The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Alexander Karsner will be leaving the department later this month.
Karsner ‘has played a key role in the administration's efforts to engage the private sector in advancing and deploying efficiency and renewable energy technologies,’ says Samuel W. Bodman, secretary of energy. ‘He has been instrumental in accelerating the research and development of cellulosic biofuels, solar, wind, geothermal and tidal power, as well as advanced vehicle battery storage and hydrogen fuel cells. Andy's extraordinary leadership has helped pave the way to make the U.S. more environmentally healthy and energy secure by pursuing sustainable energy sources that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on foreign oil. ‘
Karsner manages the nation's $1.72 billion applied science, research, development and deployment portfolio. He bears primary responsibility for education, conservation, regulation and efficient use of energy and is the administration's contact on efforts regarding the advanced energy initiative to rebalance clean energy research and development portfolios.
‘With meaningful policy and leadership in place, the United States is now on track to be a global leader in clean energy technology development, deployment and diffusion – transforming global challenges into economic opportunity,’ says Karsner. ‘But it will take the sustained, multigenerational, collaborative efforts and leadership of policy makers, our entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and commercial developers, and a robust response capital markets to bring about the transformation our nation seeks and our world needs.’
Karsner has been a principal contributor to achieving the Bali Roadmap under the U.N. Convention and the administration's Major Economies Meetings process toward achieving a post-2012 international climate change and energy security framework, as well as other multi-lateral agreements. He was also instrumental in the successful effort to pass the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, testifying more than 20 times in support of the bipartisan agreement.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Energy
