add that we are also going to focus at d. O. E. In these coming years at much more work with the states because we believe this is a this is a critical, critical area for testing things out, for drawing upon the creativity that states and cities have been showing in terms of in terms of energy and climate policy. So finally, ill just add that when it comes to Emergency Response and this and this adaptation part of the the agenda, the department of energy, speaking now for our own responsibilities, is is head of whats called Emergency Support function 12 under the umbrella of fema basically as the lead department for addressing Energy Infrastructure issues. We already operate the northeast heating oil reserve. We operate the Strategic Petroleum reserve. On our Nuclear Weapons activity that david alluded to, weve had longstanding operational Emergency Response for nuclear incidents, for controlling Nuclear Weapons materials globally. But this is a new stepout for us in terms of a major operational requirement in the civilian sector, if you like, working working with all of our Energy Energy energy companies. And i and to do and partly to do this, we have in the department of energy have had a reorganization looking at how our under secretaries are deployed, basically assigning one of our three under secretaries to focus on management and performance so all of these operational questions we are we are looking to to upgrade our focus on on that. I should add that in terms of the grid and and resilience, of course, extreme weather is is one issue, but in addition, things like Cyber Security are an increasing threat, one to which we are also devoting much, much more attention. I think given the time, im going to pretty much end there. The id be happy to take questions on the yea quad repubn yell energquadrennialenergy rev. But the message is one i hope clear. One, our program in energy, the department of energy, is clearly directed by the president s Climate Action plan. That is our focus. To do so, we will upgrade our efficiency work. We will continue to drive to help drive down the costs of lowcarbon alternatives across the board, all of the above, as we support also the work of other agencies like the e. P. A. In addressing climate. But at the same time, as the president said, we have to acknowledge that we are seeing and will see more, frankly, of the impacts of climate and so we must also look at how we develop our Energy Infrastructure for that future, an infrastructure that serves our economic goals but also provides robustness and resilience against extreme weather events. And with that, i thank you for your attention and would be happy to take some questions. [applause] i have a question. Were going to come to that but maybe we can do it in the right order. I want to make sure you do. About half the cards we just collected were on that question so we will come to it. Thank you. With all due respect, doctor, thank you. So we have about just under about 20 to 25 minutes for questions with the secretary. Weve been collecting weve been collecting cards. About half of them were related to hydraulic fracturing and fugitive meth age. Thimethane. This is new york. If you want to start with that one, lets start with that one. Theres a lot of concern here and around the country, also in new york, about shale Gas Development. Whats your view of the role that natural gas plays in a low Carbon Economy, how shale gas can be developed and what actions the u. S. Government is taking to help get there . Okay. Well, first of all, it is a fact that in these last years, the natural gas regula revolution, e say, has been a major contributor to reducing emissions. The president has a goal, as i mentioned, of 17 by 2020. We are about halfway there, and about half of that is because of the substitution of natural gas for coal in the power sector, essentially driven by the by market forces. The in my previous life at m. I. T. When we did a study on natural gas, the if you asked the question upfront is natural gas part of the problem or part of the solution for Climate Change we reached the conclusion, yes. [laughter] that is that is, certainly in the near term and for potentially for some years out, this substitution of natural gas for coal combustion without Carbon Capture would be a major contributor to reducing carbon emissions. But in the longer term, assuming we are cranking down hard on carbon emissions, then eventually gas itself would have to have Carbon Capture or it would be too carbon intensive. So its really that is the classic definition of the bridge to to the future and we need to work on those technologies. Now, next question is, theres been a lot of controversy around methane emissions, and first of all, the again, actually in the president s Climate Action plan, there was specifically a callout for addressing what you might call the nonco2 Greenhouse Gases, hydrofloor carbons, for example, where we are working. In fact, we have an agreement with china to work on that. And then methane. And on methane, we currently have an Interagency Group formed at the president s direction headed by the e. P. A. , including the department of energy, department of interior and department of agriculture, for example, to to look at methane emissions. We are in very close contact with the Environmental Defense fund who, of course, has had a major study of their own on methane on methane emissions. The so we will see what comes out of that. Were going to remove people from the room if they just shout out. Okay . The data currently look as though they the they are more on the low side of the estimates of methane emissions. [inaudible] would you please let the secretary answer your question. Hes talking about Something Else than what im talking about. [inaudible] he says its worse than coal. The question has already been asked and the secretary is answering the question so let him answer the question. The current data suggests that that is an incorrect statement but we will be exploring it. And, secondly, we will expand the study from the narrow focus around emissions at the well to emissions end to end, including in the Transportation Transportation infrastructure. The other thing is, in addition, in terms of methane production at the well, of course, there are technologies that are increasingly being used to capture the methane. And, in fact, as an aside, i mean, those can also be used beneficially in the environmental context in the sense that, for example, its a lot better to use natural gas engines to drive the tracking fg fluids than it is to use diesel engines with low air quality issues. So thats a second point. And there was a third point. Im trying to remember what it was now. [inaudible] anyway, ive forgotten. Thats where we are. And again, theres no theres no issue in terms of co2 emissions at least that natural gas has. Oh, i know what the third one was. And then comes the issues of the safe safety in terms of fracking itself, and there again, each of the issues to be addressed i would argue has Clear Solutions but theyre being but the technologies the issues being manageable ive always said is not the same as being managed. We have to have consistent application of best standards through regulatory and other and other other approaches. So i think thats the thats the Overall Program and thats what were doing. Let me just broaden the question because there are questions about natural gas and fracking, a lot of them on these cards and the future of methane, there are also some more broadly about fossil fuels, about the alloftheabove strategy and the questions are sort of along the line of why all of the above, why not focus . So you spoke passionately the need to tackle with urgency the Climate Change problem. The administration has welcomed the dramatic increase in oil and gas through new unconventional technologies here in in this country. I think some people view those things as having some tension between them or being hard to reconcile, and so perhaps you could talk a little bit about how you think the public should understand how those things fit together, how theyre consistent, whats the right way to think about being serious about climate and about the fact that the u. S. Has the potential to significantly increase its oil and Gas Production . Certainly. The first of all, lets start with, again, the ground truth. 80 of our energy today is is fossil derived. The transportation sector is still today i mean, okay, within a couple of well, within 10 , 10 ethanol. But largely it is dependent upon oil as the as the transportation fuel. Now, i talked here about hopefully going to a future where we see a lot more electric vehicles using low carbon electricity Going Forward, but the reality is, in the energy business, its extremely hard to see very, very rapid changes in the in the deployment. So we have to our view is that we have to be practical, pragmatic, totally committed to reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions, doing so as and accelerating that to the extent that we can within the the current realities. Now, let me go to your specific questions about gas and oil. First of all, i would say there have been different questions. On the oil side, our production has gone up substantially. In fact, in the last five years, the added capacity in Global Oil Production i mean, the United States has been by far the biggest contributor, in fact, bigger than the next three combined. And thats come mainly from the from the unconventional type oil. Now, here, what were doing what were seeing here is a substitution for imports. This has significant economic benefits. Its its not changing the carbon balance specifically but it is certainly reducing our our balance of payments substantially. It wasnt long ago we were spending a billion dollars a day on on imported oil. Thats now at its lowest level in many, many years and our production is at the highest level in many, many years. The but in the spirit of what i said how i defined all of the above, but we are working assiduously in multiple dimensions to reduce Oil Dependence. The president pushed the unprecedented cafe standards, a doubling of fuel efficiency by 2025 and thats already having having an effect. We are working on nextgeneration biofuels, and we are working on, as one saw, the especially the Battery Technology that is key to electric vehicle penetration but beyond that, other things for lightweighting vehicles, et cetera, new materials, which, by the way, was part of the tesla safety success as well, i might add. So we are producing more oil, we are reducing imports and we are working to to reduce Oil Dependence at the same time. On natural gas, its a little bit different. In fact, maybe i should have said, if you look at the the cost of removing the marginal ton of co2, you know, its in broad terms, its probably lowest for efficiency, next for electricity and its highest for transportation. So thats the one thats going to be a little bit harder, frankly, in terms of getting this this this transition. Now, natural gas serves three major sectors of the United States almost equally heating, electricity and and industrial industrial applications. The on the electricity is where we are seeing the large growth because of the low prices, and, again, this has been beneficial for for our carbon equation. Its why we are the lead industrialized economy that is actually reducing carbo