Copyright © 2008
Earth Policy Institute
Lester R. Brown
Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is half
right. We do need to harness this country's wind resources for a homegrown
source of electricity, as he has been urging this summer in expensive
television ads. And we do need to reduce the $700 billion we may soon be
paying annually for imported oil. But part two of Pickens's plan—to move
natural gas out of electricity production and use it to fuel cars
instead—just doesn't make sense.
Why not use the wind-generated electricity to power cars directly? Natural
gas is still a fossil fuel that emits climate-changing gases when burned.
Let's cut the natural-gas middleman.
Plug-in cars are here, nearly ready to market. We just need to put wind in
the driver's seat. Several major auto manufacturers, including GM, Ford,
Toyota and Nissan, are producing plug-in hybrids. Both Toyota and GM are
committed to marketing plug-in hybrids in 2010. Toyota might even try to
deliver a plug-in version of its Prius gas-electric hybrid, the bestseller
whose U.S. sales match those of all other hybrids combined, next year.
Some Prius owners aren't even waiting for Toyota. They've jumped the gun,
converting their cars to plug-ins simply by adding a second storage battery,
which increases the distance you can drive between recharges, and an
extension cord that you can plug into any wall socket to recharge the
batteries from the electrical grid. This lets them push the car's already
exceptional gas mileage in routine daily driving of 46 miles per gallon to
more than 100 miles per gallon.
GM is in the game, too, with its Chevrolet Volt. This plug-in car is
essentially an electric car with an auxiliary gasoline engine that generates
electricity to recharge the batteries when needed. It boasts an all-electric
range of 40 miles, more than adequate for most daily driving. GM reports
that under typical driving conditions, the Volt averages 151 miles per
gallon.
This new car technology is matched by new wind-turbine technology, setting
the stage for an automotive-fuel economy powered largely by cheap wind
energy. The Energy Department notes that North Dakota, Kansas and Texas
alone have enough wind energy to easily satisfy national electricity needs.
To actually put wind power on the road, of course, we would have to tap the
wind resources in nearly all the states, plus those that are off-shore,
which the department says can meet 70 percent of national electricity needs.
Texas, this country's leading oil producer for the last century, is now our
leading generator of electricity from wind, having eclipsed California two
years ago. With more than 5,500 megawatts of wind-generating capacity now in
operation and two vast wind-farm complexes under development, the state will
have more than 20,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity (think 20
coal-fired power plants). Pickens, with his own 4,000-megawatt wind farm
under development in the Texas Panhandle, is one of the largest investors.
These wind farms could satisfy the residential electricity needs of nearly
half the state's 24 million people.
The key to this massive development is the state government's participation.
The state facilitated the construction of transmission lines that link the
strong wind resources in West Texas and the Panhandle to major markets—known
as "load centers"—in Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston.
While many residents in some places, such as Cape Cod, take a NIMBY (Not In
My Backyard) view of wind farms, the opposite is true in much of the rest of
the country—including the ranch country that extends from Texas north
through the Dakotas. There, it's a PIMBY (Put It in My Backyard) issue. In
ranching regions, competition among communities for these wind farms, and
the jobs and tax revenues that come with them, is intense. Each wind turbine
on a rancher's land typically brings a royalty of $3,000 to $10,000 per
year, with no investment on the landowner's part. And the ranchers can
continue to graze cattle on the land.
States outside of ranch country are also chiming in on the wind trend.
California's largest project is a 4,500-megawatt cluster of wind farms in
the Tehachapi Mountains in the south that will soon supply a large part of
Los Angeles's electricity. Some 30 other states—led by Iowa, Minnesota,
Washington and Colorado—now have commercial-scale wind farms.
New wind proposals are popping up everywhere. In July, California-based
Clipper Windpower and BP announced a joint venture to build a 5,050-megawatt
wind farm in eastern South Dakota. Since this would produce far more
electricity than the state needs, the companies plan to build a transmission
line across Iowa, feeding the electricity into Illinois and the Midwestern
industrial heartland.
In the East, Delaware is planning an offshore wind farm of up to 600
megawatts—enough to meet the residential needs of 40 percent of its
residents. To the north, in Maine, a proposal by the governor to develop
3,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity (more than enough to meet the
state's residential electricity needs) passed both houses of the legislature
unanimously in April. In the Northwest, Oregon and Washington are turning to
wind to complement their hydropower resources.
While most of these developments are in the planning stages, the
potential—and the desire for wind energy—is high. That's because wind wins
on almost every count. It is carbon-free, cheap, abundant and
inexhaustible—and it is ours. No one can embargo the supply, the price never
changes, and wind farms can be built in 12 months.
This is why shifting to natural gas to fuel cars, as Pickens recommends,
isn't the best move. In contrast to wind-generated electricity, where costs
are falling, the price of natural gas is on its way up. Reserves of natural
gas, like those of oil, are shrinking. And ironically, as with oil, we
import natural gas, sending money abroad for one-sixth of our supply.
Beyond that, there's the infrastructure question. How do we get the natural
gas to the nation's service stations? These stations also would need to
install pumps for natural gas, in addition to those for gasoline.
One of the attractions of pairing wind energy and plug-in hybrid cars is
that it would not require new infrastructure. Indeed, a study by Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory points out that the existing grid, using its
off-peak capacity to recharge cars, could provide electricity for more than
70 percent of the U.S. fleet if all cars were plug-in hybrids.
With peak oil on our doorstep, the prices of oil and gasoline are projected
to continue rising. While gasoline prices are probably headed to $5 to $10 a
gallon, the wind-generated-electricity equivalent of a gallon of gasoline
costs less than $1.
We are now in a position to launch a crash program to convert to plug-in
hybrids on a massive scale and at wartime speed. This would resuscitate
Detroit, reinvigorate thousands of the country's wind-rich rural
communities, dramatically cut carbon emissions and quickly reduce the vast
outflow of dollars for imported oil.
The car companies themselves seem on board—witness GM's massive advertising
push for the Chevy Volt, with spots airing frequently during NBC's Olympics
broadcasts. After showing a progression of cars, the ad ends with the Volt,
standing at the base of snow-capped mountains, clouds traveling swiftly
overhead. Its launch is targeted for 2010. Perhaps by then, the wind moving
the clouds will also power the sleek-looking sedan below.
Copyright ©
2008 Earth Policy Institute
*NOTE: This piece originally
appeared in the Outlook section of the
Washington Post on Sunday, August 31, 2008. |