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PORTLAND, Maine, US, November 15, 2006
(Refocus Weekly)
The United States should increase federal funding
for clean energy research to US$3 billion a year, according to
Environment Maine Research & Policy Center.
There are ten good opportunities to move the state and the
country beyond fossil fuels and toward a cleaner, more secure energy
future, the group explains in ‘Road to a New Energy Future.’ The
report highlights numerous technologies to reduce dependence on
fossil fuels and is the second of two reports which reinforce the
importance of a national commitment to move toward increased use of
renewable energies.
“With war in the middle east, volatile gas prices and the gathering
storm of global warming, America needs a new energy future,”
explains Jennifer Andersen of EMRPC. “We cannot afford to pass up
any of these golden opportunities.”
The ten best opportunities include solar PV panels and wind
turbines, noting that PV panels placed on 7% of the area currently
covered by cities and homes could generate all of the U.S.’s
electricity while the cost of wind turbines has declined by 90% in
the last 20 years and has made wind cost-competitive with fossil
fuel electricity generation in many parts of the country.
Other technologies noted for action are solar thermal water
collectors to reduce energy needed to heat water by two-thirds, and
geothermal heat pumps, of which more than one million are currently
installed in the U.S. “but there is great potential for expansion in
the market.” ‘Zero energy homes’ should be built to generate as much
power as they use through the combination of energy efficiency and
renewable energy, while farm energy provides 3% of U.S. energy from
biomass.
The U.S. already has the tools to accomplish the goals of reducing
U.S. dependence on oil while it harnesses renewable energy and saves
energy, the report notes. The New Energy Future platform consists of
four goals, including reduction of oil combustion by one-third by
2025 to save 7 million barrels per day; relying on renewables to
provide one-quarter of all energy needs; saving 10% of energy; and
committing $30 billion over the next ten years.
By 2025, the goals would save 10.8 million barrels of oil per day
and 9.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, as well as
saving 900 million tons of coal and 1.7 billion MWh of electricity
per year. Increasing federal clean energy R&D funding to $3 billion
per year would be triple the current funding level.
Improving clean energy technologies requires a “substantial
investment in federal energy research and development,” but that
investment has already resulted in “many technological breakthroughs
with big dividends for America’s economy,” it adds. The National
Academy of Sciences has estimated that R&D breakthroughs in six
energy efficiency technologies yielded economic benefits of $30
billion on an R&D investment of $400 million, representing a return
on investment of 75-to-1. Federal investment in energy research has
“declined dramatically from its peak during the energy crises of the
late 1970s and early 1980s,” and the U.S. now spends half of what it
did in 1980.
“The opportunity for a New Energy Future is knocking and Maine
people are calling on our leaders to answer,” explains Andersen. “We
need national and state commitments to put these clean energy tools
in the hands of the individuals and businesses that will build our
energy future.”
“America has access to immense renewable energy resources from the
sun, earth and crops and from the movement of wind and water,” the
group explains. “The technology to tap those resources is advancing
rapidly and is increasingly competitive in cost with fossil fuel
technologies.”
The group wants government to enact a national renewable energy
standard, similar to those in place in 20 states, to require a
minimum percentage of the country’s electricity to come from
renewables, and to provide “consistent, long-term tax incentives for
the installation of renewable energy technologies.” It also wants
utilities to be required to prioritize renewable energy development
over the construction of conventional power plants to satisfy
electricity demand.
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