June 25
The United States must make dramatic progress in renewable energy
technology if it hopes to produce 25 percent of its electricity and motor
vehicle fuel from renewable sources by 2025 without significantly increasing
consumer costs, according to a new RAND Corp. study.
The study provides a snapshot of the nation´s potential energy expenditures
if a requirement were imposed that 25 percent of electricity and motor
vehicle fuels used in the United States by 2025 would come from renewable
resources. Some environmental activists are advocating such a requirement.
The study finds that biomass resources and wind power have the greatest
potential to contribute toward reaching the so-called 25-by-´25 goal.
The study replaces a report withdrawn by RAND in 2006 because of errors RAND
identified in the computer model and numerical assumptions on which the
findings were based. The new report finds that meeting the 25-by-´25 goals
would be more challenging than outlined in the earlier version of the
report. RAND is a nonprofit research organization.
The Energy Future Coalition, a nonprofit environmental organization, asked
RAND to assess the economic and other impacts of meeting the 25-by-´25 goal.
The RAND study considered technological and economic factors that would
affect the costs of renewable energy as well as non-renewable fossil fuels.
The report comes as sharply higher prices for oil, concerns about energy
security and growing worries about global warming have increased interest in
expanding renewable energy in the United States. Substituting renewable
energy for fossil fuels would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the most
prevalent greenhouse gas associated with global warming.
Currently, renewable energy provides 9.5 percent of total U.S. electricity
supply, mostly hydroelectric power, and 1.6 percent of motor vehicle fuel.
The report, "Impacts on U.S. Energy Expenditures and Greenhouse Gas
Emissions of Increasing Renewable Energy Use," is available at www.rand.org.
Contact Waste News senior reporter Bruce Geiselman at (330) 865-6172 or
bgeiselman@crain.com
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