>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: ernst ernst is here. he is the secretary of energy for the united states. "washington post" called him obama's secret weapon in iranian talks. he has been negotiating with his iranian counterpart. he is a professor at m.i.t., taught there four years, led the department of phissics, served in the clinton administration as under secretary of energy and in the white house office of science and technology policy. for all those reasons and more, i am pleased to have him here at this table for the first time. welcome. >> pleased to be here. >> rose: there's much to talk about. clearly, we'll talk about energy in a broader sense and what you'd think of where we are in terms of climate and other issues, but let me begin with the nuclear talks. you have become famous to all of us sitting next to john kerry and the interesting fact is often sitting next to foreign minister zarif who was at this table a week or so ago is someone you knew at m.i.t. when you both were students. >> actually, we overlapped at m.i.t. but did not actually know each other then. we did meet subsequently in vienna when he was heading the i.a.e.a. delegation for iran but i can assure you we did not know each other as students. i can assure you we did not have the substantive discussions we had for 30 or 40 hours one on one in switzerland. >> rose: tell me what your role is. >> well, what really happened was i think i would say more on the side of the iranian negotiators initially that i think to reach an agreement that involved, after all significant limits on the nuclear program that mr. salahi built and was running and he was foreign minister before is zarif that they felt having the team of the foreign minister and head of the nuclear organization there would make sense. >> rose: the imrols and the science covered. >> correct. that's when i was introduced because so much of the agreement really requires tradeoffs among technical dimensions,ster funerals stockpiles of uranium enrichment levels et cetera. i was asked to join john kerry to be a principal negotiate with mr. ismr. salahi. both sides had good functional teams and we could manage the technical discussions. we both had this m.i.t. background and very soon got into a problem solving mode and hopefully that shows with the scope and the specificity of what we were able to negotiate. >> rose: is it sometimes one on one just the two of you? >> many, many times. >> rose: and what are you trying to get at the two of you? >> well again, there is many tradeoffs. a perfective is i think the way i look at it, at least, and i think the way we the administration looks at it, the agreement, it would be that, look, the goal here is in the very long term -- and we're talking decades -- is to hopefully is established confidence in the international community that iran is, in fact pursuing a peaceful program of nuclear power and nuclear facilities. however, that confidence is frankly not there today. the degree of sanctioning would be a manifestation of that and so clearly we start out with a very strong set of restrictions on the program and then over time, that will eventually go to a long-term -- again if everyone performs, in the long term we'll have a country with the nuclear programio baying the nonproliferation treaty with additional protocol that provides additional transparency. so what we had to do, for example, the united states and our p5+1 colleagues we set a metric for at least ten years that a breakout time by which we defined as if iran decided to rush towards accumulating the uranium or plutonium for a weapon, it would take them at least a year. >> rose: to have sufficient enriched fiewlz -- >> enriched uranium or plutonium either one for a first weapon that they would have such restrictions that even if they made the choice throw out all the inspectors, you know, abrogate the agreement, ruche to get the material assembled, it would take them at least a year. >> rose: today it would take two to three months. >> today it's very short, yes. >> rose: so if they broke negotiations and headed head-long to make a nuclear weapon they could have a bomb -- >> have the nuclear fuel. >> rose: in two to three months. >> yes. i know mr. zarif was on the show recently and i'm sure he pointed out something he said to us many times that we are using an unconventional definition of breakout time. >> rose: that's sort of what he said yes. >> and he's correct, by the way, that the standard parlance would be that breakout time would be the time to a weapon. we are being more conservative. we are saying it's the time only to assemble the nuclear material and to weaponnize would take some additional time but we didn't count that. so going back to -- >> rose: so now it's two to three months. this agreement would put it at a year. >> at least a year, i would say somewhat conservatively for at least ten years. now to go back to your question what did we talk about in our negotiations. so for example this issue of breakout time involves a tradeoff. how many centrifuges of what quality, how much enriched uranium stockpile is there, what is the enrichment of that stockpile, what is the rate at which, in a breakout scenario they could build additional centrifuges or cascades. so all of those technical details have to be played off and fundamentally we would engage in that, frankly, as was reported in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago and then often i or my team would then call back to our laboratories and while we slept a few hours they would make new calculations to make sure we were always observing this one-year breakout. >> rose: i want to continue back to the one-year breakout but you mentioned the laboratories. >> yes. >> rose: it's really an interesting story. you have put together among your nuclear physicist colleagues a series of what? >> well, you know, obviously, once i joined secretary kerry in the negotiations, it kind of became public that the department of energy was heavily involved, but that involvement was there all the time. so we have a series of laboratories and nuclear sites which fundamentally is the repository of a lot of the nuclear capability in this country. so we had seven national laboratories and two of our nuclear sites all engaged in various aspects of analyzing the technical dimensions of the agreement. >> rose: it is said we have a lot of knowledge about where their facilities are and what they're doing there and we even have models at some of the labs that you're referring to. >> there have been reports of that in the press. (laughter) >> rose: so what do they tell you? they tell you -- they look athand analyze what -- they look and analyze what the iranians are saying, what intelligence tells you to try to verify what assumptions you're making about where they are and what changes might be made in this agreement and what impact they'll have? >> yeah, because we can make tradeoffs between the uranium stockpile, the number of centrifuges, the enrichment of the stockpile. these were all different parameters we had to balance, always add hearing to the president's direction that we must have at least this one' year breakout period. >> rose: some say that's not enough and cite the north korean's as a good example. >> the situation in north korea was quite different in terms of, first of all the level of inspection, and i should say in comparing to north korea clearly, the key issue is the degree of transparentsy and access to verification. in the north korean situation there were relatively few inspectors, they were very constrained in where they could go what they could look at. actually, those lessons were part of what drove the international community towards establishing the so-called additional protocol which goes beyond the usual national safeguards agreements with the international inspection agency and provides additional access and transparentsy. so that's all part of this deal. iran is committed to stay within the additional protocol essentially forever at least as long as they are part of the nonproliferation treaty. >> rose: there are lots of questions that come up about this in terms of the one year, you say that's a conservative time. >> mm-hmm. >> rose: when it comes to inspection, we'll come back to the one year, but when it comes to inspection are you satisfied? secretary kerry said this is the most intrusive inspection you've ever had by this agreement. is it in your judgment enough? >> the answer is yes, otherwise they wouldn't sign off on it. now, it has many components however, and we need to carry through on all of them. one thing is that we have, in the agreement, access to the entire supply chain all the way back to the iranian mines and the so-called mills continuous surveillance of the manufacturing facilities advanced technology for sealing off equipment that is not in use, continuous inspection is available. now, if there were an attempt to evade that, they would have to create the entire supply chain covertly. it would come in many, many different places, and there we have to say that the combination of the inspections, the access granted through additional protocol and the, let's say national means, that we believe it would be extraordinarily difficult to imagine this entire supply chain being put together. >> rose: supply chain is one thing. another thing is military bases. >> mm-hmm. >> rose: they say they're not going to allow p5+1 or the i.a.e.a. to inspect their military bails and no other -- bases and no other country would. >> i think two different issues are here that get conflated. one issue is the unsuccessful to date process of the i.a.e.a. looking at military dimensions of the past program, and there is -- it's still to be finalized, to be honest, but there the i.a.e.a. and iran must come together and agree on the access the i.a.e.a. needs to issue their final report on what's called possible military dimensions of their past program. we are talking about going forward. going forward there will be a process in place with a defined time by which iran must provide access to sites for which there is any rational, you know somewhat fact-based reason to be concerned. and there a process is in place that cannot be blocked by any one or two countries. >> rose: it is also said that the united states would like to devise monitoring devices to be used by i.a.e.a. in its inspection, and the iranians are scared this is simply something that would allow the united states to spy on them. >> first of all i should say, you know things like this additional protocol things like using these advanced technologies for i.a.e.a. inspections, these are things we want to see more broadly in terms of the i.a.e.a. activities, not just in iran. >> rose: okay. to stop proliferation anywhere it might be. >> anywhere, right. and certainly to getting to more advanced technologies like special seals that if tampered with communicate directly back to the i.a.e.a. so one can have a quick inspection, that's something that we will have here and we hope to have in many places. frankly, those kinds of technologies are things our national laboratories develop. >> rose: are they acceptable to the iranians? >> yes. >> rose: they are? yes. >> rose: okay. we have discussed that? >> yep. >> rose: what about the the idea of their desire to do r&d on the centrifuges so it goes ten years and it's the end of the agreement, ten, twelve, whatever, they will have done a lot of research on the centrifuges so they will be able to at the end of the ten-year time be much more improved in their ability to enrich their uranium. >> well, the r&d issues were a point of contention in the discussion. what i first want to emphasize is in the first ten years there will be no enrichment by any advanced centrifuge. only the original so-called i.r.-1 will be allowed in the first ten years. in fact, in those ten years, there will be a rollback of some of their r&d activities but they will be able to make some progress. however, the ability to use advanced centrifuges was part of our whole breakout calculation and consideration. so, again -- >> rose: they have advance centrifuges and still would take them a year -- >> but a more limited program, certainly, is on the books. you know, the reality is, you know, in 2003, you know, the negotiation in 2003 to 2005 would have been a very, very different set of facts on the ground and, at this stage -- so we have limited the program severely but they will be able to continue developing the technology for the very long term. >> rose: he continues in his conversation or continued to terrorist 2003 negotiations. he said let me tell you something, iran was prepared to implement that in 2003, talking about unrestricted inspections. actually they implemented the additional protocol from 2003 to 2005 the u.s. government chose the path of confrontation and torpedoed the possibilities. so they said they were willing in 2003. >> the ground fox would have been very different. then they had fewer than 200 centrifuges. they have now nearly 20,000 and also of great consequence now they have a uranium stockpile of about 10,000 kilograms enriched to 5%. in this agreement, that will come to 300 kilograms at 3.76% for 15 years. so it's a dramatic reduction in the uranium stockpile. >> rose: the united states the president of the united states the secretary of state of the united states are depending on you to convince congress? >> i think that's too strong a statement. that statement is it being made often but -- >> rose: i believe that you have the credibility and you're not a politician and you can convince congress that this agreement is good for the united states and it will, for ten, twelve years reduce their possibility of advancing. >> well again, i think first of all, let me say again, john kerry and i are both boston boys, maybe that's part of it. we certainly work together seamlessly. we obviously have complementary background and skills. certainly when i was introduced into the negotiation it was for addressing what i would call these technical dimensions be it enrichment plutonium production reactors, et cetera. so certainly for that part of the agreement, i am certainly working intensely with members of congress, but don't forget there are many other dimensions to this agreement -- the sanctions relief military dimensions -- where secretary kerry obviously is the principal spokesman for that and secondly, there are broader issues being introduced into the discussion about the nature of the negotiation not about the results of the negotiation but the nature of the negotiation and for those, clearly, secretary kerry and the president are quite in the lead. >> rose: the iranians have sat at this table three presidents of iran, and have said we don't want nuclear weapons. they say that all the time. how do you assess that? >> well, first of all, let me say, we hope it's true, and this is what this agreement is, as i said earlier, is built for the long term because we have specific restrictions that go up to 25 years and some basically are in effect forever. so the whole idea is, over time that we all can gain confidence in that statement. the fact is today it's clear there is not confidence in that statement, at least having applied certainly in the past because that's why we have the sanctions. >> rose: and he says also the sanctions did not bring them to the table. was it the sanctions that brought them to the table? >> well, you know, i can't answer that question. personally, i believe the sanctions certainly were part of it, for sure, but, you know, in the end, our job is not to do anything other than have an agreement based upon verification. >> rose: is it your judgment that the foreign minister and your counterpart negotiated in good faith and they are prepared to sign a deal that will restrict their ability to have a nuclear weapon? >> absolutely, i think there is an excellent chance of at least hard work, but i do believe we have an excellent chance of completing this agreement. the parameters we've already worked out define this very stringent regime that i mentioned for ten years and 15 and 20 years et cetera. i believe they are prepared to go forward with this -- >> rose: and negotiate in good faith and -- >> absolutely, i believe so. >> rose: because some argued they're just trying to delay one more time, that that's been their strategy all along. >> i think we've all agreed we are converging to a conclusion at the end of june. >> rose: june 30. june 30 is the date. >> rose: what happens if there is no agreement, you can't agree on all the points? >> well, if there is no agreement, i won't venture a complete guess but we do know that congress is likely, for example, to take additional actions. >> rose: more sanctions or something else? >> we will see. but as we know we have the bill that is actually moving to a vote quite soon in the senate that, i think got worked out between the administration and the congress to be, at least if there are no amendments added on, to be acceptable in the sense of giving us the room to complete a deal by june 30th june 30th and then congress will have a voice, and i think -- i'm pretty optimistic that we will have a good deal to present and then i think it will be incumbent on iran to observe its terms to the letter. >> rose: and if they do that, we will insist that the drawdown of the sanctions will be phased in and not happen immediately. >> well, that negotiation again, secretary kerry will -- >> rose: he will sign off on that. >> however, we have been pretty clear that there is certainly going to be phasing in the sense, for sure, that the key parameters of what we discussed earlier, the parameters that determined, for example, that one-year breakout time, those have to be put in place for that sanctions relief to kick in. so, for example the 10,000 kilograms coming down to 300 kilograms, that's a good example, that's got to be done. >> rose: before you eliminate sanctions? >> well, that's my view. and again secretary kerry is the one who will be negotiating that. >> rose: you will have to take that down other wise no beginning of sanctions. >> we need to have key nuclear parameters met before we get that kicking in of sanction res leaf. >> rose: there were reports the french were tougher than we were on the iranians within the p5+1. >> first of all i think it's an achievement in it's own right how coherent the p5+1 were on this. and certainly in the last weekend, the foreign ministers of all six countries were present and, you know, working on the negotiations. many of our partners including the french, came up with important ideas to help in the closing of the agreement. >> rose: characterize for me how remarkable it is to have an agreement at this moment that has not yet been completed and may not be completed but a framework. is it remarkable we got this far in your judgment if you look at where you were when you started this? >> i think one way to answer the question is look at the reaction which frankly when it initially came out, for sure, there was a lot of surprise at the scope and specificity at what we negotiated. >> rose: you were surprised you got what you got? >> correct. and i think that's been expressed quite widely including by many who were very skeptical about negotiating with iran on this issue. >> rose: why do they want to do this? >> i think the -- well, clearly, mr. zarif may say the sanctions are at the table put relief from the sanctions -- >> rose: that's what changed the game? >> i think clearly that's a major driver. secondly, i do think -- and maybe i'm going to be a little bit encouraged by reactions by some of the young people in iran as at least i understand them to have been when the framework was announced that there's a real chance and i think a lot of the young people are looking at rejoining the west in a more normal way. >> rose: an interesting point. is it fair to say that if it can be successful on an agreement most people believe can achieve it's objectives for both the iranians and the united states or p5+1 that it might really open up iran? it might lead to them being able to have a better relationship with the world and might, in fact, lead to a broader consideration of other issues that separate iran and the united states or p5+1. >> first of all again, i have to say, make it absolutely clear, we negotiated a nuclear agreement and it was about a verifiable agreement that met the conditions. so i want to make it clear that aspirations for that outcome you described -- and i do share them -- but they did not influence this agreement. hard-nosed agreement on making sure the -- >> rose: saying this is how we do this. >> on the other hand, i don't know see how we could not wish to have that aspiration realized particularly if it means that some of the other iranian actions that make us pretty unhappy were to be ended. >> rose: okay. before we turn to other things what has not been worked out? i get the impression as to when the sanctions will be lifted, there's not been a final agreement on that. >> i would say exactly the phasing and the triggers for relieving sanctions, i think they still need to be worked out. there are still issues. we mentioned earlier in terms of the i.a.e.a. in iran on the past program -- >> rose: in access to past programs -- >> so that can be closed out and there are other issues by the way, which we haven't talked about and again it's not in my bailey wick, but that there will be continuing u.n. sanctions for example the ballistic missile program, the arms embargo issues and those, i think, still need to be addressed. but again that's in the bailiwick of the iranian foreign minister. >> rose: what does it take to have a nuclear weapon and be able to deliver it? >> well, as you know, i cannot answer that question fully. with high enriched uranium, i think the general consensus is moving to at least a crude web maybe not a very efficient one burks a crude weapon that could certainly spoil a perfectly good day otherwise for a wasn't with iran's scientific and capable -- for a country with iran's scientific capabilities is doable. to the other part of your question, to be able to design that for weaponnization for delivery on missiles et cetera obviously we're not going to get into the details of that. >> rose: some said, look, at best, it simply kicks the can down the road. is that an an an unfair appraisal? >> absolutely. again this agreement is an agreement which has many milestones at many time periods for quite a long time and it's -- the goal is, in the end, and as i said earlier, it's not a short time frame, but in the end the goal would be, to in fact, to have the international community have confidence that iran demonstrated the nuclear program is nothing for other than peaceful purposes. that's the option. if it proves otherwise, then we still have the options on the table to react. >> rose: let me turn to energy policy. what is our energy policy? >> our policy, the administration's policy, the president's policy has been stated pretty clearly. first of all, we have three high-level objectives. one is support, continued economic growth, good jobs, et cetera, and certainly the energy revolution of these last years has been very important for that. secondly, energy security, and i want to emphasize that energy security is not just something within our own borders it's something that also involves a collective energy security with our allies and friends for example the europeans where there is challenge today, and third the environmental challenge, most especially the challenge of global warming, climate change, and on the climate side the president's action plan in 2013 emphasized both aspects, mitigation -- that is get green greenhouse emissions down and stop or slow global warming, mitigate the impacts of climate change, but secondly, adaptation, that the plan recognized that we are seeing impacts of global warming, we will see mo3e and we also have to adapt at the same time as we try to minimize the consequences. >> rose: is the impact more alarming than you ever might have imagined? >> i think in almost every case the signals that nature is sending us are at the bad extreme of the uncertainty bands that scientists have been telling us. that, is scientists are, in fact, often underestimated the rate of change we have seen. >> rose: give us a graphic illustration of that. >> for one thing, of course, a very direct illustration would be in things like the shrinkage of some of the ice cover in the world, and glaciers, et cetera. we have seen sea level going up. i was just down in houston where sea level has come up 8 inches. the acidification of the oceans, the sea level rise combined with more extreme weather, so storm surges have led to great destruction, whether in the gulf region or something like sandy in the northeast. with we are seeing unprecedented droughts in many parts to have the world -- in many parts of the world including the western united states california, increased wildfires -- >> rose: all of this associated with climate change. >> it is certainly completely consistent with the expectations of decades of climate science. so again global issues, absolutely the more and more you get to small regions, the more it's difficult to assign responsibility of an individual event to global warming, but the patterns are completely consistent with what we have been expecting for decades. so you know, this maybe a little bit flippant, but for the old story about if it, you know, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck it's probably like a duck. >> rose: so the duck here is the global warming and consequences for all of us. >> the global warming the impact of anthropogenic co2 emissions, greenhouse gases, is there to see. after all, we've had a pretty good idea of the connection between higher co2 concentrations and average warming since the 19th 19th century -- the 19th 19th century! >> rose: those 18-somethings. yes. the only difference then was the expectation was the problem wouldn't arise for 1,000 years because, in those days they did not predict the rate of economic growth, globalization industrialization. so we're seeing it play out before our eyes. >> rose: why do you think there are so many deniers that seem to be loud from congress to some people in the academy? >> some people in the academy. >> rose: very few. do you know anybody that you respect as a scientist, a fellow scientist in. >> i won't go there. >> rose: so you may know someone -- >> in this dimension i have real questions about it. >> rose: what do you mean in this dimension you have real questions? >> okay so let's say this -- i'm going to combine here science and policy because in the end it's what we do about it that really matters. so if you're a scientist you can certainly focus on lots of questions that are not fully resolved in the climate science which, in my view, does not take away at all from the bigger conclusion about we are seeing the drive to more warming, the more warming is creating a number of the phenomenon we discussed earlier. the issue is do the -- in science, in research, there are always open questions as you go farther and farther into the issues. do those questions rise to the level to obviate the need for public policymakers to take prudent steps now to address these issues? i think the answer is clearly no. we need to take those issues. i mean, the idea that we would not respond -- i mean if you were a corporate c.e.o. and your risk manager told you that there is only a 98% probability of something bad happening and you said, oh, well, i don't think we need to react to that, you wouldn't be in that job very long. extrapolate that. >> rose: you think is risk is 98% or 100%. >> close to 100, in my view certainly in terms of what we need to know to take prudent public policy steps. >> rose: so is it a disagreement more over what's causing global warming than it is the reality of global warming, in your judgment? >> the reality of global warming is reality. you can measure that. nobody disputes that. >> rose: arguments about whether it's man maid or not. >> arguments whether it's man maid. again, in one hearing i made the statement that i know how to count and, therefore, i know what the conclusion is and that remains the case. i mean, we know how much co2, for example, we emit from these activities. some of the net gets absorbed by oceans, et cetera, but we know we are increasing greenhouse gases. >> rose: will capture and sequestration make a significant alternative? >> going back to the original question and then we can address that about what is our policy. we laid out in great detail the climate challenge, a very important one and this is an important year to address that internationally, but our philosophy and the president's philosophy has been what's called all of the above. >> rose: right. so we believe it's our job to enable all fuels to have a potential in a low-carbon marketplace. so for something like coal that involves carbon capture and sequestration. i should say carbon capture utilization and sequestration because, of course, there are opportunities to co2 perhaps for beneficial purposes which helps pay the cost of the carbon capture. today there is utilization going on by using the co2 to enhance recovery of oil from mature wells, so that actually contributes to our oil production. but that's the key. and as with everything else, by the way all of these technologies, in many ways the goal of innovation is to continuously push down the costs and we are see ago revolution in -- seeing a revolution in costs of low-carbon technologies. >> rose: are we seeing a revolution in cost of alternative sources? i'm told and read you are optimistic about solar. >> i am, as was thomas edison. (laughter) >> rose: so what feeds your optimism about solar as an alternative and a practical and price-acceptable alternative? >> well, first of all, of course, the resources are enormous, as you probably know. >> rose: it is a question of capture, isn't it? >> yes, so you start out with in one hour the solar energy reaching the surface of the earth is, roughly speaking, the energy used by the world for a year. so we have a big resource. now, we have to capture it, we have to do it more efficiently. >> rose: and store it. and then, as the amount of it grows, then we have to store it. >> rose: right. and, so, first of all, we have seen -- by the way, in the last six years we've had probably a 20x deployment of solar in terms of amount. still small but growing very fast. >> rose: 20 times -- 20 times, yeah. a big part of that has been the cost reduction. the costs have come down incredibly. >> rose: technology? technology absolutely. technology and the beginning of scale. so manufacturing scales up, et cetera. so we have now -- i believe we will reach the so-called holy grail of a solar module costing 50 cents per watt. i believe we'll do that within a few years. we are well below $1 now, heading down towards 50 cents and maybe below. >> rose: from solar? from solar. from a solar module. >> rose: what does it cost per watt for what we use today power plants? >> well, so -- depends on what the plant is. a nuclear plant is maybe $5 per watt. >> rose: wow, 50 cents versus $5? >> yeah. however, to be fair the nuclear plant will run 90% of the time. the solar module will produce effectively 20% of the time. but then you go to a natural gas plant and you're talking $1 to $1.50 per watt. >> rose: is natural gas a bridge away from fossil fuels in some ways? >> we've called it a bridge to a low carbon future yes, and it is a fact, driven principally by market forms, natural gals gas in this country is at a price point where it displaced quite a bit of coal and lowered carbon emissions. >> what are we using the natural gas for? >> a lot of it is for an increase in electricity production. so that's a major part. but it's also -- the very low cost of natural gas in the united states now compared to any other place in the world or major economies in the world, at least, has been the huge factor in increasing our manufacturing capacity and bringing companies back to the united states for manufacturing because the operating costs are low. >> rose: and everybody knows we desperately need to increase our manufacturing capabilities. >> right, and we've created in the united states economy now in the last years, you know, 700,000, 800,000 manufacturing jobs and gas is a part of that story. >> rose: wind, what will it contribute? >> well, first of all wind is contributing quite a lot. again it's deployment has increased maybe three-fold in the last -- >> rose: five-fold for one -- 20-fold, smaller level and coming up fast. wind is now up to producing over 4 and a half percent, maybe of our electricity in the united states so it's becoming material. technology continues to improve as well in terms of cost reduction, in terms of larger turbines that are more efficient, et cetera. so wind still has, i think a real big runway to go. >> rose: what's the impact of the agreement we made with china? >> well, the first impact is that the president obama's announcement last november changed the nature of position of climate change. there was fallback that china isn't doing anything -- >> rose: china is doing something. >> so tbowrn thing it changed the nature of the game. china and the united states made a commitment and we believe they are very serious about the commitment. >> rose: they have a pollution problem that demands they be serious. >> the pollution problem, in addressing the climate problem, they simultaneous addressed the pollution challenge. >> rose: don't they use a lot of coal? >> yes. so their coal -- they use -- they are using now roughly half the coal that the world uses. but in their commitment now i think we're going to see coal use in china peak maybe in this decade and begin to go down. >> rose: and how about nuclear? >> nuclear they have by far the biggest construction program in the world. immense. >> rose: they have a big commitment to nuclear? >> they have a big commitment to nuclear. >> rose: is their technology on solar ahead of us? >> i would not say so. they are producing a lot of solar. but i would say that i personally believe we still lead in innovation and i think we lead in -- i think we still lead in technology. >> rose: what's the impact of price? for example oil recently went back up this week over $60 a barrel. is it going to continue to rise, in your judgment? and what impact will that have? will that allow much more fracking on our part because there was a reduction in fracking as oil prices sank down to $35 or whatever they sank down do? >> first oof all the oil price is quite below what it was a year ago let's say. >> rose: but people that i know in that business have been using an assumption of $70 a barrel for a lot of their calculations. >> yeah. so first of all, let me emphasize that even when the oil price went down to, say, $50, our energy information administration that's become the data arm of the government still predicted that this year we would produce more oil than in 2014, that there is a reduction of the so-called rig count, but that production is actually still been going up. now, it is also clear that when the prices were even lower than they are today that many companies were reducing their capital investments for future exploration production, et cetera. so we don't see our production particularly going down. we see the rate of increase moderating, for sure. >> rose: do you have questions about fracking? and in terms of the environmental issues? >> i think we have the approaches that can really keep the environmental footprint of hydraulic fracturing, you know, quite manageable but we have to make sure that those practices are always being followed. you know the major problems over the years that have been caused with hydraulic fracturing operations have really been from what's called poor well completion. it's not about the fracking itself. it's about the -- >> rose: the poor wells. getting the water down getting the water up, et cetera. so best practices just have to be always put in place. and then some of the issues around some of the seismic activity that is now being looked at, you know, that has come, in fact an academy report recently emphasized that's coming from disposing of waste water as opposed to the frack itself, particularly. >> rose: there is so much research going on in battery capacity that we're going to see, you know, a higher velocity of change in capacity? >> absolutely. batteries remain, of course a huge transformational potential. i could go through all the things that we're doing, but let me just put it this way that we have reached costs, batteries. there was an announcement recently of a home battery -- the tesla announcement where he was talking about $350 per kilowatt hour of storage. if you look at batteries for electric vehicles, that's kind of the ballpark of where we are there as well. the holy grail is getting down to $100 $125 per kilowatt hour, so we have a ways to go. but the cost reduction from where it was only a few years ago, over $1,000, once again it's the same story -- as we are pushing on these technologies, we are driving those costs down. now, if you look at, let's say for a vehicle the battery that you need for a plug-in hybrid, maybe 15-kilowatt hours, well suddenly, it doesn't look like it's kind of out of the ballpark. and if we get another factor of two, we can see again a major transformation in transportation, in energy storage at the utility level in energy storage at the consumer level. the consumer level would be very important. if you have a solar system, you want to integrate it with a battery, so to be able to shift the solar power to the time when you want it. so these technologies are incredible. look at l.e.d. lighting, all right. you take a 60-watt incandescent bulb and now you can go to a big box store and get your 9-watt or 10-watt l.e.d. -- so you're using 1/6 of the energy for the same effective lighting and the costs are now approaching, you know, $5. >> rose: right. so we are seeing a -- i firmly believe a clean energy technology revolution, and this is in the end going to be an important stimulant to the policy steps we need for clean energy economy. >> rose: what is the threat in your judgment, and how real is it of our electric grid to cyberterrorism? >> the -- well, first of all, if we didn't think it was a serious problem we wouldn't have assembled a whole table of c.e.o.s in a group to address cyber. let me make it very clear, i obviously can't go into too many specifics, but, first of all our energy infrastructure, not only the grid but our energy infrastructure is a major target of cyberattacks. >> rose: you mean like every day? >> like every day. you can kind of even -- even less time than that. >> rose: like every hour. and the number is increasing. >> rose: is it terror, though -- >> our defenses, so far, have been such that we have not had a major incident from that but we have to keep staying ahead of the bad guys. >> rose: what happened at the time of hurricane sandy is a wakeup call as to what can happen when there's a serious assault on the things that provide normal -- >> and of all our energy infrastructures, probably the one that impacts us the most you bickubiquitously is the electric grid and, you're right an irony is -- and this is what we are working on very, very hard is that a solution to many of our challenges is more and more use of i.t. in the grid -- the transmission grid the reliability, the distribution grid to your house to get good services, yet the more i.t. we have, the more we have to guard against the cyberthreat. so this is a very very major focus. >> rose: finally this -- it's just simply one individual. i'm amazed at the impact of science on our lives and consider it significant that we develop science and engineers and we maintain the level of innovation that we have, both in terms of the appreciation of science, the funding of science, and the rewards of science, do you worry? >> yes. first of all, i think we are underfunded. there are various measures of that. >> rose: in all dimensions of science, whether physics chemistry, infrastructure, biology or -- >> correct, across the board. and i think we still have -- i think we are still leaders in innovation. >> rose: it's not guaranteed. it's not guaranteed. it's the old story about the objects in your rearview mirror are closer than you think and we need to pick up the pace. we also need -- and this is another whole area for discussion -- we absolutely need to improve the demographics in our science. we need to draw upon all the talents. women and minorities -- >> rose: they come with graduate degrees, encourage them to stay. >> -- significantly underrepresented in our workforce. so maybe the silver lining is to say we still have a great potential for bringing in a lot more talent, but we have to work at it. >> rose: thank you for coming. pleasure to have you. >> it's great. good to be here. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. the following kqed production was produced in high definition. ♪ calories, calories calories! >> wow, it rocked my world! >> it just kind of reminded me of boot camp. >> i don't know what you had, but this is great! >> it almost felt like country club food to me. >> don't touch. it's hot! >> i gotta tell you, you people

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