In the battle between climate change, energy policy, and capitalism the weakest voice at the table is that of the average person. While industrial lobbies have tremendous power in the government and while environmental organizations increasingly have more influence, somehow the voice of the average American has been missing from the discussion. But what does the majority of the population really want? Sure, we want to move toward clean energy, but we do not want to have to pay a tremendous amount for it?

With about 40% of our total energy use coming from oil and 50% of our electricity production coming from coal,1 we cannot eliminate our use of fossil fuels overnight or even in the next 20 years. With less than 4% of our energy use coming from non-hydroelectric sources of renewable energy,1 it could still take many decades for renewable energy to make a sizeable contribution. Our energy future will be made up of a combination of many technologies, and progress will only occur if we can learn to compromise on a mixture of clean energy options.

Coal and Natural Gas

As our most abundant fuel, coal will continue to be an important part of our energy mix for the next several decades. Probably one of the largest technical challenges of the next 20 years will be to figure out how best to sequester carbon dioxide from plant exhaust. And probably the greatest political battle of the next 20 years will be to get legislation in place to push for those technologies.

Natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide as coal per unit of electricity produced, so it is unsure if future regulations will need to target this exhaust as well. Limited supplies of natural gas will limit how much we can depend on this fuel source. Due to the ability to bring gas turbines on line quickly for peak demand, it would make more sense to reserve gas use for this purpose. Other good uses of gas are to fill in the gaps in the reliability of renewable energy and for home heating which has a very high efficiency. But it probably does not make sense to build base-load natural gas plants.

A number of methods have been proposed to sequester and store carbon dioxide, but it will take strong support to test these technologies so that we may have viable options in 20 years. Carbon sequestration will depend entirely on passing new legislation due to the cost increases involved. Some projections show that a fully-sequestered coal plant would produce electricity for about the price of natural gas (given today’s high gas prices).2,3 These plants take a hit on the overall efficiency by as much as 12 percentage points since it takes energy to sequester the carbon, but future designs may reduce that to only a 6 percentage point penalty.4

Governments need to be careful enacting carbon legislation. Ideas like carbon taxes and the cap-and-trade system can lead to unintended side effects that the country may not be ready for. Previous experience in Europe has led to electricity price spikes and industries going out of business. Because we live in a global economy, such measures could increase demand for cheaper goods coming from countries with less stringent demands on pollution controls.

Instead, it may make more sense to limit emissions of plants similarly to how sulfur dioxide emissions have been limited in the past. It will take time to reduce the costs of carbon sequestration technologies. Regulations should be enacted gradually to give industry time to adapt (and to prevent sharp price increases). For example, the first carbon legislation could mandate a 10% reduction in coal plant emissions that must be satisfied by implementing carbon sequestering technologies. If legislation like this is passed, industry will most definitely work to bring down the costs of the technology.

Renewable Energy

The renewables are certainly a direction we want to move toward in the future, but cost and reliability will initially limit how quickly this sector will grow. A number of startups are around today in areas like solar and wind that could make a big difference in helping to drive down costs.

Solar continues to be one of the most expensive options for producing electricity, and some type of energy storage is needed to ensure a constant supply. Although its use is growing, for the near term significant cost reductions will still be required for wide-scale use. Even then, solar may only make sense in areas of the Southwest that receive plenty of sun.

Wind energy has the most potential for growth in the near-term since costs have decreased so much in the past couple of decades. In many areas of the country wind is very close to competitive: the push toward larger and more efficient designs will drop costs even more. However, as the portion of the power supply provided by wind gets larger, it becomes more difficult to deal with the low reliability of wind. It has been suggested that 20% is the maximum of a country’s power supply that can come from unreliable sources.5

The other key renewable energy options include biomass, geothermal, and hydro sources. Biomass will likely only continue to see smaller-scale use due to the large land requirements (and the high associated cost). Geothermal is limited by locations that are appropriate, and advanced systems that drill for geothermal energy will be expensive. Most of the hydroelectric sites have already been taken, and environmental groups have been pushing away from the building of dams. Wave and ocean current energy sources could be a large growth area in the future, but these technologies are at an immature point in their development today.

Of the renewables, wind energy is the most likely to expand significantly and could make up the majority of the renewable energy contribution. Hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, biomass, and ocean energy sources will all have a contribution, but their use will be limited over the next 20 years for the reasons outlined above. However, these energy sources may see more growth in the longer term.

Nuclear Energy

The final piece of the puzzle is nuclear energy. Environmental groups are starting to embrace nuclear plants as the only way to achieve large-scale, emission-free power, but there is still some residual opposition to nuclear technologies.

The safety record of nuclear plants speaks for itself. The only major accident in our country, Three Mile Island, led to zero deaths and negligible radiation dose to the surrounding area. Compared to all other large-scale power plants, nuclear plants have the lowest death and injury rate per unit of electricity produced.6 When we factor in coal mining accidents, natural gas explosions, and hydroelectric dam ruptures, nuclear is in fact the safest. But often statistics mean little in light of fear of that which we may not understand.

Nuclear power does need strong leadership to figure out a final solution to dealing with nuclear waste. Since the fuel supply is somewhat limited, spent fuel will need to be reprocessed at some point in the future, but there is still time to develop these technologies. It may be difficult for some to choose nuclear, but energy demand is only increasing, and utilities need to build more plants. We need to be aware that opposing the building of a nuclear plant will most likely result in the building of another coal plant.

Our Energy Future

With some compromise, we can achieve a much cleaner energy future that includes a diverse portfolio of energy technologies. The first piece of the pie is to focus on plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles to wean the country away from oil. Then coal and natural gas with carbon sequestration could provide a third of our energy use, nuclear power could produce a third, and the renewables could produce the final third.

Pushing renewables much beyond this level of development in the next 20 years is probably not possible in light of reliability limitations. Pushing nuclear beyond this level may not be possible due to political opposition. And one third of our energy use still coming from fossil fuels is probably realistic given our high dependency today.

There are many different ways to reach a diverse energy mix like this; the specific percentages are not important. What is important is that if we all cannot agree on this type of compromise, we may not make any progress at all.

References

1. “Annual Energy Review 2005,” DOE/EIA-0384(2005), Energy Information Administration, available at www.eia.doe.gov (July 2006).

2. C. Henderson, “Towards Zero Emission Coal-Fired Power Plants,” ISBN 92-9029-417-5, IEA Clean Coal Centre (September 2005).

3. D.J. Borns et al., “Carbon Sequestration and Clean Coal Technologies: Characterizing Systems and Evaluating Costs,” SAND 2005-5917P (September 2005).

4. C. Henderson, “Clean Coal Technologies,” ISBN 92-9029-389-6, IEA Clean Coal Centre (October 2003).

5. R.Y. Redlinger et al., Wind Energy in the 21st Century, Palgrave: New York (2002).

6. S. Hirschberg, G. Spiekerman & R. Dones, “Severe Accidents in the Energy Sector,” Paul Scherrer Institut, ISSN-1019-0643 (November 1998).

Copyright © 2002-2006, CyberTech, Inc. - All rights reserved.