Even solar panels and
windmills, often associated with the Jimmy Carter cardigan
sweater days, are showing up in more suburban neighborhoods and
other unexpected places. For example:• A Louisiana
entrepreneur wants to put windmills atop old oil and gas rigs in
the Gulf of Mexico and send the power ashore.
• For the first time nationally, Home Depot will be selling
solar devices alongside its plumb bobs and Behr paint.
• Gasoline marketers in Denver, Seattle, and other cities are
blending ethanol into their gasoline - not for environmental
reasons, but because it's now cheaper than some oil-based
additives.
Although alternative fuels still make up a small fraction of
US energy supplies, they are growing at a 30 percent rate
compared with 4 percent for oil and 6 percent for natural gas.
The projects are especially popular among states with governors
opening up new wind farms and farm-belt ethanol refineries. But
it's not just a political fad. The cost of many of the
alternative fuels is approaching that of oil and natural gas.
That competitiveness, combined with congressional renewal of a
key tax credit, has business signing contracts to build
everything from new wind farms in Iowa to solar farms on top of
FedEx terminals.
"This is a period of high fossil-fuel costs and low-interest
rates, which gives renewable energy an advantage unlike it's had
over the last 20 to 25 years," says George Sterzinger, executive
director of the Renewable Energy Policy Project in Washington.
"With aggressive development and a reduction in the amount of
LNG either through taxes or portfolio standards, by 2020
renewable power could easily be 15 percent of the electric
energy produced."
Energy experts say, however, the US will still lag behind
Europe, which has plans to produce 10 percent of its power from
alternative sources by 2010 and 20 percent by 2020. Denmark,
which sits on the windy North Sea, probably leads the world with
20 percent of its electricity currently coming from wind farms.
By next year, that will increase to almost 30 percent.
Both Germany and Japan are snapping up much of the world's
supply of solar panels. Japan's solar use is growing three times
as fast as that of the US and Germany's twice as fast. "In
Germany, they are literally paving farmlands, blocks of land as
large as 10 city blocks, with solar panels," says Mike Eckhart,
president of the American Council on Renewable Energy in
Washington.
In fact, demand is strong for the panels. Rhone Resch,
executive director of the Solar Energy Industries Association,
estimates individuals who want to buy solar panels might have to
wait as long as three months to get them.
Canadians are also taking notice of the potential for wind
power. For instance, earlier this month, Hydro-Quebec, the giant
utility in Canada, announced plans to buy up to 1,000 megawatts
of electricity - enough to heat 200,000 homes - from eight
windmill projects in the province. Hydroelectricity will balance
the wind-produced electricity, which is not constant, once
projects are on line between 2006 and 2012.
Some of the shifting is the result of the volatility of oil
and gas prices, says Steve Zwolinski, chief executive officer of
GE Energy's wind energy division. "What's changed is energy
security and fossil fuel volatility," says Mr. Zwolinski.
However, he adds, "This is not just a knee-jerk reaction to a
short-term price change, but it's people looking at energy
reserves and environmental balance and the need for emerging
economies to supply their growing cities."
Even oil companies are jumping on board, using ethanol to
augment gasoline supplies. Today, ethanol, which uses 12 percent
of the nation's corn crop, is blended in 30 percent of the
nation's fuel. Demand for ethanol is so robust, 12 new plants
are under construction and many more are searching for financing
to join the 83 already in operation. "It's not just a Midwest
fuel anymore," says Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable
Fuels Association in Washington.
In fact, in New York State terminals are blending at a 10
percent level, double what's required for environmental
standards. "The reason is it is more cost effective than other
petroleum enhancers," says Mr. Dinneen.
Some corporations are also joining in the march to
renewables. This week, FedEx announced it would add solar cells
to its Oakland Airport facility. The company expects the cells
to provide 80 percent of its peak load requirements, says Ryan
Furby, a company spokesman. This week, the company also rolled
out more hybrid vehicles that use a combination of diesel
engines and lithium batteries, increasing fuel efficiency by 50
percent and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The government is joining in, too. This week, the US Postal
Service announced it would add solar panels to one of its
facilities in Sacramento, Calif. The company will combine the
solar panels with an energy-management program that includes new
lighting and improved compressors for its heating and cooling
system. "They will lower their power consumption by 33 percent,"
says Jim Davis, president of Chevron Energy Solutions, which has
the contract to work with the postal service.
Chevron will work with the postal service on seven more
facilities in Northern California. Eventually, the program will
be implemented across the entire USPS system, says Mr. Davis.
Some consumers, who have been reluctant to shift to
renewables, are now doing so as well. Green Mountain Energy,
which offers consumers the opportunity to shift to nonpetroleum
fuels, always thought its product would appeal to
environmentalists. Now the company says it's soccer moms who are
buying their product.
"They want a safer future for their kids and kind of view it
as a way to do their part," says Tim Smith, a vice president of
the Austin, Texas, green-energy company.