Kimberly Muñoz

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Back in the day, I was a policy fellow over at Americans for Energy Leadership, an organization dedicated to changing the future by supporting a "new Apollo Project for energy." AEL is a pretty youthful group that was optimistic about the possibility of a bipartisan energy agenda that would promote this project to solve the impending energy and climate problems in the near future.

Yesterday's speech reminded me of why this mission was so exciting in the first place. How investing in science and technology can lead to incredible developments in the future, such as liquid solar power, algal jetfuels and newer efficient engines. Since it's early and I want to relive the excitement, I've included the text of the speech below.

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we would beat them to the moon. The science wasn't even there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.

This is our generation's Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the Space Race. And in a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology -- (applause) -- an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.

Already, we're seeing the promise of renewable energy. Robert and Gary Allen are brothers who run a small Michigan roofing company. After September 11th, they volunteered their best roofers to help repair the Pentagon. But half of their factory went unused, and the recession hit them hard. Today, with the help of a government loan, that empty space is being used to manufacture solar shingles that are being sold all across the country. In Robert's words, "We reinvented ourselves."

That's what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves. And to spur on more success stories like the Allen Brothers, we've begun to reinvent our energy policy. We're not just handing out money. We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time.

At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The trick is to let yourself write badly—as badly as you need to, in order to make your word count and your deadline. At least, that’s what works for me. 

Award-Winning Novels; Fighting Procrastination

I work in marketing and so I read a lot and work a lot with social media. A number of "gurus" have been saying for years that everyone should have a blog. And while I have started a couple for travel or sad pictures of soccer fans, I can't get myself to blog consistently in an area I want to get hired in. So here goes, no fancy Wordpress plug-ins to distract me. I'm using Posterous, because I can't be trusted to ever stop tinkering with a layout long enough to create content. I'm hoping the email client interface changes that. I plan to mostly write about technology policy, but I'll see what this turns into.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »