Poor Planning

Remember way back in 2007, when we tweaked the United Kingdom for building wind farms in areas that don’t get enough wind?

Well, we have a similar problem here now; according an article in Wired magazine, a significant number of turbines in rural areas, especially in west Texas and Iowa, are situated in sparsely populated areas that lack the high-power lines needed to carry electricity back to the big cities where it’s needed.

The problem is so bad that some operators actually have to pay the local utilities to take surplus electricity off their hands, instead of selling the juice they feed into the grid. (Technically, it’s called “negative electricity pricing.”) Wow, that just seems amazingly… dumb.

Why does this happen? Well, here’s the part that does make a little sense. Wind farms take up space, a lot of space, and people in the cities and the suburbs don’t want to devote precious acreage to turbines. Hello, NIMBY politics!

Out in the country, of course, there’s a lot of space, often filled with struggling farmers who see windmills as a potential new source of revenue. Tax subsidies for running wind farms makes turbines even more appealing. But the low populations in these areas (as well in the deserts and other undeveloped areas where wind and solar projects spring up) mean utilities have never built the transmission lines needed to bring the juice back where it’s needed.

One expert says developers can build a wind farm in a year or two, but it takes about five years to install the transmission lines needed to carry the power back to the cities. And that’s assuming there aren’t any bureaucratic headaches getting the rights to string the wires through public and private lands.

The lesson here is that government incentives, like the ones that encourage people to build alt-energy project, are good, but they also need to be smart. And sometimes it seems like “smart” and “planning” are two words that rarely go together.

Winds of Change

So there are some signs of positive change.

According to data released this week by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, overall power consumption in the United States is falling, and the amount of energy generated by renewable sources is climbing.

Power generated from coal, natural gas and petroleum in 2009 is down from the year before, according to the new figures, while solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and, most significantly, wind all gained.

Total power usage in the U.S. was 94.6 quadrillion BTUs last year, down about 4.6 percent. In part, the decline in overall power use is tied to the recession – less economic activity means people and businesses use less power, researchers say. Another key factor was the growing use of energy-efficient appliances.

Meanwhile, renewable power sources became a more important part of the mix. Wind saw one of the biggest spikes, up more than 37 percent, to 0.7 quadrillion BTUs. And since most of that fed right into the grid, it offset the need for coal-fired electricity plants.

"The increase in renewables is a really good story, especially in the wind arena," Lawrence Labs researcher A.J. Simon told Science Daily. "It's a result of very good incentives and technological advancements. In 2009, the technology got better and the incentives remained relatively stable. The investments put in place for wind in previous years came online in 2009. Even better, there are more projects in the pipeline for 2010 and beyond."

Offshore Wind - More Delays

Here’s an important lesson for anybody trying to develop a major alt-power project: work with your neighbors.

Cape Wind, the proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, appears to be sinking after years of controversy. Last week a federal panel recommended that the government reject the project; interior secretary Ken Salazar is expected to make a final ruling this month.

Among other missteps, Cape Wind developers failed to win over the powerful Kennedy clan, which reportedly was concerned about the environmental impact of the turbines. (Also, big windmills might mess up the view from the Kennedy compound.) When a green project gets the thumbs-down from the famously pro-environment Kennedys, that’s a bad sign. Fishermen were also reportedly concerned the turbines would interfere with their nets, and Native Americans said the project would intrude upon culturally significant areas and rituals.

And in New York, NIMBY politics also scuttled in 2007 an offshore wind proposal that would have been visible from one of Long Island’s most popular beaches, though Long Island Power Authority is currently working on another proposal that might address these concerns by planting the turbines farther out in the Atlantic.

But in Rhode Island, another windy Northeast state, wind-power advocates are taking a different approach. Instead of letting developers take the lead, that state is trying to do its homework first. The state is expected to finish in August a three-year study of potential offshore wind sites. It’s evaluated bird migration, fish populations, local fishermen and Native Americans’ concerns. That seems like it should cover all, or at least most, of their bases.

Team Effort: Supergrid

When the government really gets behind a project, sometimes it can pull off some pretty impressive work.

In this case, a continent-spanning, green “supergrid” in Europe. Nine countries are collaborating on a massive energy project that would link wind turbines, tidal energy systems, solar farms and hyrdro power sites all across the North Sea region.

The nine nations – Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom – are expected to formally approve the project this month, and hope to have firm plans in place by Fall. Various estimates have pegged the cost at close to 30 billion euro.

The vision is to connect wind farms in Scotland, solar facilities and Germany and tidal power systems in Belgium and Denmark through a vast network of high-capacity, undersea DC cables. Direct current transmission lines cost more than AC, organizers say, but lose less energy over long distances.

The project has one more component that seems especially clever: all these alt-energy systems will be linked to a network of hydroelectric plants in Norway. When the wind is a’blowin’ and the waves are a’crashin’ and the sun is a’shinin’ there’s going to be plenty of juice, and the excess power can be diverted to Norway, to push water uphill. Then, when the weather is less cooperative, the water can flow downhill to power the hydro plants.

The EU has pledged to generate 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020; that’s an ambitious target, but projects like this one could certainly help them get there.

3 Gorges X 5

Amazing article in The New Yorker last month, about China’s green energy programs, and more importantly, how they absolutely dwarf anything we’re trying to do here in the U.S.

I had known that China was a big force in renewables – that the country was a major supplier of wind turbines and solar systems, and that their manufacturing capacity was huge, and growing. But I hadn’t really appreciated the scale, not of what they are able to do now nor of what they are going to be able to do in the near future.

In fact, Chinese researchers have been pushing hard to develop green energy for decades, through an initiative called the 863 Program – so-named because it was the result of a scientific call to action in March of 1986. 1986! That was more than three decades ago.

With such a big head start, it’s no surprise that China has moved into such a leadership position. Here’s my favorite stat about the country’s impressive progress: in the next decade, China is expected to install enough wind power equipment to generate FIVE times energy of the Three Gorges Dam, which is already the world’s biggest electricity producer.

Chinese scientists have also garnered respect for other advanced systems, including clean-coal gasification, batteries for electric cars, thin-film solar cells and more.

And it’s not just scientific progress that’s boosting the country’s green progress; Chinese policy shifts have allowed the price of coal to increase, giving the billion-plus consumers there incentive to seek an alternative for what has long been one of the most common sources of household energy.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the Reagan and Bush administrations moved in the opposite direction, dismantling green research projects and developing policies that encourage the use of oil and other sources of greenhouse gases.

This was a powerful reminder of what can result from far-sighted leadership.

Head in the Sand

I really don’t see how people can deny that the world, the climate, is changing. It’s like those people who say the Holocaust never happened -- how can they ignore something so big, so documented, so obvious?

But no. Today comes a report claiming that deforestation is not as big a factor in global warming as previously thought. Conventional wisdom holds that deforestation is responsible for about 20% of global carbon emissions, which has prompted numerous groups to call for cutbacks in logging and clearing, especially in developing countries.

The World Growth trade group, however, says new data pins that figure at closer to 5%. And, if deforestation is a smaller factor in climate change, well I guess there’s no reason to cut down more trees. The report give countries the green light to pursue deforestation projects as part of their overall development and growth efforts.

Do I believe it? Well, World Growth is a pro-development NGO, so it’s not like they have an unbiased view here. Nothing like finding statistics to justify your preexisting position.

But, just like trying to refute the Holocaust, denying the facts doesn’t make them any less true. The other big news today is the finding that this decade will likely be the warmest on record.

The source: the World Meteorological Organization. Definitely a more reputable name.

Good Investment

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced this week that three universities will receive up to $8 each million to develop more efficient turbines and fund students who want to do research in the field.

The University of Maine plans to study offshore turbine designs, including a nifty project to evaluate a floating turbine. Illinois Institute of Technology will evaluate new “aero elastic models” aimed at improving efficiency. And the University of Minnesota will be looking at new ways to transmit power from the turbine to the grid, as well as designs that can “increase energy capture.” Not sure exactly how those ideas all work, but they sound cool, no?

And here’s why this initiative is a double-plus: the funding is coming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Why is this cool? Because it’s investing twice. First, it’s a much-needed push to boost U.S. green technology. And second, it’s a clear statement that the government sees green research as an area that will likely deliver long-term economic returns. In fact, despite record unemployment figures, green industries are hiring. This is an industry with a future.

Connecting the Dots

Texas, which currently has more wind power capacity than any other state, seems to have gotten ahead of itself.

The state has enough turbines to generate about 5,000 megawatts, almost 3 percent of its needs, and has plans to expand to 9,000 megawatts by yearend and 15,000 megawatts within a few years. Experts say that the wide open spaces in West Texas get enough wind to one day produce about 30 percent of the state’s power.

So where’s the problem? Turns out that there aren’t enough power lines in place to move the power from West Texas, where there’s plenty of wind and not so many people, to the rest of the state, where people need it. The Public Utility Commission is considering a few plans to build more lines, which will cost between $3 and $6 billion.

This hiccup in wind power seems to have opened the door to critics, who are, not surprisingly, closely tied to companies that operate traditional, coal and natural gas plants. Why spend so much money now, they argue, for an unreliable energy source that tends to die down in the afternoon, right when it’s most needed?

To that I say, why continue to support outdated power technologies that depend on resources that will eventually be exhausted? And if we continue to pursue short-sighted policies like refusing to build the lines to connecting turbines to the places where the power is needed, it’s pretty much certain that we’ll use up our finite resources faster and will have no backup plan in place for when they are gone.

Leadership

I’ve seen two major public policy initiatives in the past week that made me hopeful, at first, and then pessimistic, yet again.

First the good news. The United Kingdom is making a huge push in wind power. It’s planning to spend $200 billion over the next decade to install thousands of wind turbines all over the country and offshore, as part of a long-term goal to produce 15 percent of its power from renewable resources by 2020.

The U.K. government is under no illusions that this will be an easy, or inexpensive, fix, yet it’s still willing to move forward. Business secretary John Hutton said “it is absolutely imperative that we take as much carbon as possible out of the way we generate energy… There is a cost in going green, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But it will cost us if we don’t, because we have to factor in the climate change cost.”

That seem like real leadership, doing the right thing rather than the easy, or popular thing.

Now, for the reverse. Here in the U.S., the Bureau of Land Management is putting a freeze on all new solar energy projects.

The agency said it has received so many proposals to build solar projects on public land, more than 130 since 2005, that it has decided to stop accepting new proposals until it can conduct environmental impact reports on the ones already filed, which could take up to two years.

Solar companies have filed proposals for more than 130 projects on public land since 2005

Certainly it makes sense to be careful about installing large solar farms, but I find it hard to believe the agency couldn’t find enough people to fast-track these studies. Shutting down all development, at such a critical time for the alternative energy space, seems amazingly short-sighted. Which, I guess, is not such a huge surprise.

Unhappy Picture

We’re going to need a lot more power plants.

According to the Department of Energy, global demand for energy will increase by 50 percent over the next two decades. That’s a huge increase, and it seems even bigger when you compare it to population growth rate of about 1.14 percent per year (thanks Wikipedia). In other words, the Earth will have a few more people every year, and all of them will be using a lot more power.

And according to the report released this week, most of that power will continue to come from oil, coal and nuclear. There are so many reasons why this is depressing I just don’t know where to start.

First, global warming. Burning more fossil fuels will only make our problems on this front worse.

Then there’s supply and demand. Fossil fuels are finite resources. How much is left to be extracted? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, but we can be certain we’ll eventually run out, and there are a lot of smart people who say the world’s oil cup is less than half-full now.

The report said that coal use will increase by about 2 percent per year, with China accounting for almost three-fourths of that, and oil consumption will increase by a third, to about 113 million barrels per day. I was in China several years ago and was surprised to see how many people relied on coal for cooking and heating; once I noticed that, I certainly wasn’t surprised to look up at the sky and see only a haze.

And the really bad news: renewable energy will increase by only 2.1 percent per year, and most of that will be hydro plants in developing countries.

Let’s recap: in 2008, global oil prices are going through the roof, the world is clamoring for alternatives, and there are plenty of people working hard on compelling wind, solar an other viable renewable sources. But over the next two decades, the Department of Energy sees nothing to indicate that alternative energy sources will make any significant gains. Am I the only person who thinks there’s something wrong with this picture?

Better Tax Policies

Gas prices are still on the rise, and I’m pleased to see Congress trying to do something that demonstrates more long-term vision than cutting the gasoline tax and encouraging people to drive, and consume, more.

Here’s a quick recap of current policies on the agenda in Washington. Last week, Congress approved a huge farm bill (actually, they voted to override a veto – take that, Mr. Bush!), which includes a production tax credit of a penny per gallon for biofuels derived from cellulose. The same bill also cut the tax credit for standard, corn-based ethanol by 6 cents, to 45 cents per gallon.

I like both of these policies, and I like it even more that they were packaged together. A year ago, gas was expensive and ethanol was hailed as the energy industry’s savior. Today, gas is even more costly, but so are corn, rice, bread and many other basic food products. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that farmers will sell their crops for energy production instead of food if it means they’ll make more money, and the higher price of gasoline has led to a surge in demand for ethanol. The crazy inflation at the supermarket this year was something that could have been easily predicted.

That’s why cellulosic fuels, which can be made from wood chips, switch grass, and many other plants that people don’t eat, are a very promising alternative. These two tax policies encourage people to develop energy sources made from crops that can be converted into fuel, without putting a dent in our dinner plate.

And in other encouraging news, lawmakers seem to have little interest in approving the gas-tax holiday that the presidential candidates have touted.

Wise Tax Policy – Not!

I’ve been thinking lately about the gas tax – the one that both John McCain and Hillary Clinton want to waive during the summer when Americans (read: voters) hit the roads on vacation. It’s about 18 cents a gallon, and getting rid of it is something that would be immediately noticeable to anyone (read: voters).

Most people think of taxes as a way for the government to generate revenue, which they are. But taxes have another purpose, to steer behavior. The state imposes fees on things they want to discourage. Case in point: the well-publicized congestion pricing plan in New York, which may or may not be completely dead. To limit traffic, the city proposed a fee for people entering Manhattan by car. If they really want to drive in New York, they’ll be willing to pay for the privilege, or so the theory goes. And if they don’t want to pay the fee, they’ll take public transportation, which is exactly what the city wanted.

So apply that logic to the gas tax. If we really want to encourage people to be mindful about their driving habits, if we really want to encourage the auto industry to produce fuel-efficient vehicles, then we shouldn’t be getting rid of the gas tax, we should be RAISING it! Making people vote with their wallets will make them think twice about what’s really important, but making gas cheaper will just make people drive more.

And what kind of message does it send to waive the tax? I guess that people running for president don’t really care about the environment nearly as much as they care about making people (read: voters) happy. At least in the short term.

Because in the long term, it seems pretty clear that expensive oil will be with us for a while, and we need some really smart alternative energy ideas to make sure that gas and other forms of power remain reasonably affordable. And lowering taxes on gas – that’s not a smart idea.