Obama’s Climate Program Focuses on Expanding and Sharing Clean Tech
President Obama’s climate change initiative has
been overshadowed by other national stories. But the
administration’s new environmental tactics are a
reality with which the power industry must come to
grips.
To extrapolate, President Obama’s methods to
achieving carbon reductions are not written in
stone. But they are intended to serve as a guidepost
for future U.S. presidencies. Basically, it is about
getting all sides to agree to publicly fund
promising technologies that are cleaner than today’s
choices, at least until they would become
economically viable.
Obviously, it will be the coal sector that will get
hardest hit by the intended regulatory changes. But
the administration’s recently appointed energy
secretary is saying that the goal here is not to
eliminate coal; rather, it is to push its leaders to
invest in best-available technologies, which in turn
will create new opportunities within that sector and
which might be publicly assisted. That, of course,
is the rosy view, which will take time to nourish.
“It is impossible to see carbon capture and
sequestration cheaper than the nuclear fuel option,”
says Tom Wigley, climate scientists with
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,
who participated in a conference sponsored by the
Breakthrough Institute. If the carbon dioxide
produced by power generation could be harnessed and
permanently stored underground, it would bode well
for the future of coal-fired electricity.
While advanced coal generation such as coal
gasification is possible, the tools remain costly
when compared to current alternatives such as
natural gas, especially if carbon capture and
sequestration is applied. But if the demand for
natural gas rapidly jumps, its price will rise.
Therefore, it is vital to diversify the country’s
energy mix.
Still, the need for natural gas to fuel power plants
is taking market share from coal. In the United
States, coal’s position has fallen from half of the
electricity generation market to 37 percent over
five years. Natural gas, by contrast, has risen from
20 percent to about 30 percent in that time. Here in
this country, that transition has caused carbon
levels to fall by 4 percent since 2008.
“To
reduce carbon pollution, I’ve directed the
Environmental Protection Agency to work with states
and businesses to set new standards that put an end
to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from
our power plants,” the president said. “We’ll use
more clean energy and waste less energy throughout
our economy.”
Public Mindset
Obama is unable to get his climate agenda past a
partisan Congress. So, as he promised during his
last State of the Union address, he is acting within
his regulatory bounds: Limits must be imposed on
power plants, which are responsible for 40 percent
of this country’s carbon releases, he says.
Generally, the administration wants to reduce carbon
emissions 17 percent by 2020, all based on a
2005 threshold. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has
said that the country is half way and that he
expects it to get fully there. Much of that will be
the result of the coal-to-gas transition, he admits.
But at the same time, the White House is also
financing advanced coal and renewable energy.
To that end,
Moniz is pointing to an $8 billion loan guarantee
program created in 2005 to reduce emissions from
fossil fuels. The focus has been on carbon capture
and sequestration, which is at least a decade away.
But if the technology is to be ultimately
commercialized, it would enliven coal while cutting
pollution levels.
“These investments will play a critical role in
accelerating the introduction of low-carbon fossil
fuel technologies and (reducing) greenhouse gas
pollution,” says Moniz, adding that the president
will expand the program’s purview.
However, “Where will we put this massive volume of
carbon dioxide?” asks Robert Bryce, a scholar at the
Manhattan Institute and the author of Power
Hungry. “The coal industry has used carbon
capture and sequestration as a ‘get out of jail free
card,’” and it is not realistic, Bryce said at the
Breakthrough’s conference.
With that, the
Breakthrough Institute notes that natural gas
has half the emissions as coal. Meantime, the think
tank’s president, Michael Shellenberger, says that
natural gas is not a threat to the renewable energy
sector. That’s because wind and solar energies, for
example, are intermittent fuel sources that must be
firmed up during those times when they are not
available. Natural gas is presently an inexpensive
supplement whose generators can quickly rev up and
down.
At the same time, Shellenberger says that the move
towards natural gas is a market driven phenomenon,
or one based on supply levels and current prices.
Wind and solar development, by comparison, is based
largely on mandates and subsidies. Those are
necessary, he says, until such clean technologies
can stand on their own.
For its part, the Obama administration remains
committed to green energies, saying that they fit
within its overall economic and environmental
program. With that, his climate agenda calls on the
issuance of permits to build 10,000 megawatts of
renewables on publicly-owned lands by the end of
this year. He wants another 10,000 megawatts by
2020.
The president’s hope is to shift the mindset of the
American people, creating public support for federal
and state programs to advance clean technologies. If
those tools could be commercialized, they could
replace the applied science that is prevalent in the
U.S. today. Developing nations, meantime, could get
access to cleaner power generation that would help
fuel their expanding economies.
EnergyBiz Insider has been awarded the Gold for
Original Web Commentary presented by the American
Society of Business Press Editors. The column is
also the Winner of the 2011 Online Column category
awarded by Media Industry News, MIN. Ken Silverstein
has been honored as one of MIN’s Most Intriguing
People in Media.
Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein
energybizinsider@energycentral.com
Copyright © 1996-2013 by CyberTech, Inc. All rights reserved.
To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.energycentral.com
To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.energybiz.com