DOE Report Finds Big Future for Wind, Cites Challenges

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Dennis Pfaff

A new U.S. Department of Energy report finds that wind power could supply up to one-fifth of the nation's electricity by 2030 but not without overcoming challenges such as improving the nation's transmission system.

The news media found lots to note in the report. The Washington Post wrote of the report's findings that wind could displace 50 percent of natural gas consumption and 18 percent of coal consumption in the United States (see story here). The San Francisco Chronicle, meanwhile, cited California's pioneering place in wind power history and cited major new wind farms under development in the state (see story here).

Separately, in a speech to a gathering of scientists, business executives and political leaders co-sponsored by a Republican group, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touted California's emphasis on alternative energy as a way of fighting global warming. In his address, the governor noted that California patents account for 37 percent of all U.S. patents in wind technology (see press statement here).

The report, "20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030," found that significant hurdles remained to reaching the goal, including such potentially controversial efforts as expanding the transmission grid, as well  as improving turbine technology and expanding markets for the power (see press statement here; full report here). In fact, it noted that a new "transmission superhighway system" could be needed to serve the wind farms and it cited one model showing it would be cost-effective to build more than 12,000 miles of additional transmission, at a cost of about $20 billion.

Transmission debates have already begun heating up in some parts of the country and have been identified by experts as a major issue in developing renewable resources (see Climate Law Update stories here and here).      

In order to reach the 20 percent figure, the energy department report estimates that wind power capacity would have to reach more than 300,000 megawatts, compared to today's capacity of less than 12,000 megawatts.

"A 20 percent wind scenario in 2030, while ambitious, could be feasible if the significant challenges identified in this report are overcome," said the document. Officials emphasized the need for transmission and for avoiding obstacles to the development of wind energy.

Said the DOE's assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy Andy Karsner in the department's statement:

“To dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance our energy security, clean power generation at the gigawatt-scale will be necessary, and will require us to take a comprehensive approach to scaling renewable wind power, streamlining siting and permitting processes, and expanding the domestic wind manufacturing base.” 

In that same statement, Kevin Kolevar, the department's assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, said:

“The report correctly highlights that greater penetration of renewable sources of energy - such as wind - into our electric grid will have to be paired with not only advanced integration technologies but also new transmission. In many cases, the most robust sources of renewable resources are located in remote areas, and if we want to be able to deliver these new clean and abundant sources of energy to population centers, we will need additional transmission.” 

Megan Anderson, a Taos, New Mexico, attorney representing the Center for Biological Diversity, in the environmental group's challenge to the energy department's designation of a huge electrical transmission corridor in the Southwest, told Climate Law Update that it's widely accepted that some new facilities would be needed to serve renewable projects. But the Western Environmental Law Center lawyer cited evidence that often the lines are serving "dirty coal" and that whether or not projects such as wind and solar facilities need new transmission is a separate issue from the group's litigation.

"We're not trying to stop transmission. We're just saying that the way these designations have been done is flawed and illegal under environmental laws."

Among the high highlights of the report cited by energy officials:

  • The number of turbine installations is anticipated to more than triple from the approximately 2000 constructed in 2006, to nearly 7000 a year by 2017. About 100,000 turbines would be needed to reach the 20 percent generation goal.
  • While the demand for vital materials such as copper and fiberglass will increase, the availability of raw materials would not limit the ability to reach the 20 percent mark.
  • Costs of achieving the goal would be fairly small, amounting to as little as 50 cents a month for the average consumer.

And the benefits? The department estimated that achieving a 20 percent goal by 2030 could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 825 million metric tons per year, or a cumulative total of about 7.6 billion tons by that time. By comparison, the United States now accounts for about 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Achieving the 20 percent goal would be "the equivalent of taking 140 million cars off the road,” said Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, which participated in developing the information in the report (see AWEA press statement here). He noted that the document identified the central constraints to reaching the objective, including transmission "and demonstrates how each can be overcome."

The report also cited other benefits, including reducing other forms of air and water pollution associated with other forms of power generation, reduced water consumption associated with mining or generation and improved national energy security.

In his remarks Tuesday, Schwarzenegger urged attendees at a Southern California conference put on by the GOP-leaning New Majority, as well as the University of California-Irvine, to "put the power of California capitalism" to work to find energy solutions. He said the state has the ability to become "the first state in the nation to achieve energy independence while fighting global warming."  

(Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)   

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California: Our Standards are Better Than the Feds'

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Dennis Pfaff

California's approaches to cleaning up automobile greenhouse gas emissions are better than those recently proposed by the federal government -- according to California.

The California Air Resources Board this week released a new study that it said "conclusively demonstrates" that the state's mandate for cutting tailpipe emissions believed to contribute to global warming achieved more than 40 percent greater reductions than new federal mileage standards announced last month (see press statement here; full report here).

The document constituted the latest salvo in the continuing war of words -- and lawyers -- between the state and federal government over how best to address potentially climate-changing pollution from cars and other sources. California is currently in court challenging the Bush administration's refusal to allow the state's vehicle standards to proceed (see Climate Law Update story here). State officials have also reacted negatively to the new federal plan, seeing in it a poison pill that would prevent California and other states from moving forward with stricter controls (see Climate Law Update story here).

Release of the new report came as automobile executives and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met at the state Capitol on the issue. According to some press reports, the leaders discussed some cooperative approaches to reducing emissions, even as they appeared to give little ground elsewhere (see San Diego Union-Tribune story here).   

The automobile industry has already lost challenges in federal court to the California standards, including a decision last year by U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii in Fresno rejecting claims that federal law trumped the state (see ruling here). 

The U.S. Supreme Court, also ruling in the context of automobile emissions, last year issued its landmark Massachusetts v. EPA decision holding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Numerous states, including California, are now pursuing legal action to force the EPA to take further steps to comply with that ruling (see Climate Law Update story here). President Bush has criticized the effort to employ the clean air law and other federal statutes in the climate change area, citing the potential effect on the nation's economy (see Climate Law Update story here).

Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, who attended the meeting with Schwarzenegger, told the San Diego Union-Tribune the industry is adamant about holding out for a national standard. The industry trade group was one of the plaintiffs in the case before Ishii.

The California air board's report was based on a comparison of greenhouse gas reductions from cars and trucks under the state's standards, and under the schedule for fuel economy standards proposed for 2011 through 2015 as outlined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to the results, by 2016, the California standards would prevent a total of 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the air in California, compared to 36 million metric tons under the federal requirements. It also looked at what would happen if all 50 states adopted California's approach, finding it would produce sharply deeper reductions than the federal standards.

 (Wikipedia photo)
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'Values Clashes' Seen as Challenge to Renewables, Other Climate Efforts

Posted on April 14, 2008 by Dennis Pfaff

Global warming is bad, and developing renewable energy to help solve the problem is good, right? While that might be a popular view, the reality is a bit more complicated, as experts in the field have begun noting with some frequency lately.

Talk of what UCLA School of Law Professor Ann Carlson (pictured) calls “localized environmental values clashes” over renewable projects was in the air at a recent conference at the University of California-Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall.

Speakers at the two-day event, “California and the Future of Environmental Law and Policy,” noted that, in particular, legal and policy fights over transmission lines pose a significant challenge for renewable development. Among them was Karen Douglas, who formerly spearheaded California climate change efforts for the  group Environmental Defense (now known as Environmental Defense Fund). She is now a member of the California Energy Commission which, among other duties, licenses large new thermal power plants in the state, as well as the transmission lines connecting them to the grid. Douglas crystallized the issue this way:

“It’s kind of a different challenge to do renewables because you’ve got to generate the power where the renewable resources are and then bring it where the people are. So that means often a lot of power lines. People don’t want that through their neighborhoods. It’s hard to site and hard to build and so on, so one issue is transmission.”

She noted that other questions arise when considering the placement of wind farms and solar power facilities, some in remote and environmentally sensitive areas, such as California’s desert lands:

“Surely there are good places to build these things and bad places to build these things. What’s the right process and what’s the right way to engage people who care about the desert and don’t just see it as deadland to put things on. None of us sees deserts that way any more.”

In her presentation to the conference, which was sponsored by the school’s California Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Carlson also highlighted transmission issues. She focused on the ambitious plans of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s largest municipally owned utility, to aggressively increase its generation from renewable sources. Goals include boosting to 20 percent the proportion of the utility’s electricity coming from renewables by 2010 – more than doubling the current proportion -- and hitting 35 percent by 2025, she said. California has established its own renewable portfolio standards, which generally apply to private utilities, that are similar (see background here). 

Among the consequences of the Los Angeles utility's action, Carlson noted, was the need to build a lengthy transmission project from the proposed site of some of that new generation (see project description here). That is being opposed by a number of groups, including residents and local officials in areas where the lines will run who will not benefit directly from the power (see opposition group site here). Carlson said the utility also faces other pressures. Those include demands from its own unionized workers that the utility itself own much of the renewable generation. Additionally, the facilities must comply with an array of state and federal environmental laws, legal requirements that themselves provide ample opportunity for lawsuits filed by opponents. The challenges aren't unique to Los Angeles, she said: 

“So the sort of localized environmental clashes or values battles is a problem that is really international in scope and also is really long-term, as opposed to short-term. It raises real problems for not just again LADWP but for any utility that is seeking to shit its energy sources away from conventional sources to renewable sources.”

For another example of the kind of fights that can occur and their potential consequences, the Washington Post recently looked at opposition in the “green” state of Wisconsin over new wind farms planned for offshore waters in the Great Lakes (see story here).

Of course, that might not be the full extent of the societal conflicts that could occur as restrictions on greenhouse gases tighten up. In California and other states, there are movements already underway to reduce the amount of vehicle miles people travel (see Climate Law Update stories here and here). That's an issue that might produce some real backlash in a state that has never meaningfully connected land use and transportation policy, warned  William Fulton, a land-use expert who runs the Solimar Research Group. Fulton predicted that once people realize that reducing “VMT” means driving less, they could respond politically, even launching a new recall campgain similar to the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis. That led to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the politician perhaps most closely identified with California’s climate change-fighting efforts, getting into office in the first place.

(Photo of Ann Carlson via UCLA School of Law)
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Ethanol Takes a Media Hit, Industry Punches Back; Algae, Wind, Solar Soar

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Dennis Pfaff

By any measure, it’s been a tough few weeks in the spotlight for biofuels such as corn-based ethanol and other alternative sources for transportation energy, including hydrogen.

A Time Magazine cover story not-so-subtly titled: “The Clean Energy Scam,” set the tone for the criticism. But it was met by a spirited rejoinder from the biofuels industry, which sees itself as helping to lead the way toward sustainability.  

The scrutiny focused on biofuels didn't stop with the magazine. 

Recently, reports have emerged that American biofuel subsidies have, in the characterization of the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital, been “boomeranging” across the Atlantic (see story here). Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported a California biofuels manufacturer was “short on cash and suffering from higher corn and plant construction costs” which threaten the company. The paper also noted a number of other plants that have been put on hold across the country, citing narrowing margins between the cost of production and the selling price of ethanol (see story at newspaper's Web site here).

Then, late last week, reports began emerging that corn had hit a record $6 a bushel, prompting the food industry to pin the blame rising prices squarely on government encouragement of ethanol production. The Grocery Manufacturers Association said the "ripple effects" are being "felt throughout the economy" (see statement here).  

On the hydrogen front, the San Jose Mercury News tweaked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who four years ago proclaimed the creation of a “hydrogen highway” that would allow motorists to fill up fuel cell cars. So far, however, the newspaper reported (see story here), “not a single hydrogen fueling station has been built under the program.” The article cited a number of possible reasons, from economics to politics, for the failure. The paper also reported that Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, believes up to 100 stations will be built by 2015, five years later than expected.

The Time article contained the most scathing critique of a fuel that had been touted as a major factor in the effort to slow climate change:

"But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline."

The biofuel industry does receive encouragement from the federal government, including last year’s Energy Independence and Security Act that required a five-fold increase in renewable fuels by 2022 (see White House fact sheet and text of legislation). The magazine reported that last year the country produced about 7 billion gallons of ethanol, costing taxpayers $8 billion in subsidies.

Time described a complex domino effect that starts with the demand for the fuels in the United States and elsewhere and ends up promoting the destruction of forests that, ironically, could help soak up the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that contributes to global warming:

"In Brazil, for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to grow the sugarcane that fuels most Brazilian cars. More deforestation results from a chain reaction so vast it's subtle: U.S. farmers are selling one-fifth of their corn to ethanol production, so U.S. soybean farmers are switching to corn, so Brazilian soybean farmers are expanding into cattle pastures, so Brazilian cattlemen are displaced to the Amazon. It's the remorseless economics of commodities markets. 'The price of soybeans goes up,' laments Sandro Menezes, a biologist with Conservation International in Brazil, 'and the forest comes down.'"

The article appeared before last week’s report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that suggested some shifts in the American farming pattern. That document (see text) said that corn planting is actually expected to decline by about 8 percent this year, with other crops, including soybeans, increasing significantly. Among others, a New York Times (see story) account of the report suggested that the changes could hike corn prices and cause difficulties for the “struggling” companies that make ethanol.

Nevertheless, suggestions that the ethanol industry is part of the climate change problem, rather than the solution, drew a sharp response from Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry trade association. Hartwig said biofuels offer society the opportunity to begin moving toward a more sustainable future.

 “How did we get in the situation we find ourselves in today?” Hartwig said in an interview with Climate Law Update. “It wasn’t because of biofuels; it was because of a reckless use of our fossil fuel resources.”

The organization also issued its own written defenses of the industry and responses to the USDA report. The industry association noted that farmers themselves have had to react to rising fossil fuel prices and it attacked the scientific evidence cited by biofuel critics (see public statements here, here and here). 

Hartwig, who blamed much of the recent push-back against biofuels on criticisms coming from the oil, food and livestock industries, said ethanol production has helped strengthen corn prices. But he said that is by no means the only factor at work. He cited such pressures as the global demand for corn for food for people and livestock; the weak dollar that encourages exports and market speculation. And he bristled at the notion of a causal relationship between biofuel production in the United States and deforestation elsewhere.

“An acre of corn used for ethanol production here does not directly result in an acre of rainforest in Brazil being cut down,” Hartwig said. “They’ve been cutting down the rainforest for decades, long before the ethanol industry came into being.”

For instance, the association refuted the asserted connection between ethanol production and foreign impacts, including rainforest destruction. It noted that American corn exports generally have held steady and shipments of distiller's grains, a byproduct used for animal feed, have actually increased. At the same time, without renewable sources such as biofuels, fossil fuel use is destined to increase, the industry statements said.  

The association's Web site demonstrates that the latest brew-up isn't the first.  "Oil and Food Industry Attacks on Ethanol Misleading and Diversionary," proclaims one press release; "Wheat Prices Are High, But Not Because Farmers Planted Less," says another. And talk about subsidies: The association cites a study showing the U.S. government spends as much as $140 billion a year -- on military might to protect the oil shipping channels out of the Middle East. 

A report appearing in a USDA publication earlier this year appeared to lend some support to the biofuels industry position that ethanol production and higher food prices do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, at least for long. It cited a spike in corn prices in the 1990s that led to a "short-lived" impact on some foods. But the article concluded (see full text here): "For the most part, food markets adjusted to the higher corn prices and corn producers increased supply, bringing down price." 

Not all alternative energy sources took a punch from the media. A CNN report glowingly referred to algae as “the ultimate in renewable energy,” and cited several benefits, including its ability to help sequester carbon from power plants (see story).

And stationary power sources continued to gain lots of attention. Schwarzenegger last week, for instance, joined with Southern California Edison in announcing the nation’s largest rooftop solar installation project by a utility company (see Edison press release and Schwarzenegger press release).

In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland and legislative leaders unveiled a new $1.57 billion economic stimulus package that includes $150 million to help make the state "a powerhouse of renewable and advanced energy production such as wind, solar and clean coal (see press release here)." The announcement did not include many details of the program in a state that is both a big producer and consumer of coal (see Ohio Coal  Association background information).  

And in Northern California, Pacific Gas & Electric Company announced it had signed a deal for up to 900 megawatts of solar thermal power. The utility signed contracts with BrightSource Energy Inc. for 500 megawatts of electricity from three projects and it took out options for another 400 megawatts (see PG&E statement).

Meanwhile, the American Wind Energy Association released its latest list of who's on top in the industry. It found Texas to be the leading wind energy state, leading in both total installed capacity and in the amount of new projects added in 2007. Other leaders were California, Minnesota, Iowa, Washington, Colorado, Illinois and Oregon. Iowa generated 5.5 percent of its electricity from wind, the highest of any state, according to the findings. The study also found that FPL Energy operated the biggest farms and Vestas had installed the largest turbines in the United States (see press release and complete text of study).    

(Photo of organic corn crop, courtesy USDA Agricultural Research Service)
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