Donald Trump’s attempts to unwind progress in environmental matters hasn’t met  much resistance from scientific-minded Republicans. The former National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, is now NLR – National Laboratory of the Rockies. Trump excised the RE bit claiming that climate change and its scientifically proved renewables solution is a Chinese hoax. Many conservatives know he is wrong, but refuse to challenge him.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, is being dismantled because, the administration says, it is “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” The implication of dismantling or diminishing these two institutions results from our president’s inherent suspicion and hatred of anything scientific.

I have had dealings with NREL and know the institution well. It began as SERI — Solar Energy Research Institute — in 1977 as a result of the 1973 Arab oil embargo and after a competitive selection process. Golden was chosen as a site for the new institute, marking a new chapter in American energy research. 

Republican George H. Bush elevated SERI to a national laboratory — National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 1991. Its research has been stellar and has a great deal to show for it.  Energy science and research has led to raising efficiency, creating new market opportunities for America and driving down of costs. American dominance of solar photovoltaic research has had global implications.  

The result has been mass-scale manufacturing processes that have made solar power economically competitive. NREL’s Photovoltaic Test and Measurement Laboratories are the world’s gold standard for independently verifying solar cell efficiency and form the consistent benchmark against which the entire industry is measured. 

A great deal of research done at NREL is complex and highly detailed, something that I and men like Russ Vogt, White House’s budget director don’t quite understand. It includes Solar photovoltaic, Crystalline silicon PV,  Thin–Film Technologies energy research, which are the answers to our environmental and energy questions. It’s always best to act from the depth knowledge gives one, rather than from blind ignorance. 

Other research successes include high efficiency multi-junction solar cells often used in satellites. As a result of NREL’s work, high efficiency perovskite solar cell, made from perovskite materials are cheap to produce and simple to manufacture. Additionally research into transparent solar panels will lead to windows and façades being transformed into energy generating surfaces, a much cleaner, efficient source of energy than coal. 

NREL worked on and developed new families of turbine blade airfoils to produce 30% more electricity. It’s intriguing to think that a lab up in Golden can develop flexible wave energy converters to generate energy from a wide range of the ocean’s wave motions. The lab has worked with DOE on many projects, including in bio energy.

The misfortune of Trump looking at solar and wind energy askance is that China and India are not waiting for him to receive remedial science education. They are plowing right ahead with their research and development of everything energy. 

China’s solar energy manufacturer has overtaken America’s and from a practical point, Africa is benefiting from this. For the longest time Africans have struggled with unreliable electricity produced from giant coal burning plants. Suddenly, solar has risen from nothing in 2019 to 10% of South Africa’s electricity generating capacity. In fact, the transformation of the energy equation in South Africa is occurring all across the African continent. 

As America ramps up fossil fuel use at home and as exports, China has focused on dominating renewables. And it’s not just the solar panels that have become dirt cheap. China’s electric vehicles, and batteries are leading across all continents.

Because the old NREL that’s now called NLR is a local concern, I would have thought Colorado’s Republican voices would be reminding Trump of the truth, that coal energy is finished. No one but Trump will resuscitate its mention. Hopefully anyone who has depended on it for their living are training for some new employment.

Yes, gas guzzlers may return, and they might be a bit less expensive. This will be an illusory, passing fancy. One hopes that car makers can read scientific tea leaves that we are in a warming world, in an environment of fires and floods that will not go back. Because carmakers probably believe in science and don’t depend on votes from some red fringes, they will continue to develop EVs. Not to do so will mean surrendering our future and the clean energy market to the Chinese.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships; co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students ‘STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, a Huffington Post blogger, a past columnist for Denver dailies and is featured on the podcast, “Never Again.”