Yesterday, I was a guest on the “Diane Rehm Show” on National Public Radio.
I asked one of the other guests, author Jeff Goodell (who is one of coal’s harshest critics), about renewable energy. Right now, renewables account for a small fraction of our electricity. The Energy Information Administration projects that renewables will account for 12.5 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2030.
Even if you accept the most optimistic projection for renewables… which is that they could account for as much as 30 percent by 2030… where is the other 70 percent of our energy going to come from?
Goodell did not have an answer to that question.
See, we KNOW that electricity demand will be greater in 2030 than it is today. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy predicts it will jump by 29 percent by that time (even as we become more energy efficiency we keep coming up with new things to plug into the wall). So we’ll need MORE electricity, not less.
My question as to where the "other" 70 percent is going to come from drives the point that America will need all of its available energy resources including coal.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is committed to the idea that America can have the affordable, reliable electricity we need, with the clean environment we want. ACCCE’s Behind the Plug blog is the place for up-to-date news and analysis on clean coal technology developments and energy policy progress.
The most authoritative study on “clean” coal, The Future of Coal, published last year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), concluded that the first commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant wouldn’t come on stream until 2030 at the earliest.
Last year too, the Edison Electric Institute, which represents most US power generators, admitted to a House Select Committee in Washington DC that commercial deployment will require 25 years research costing at least $20bn.
So truly clean coal is not an option for that 70% either.
Kelly:
It’s true that new technologies take time to develop and deploy. But not developing them doesn’t seem like an option at this point.
The Energy Information Administration noted in their 2007 Annual Energy Outlook report that U.S. electricity demand is expected to increase 1.7 percent per year through 2030, requiring an increase in generating capacity of roughly 30 percent.
As you can see by the graph here, the EIA also shows an anticipated growth in coal usage. This isn’t surprising given that coal is our most affordable, abundant domestic resource, is capable of providing baseload (‘always-on’) power, and currently makes up 50 percent of America’s power.
With new advances in technology, we’re looking at a future where coal will meet America’s growing electricity needs with little to no emissions of the pollutants regulated by federal and state clean air laws. And the benefits of investing these technologies—including lower emissions, more American jobs and affordable energy costs—far outweigh the costs.
CONSUMERISM and compounding economic growth are the real problems. We live on a finite planet with finite resources, and when we start consuming them faster than they can be renewed, we end up with issues like this. If our growth will increase electricity needs so much that we can’t even ourselves build enough generating units to safely satisfy the demand, maybe we ought to rethink our economic policies.
When the President of a country encourages its people to go shopping after a national tradgedy (9/11), you know it is a serious dysfunction.
Megan -
Thanks for your response. I agree that energy research is good, including clean coal. The problem is that if we continue with business as usual, building more dirty coal plants for the next 25 years, we will be past the tipping point with global warming. Clean energy plants wil come on line too late to make much of us differance.
We need to stop building coal plants now and build natural gas, nuclear, and renewable plants now before it is too late.
CJ:
We agree that more needs to be done in terms of energy efficiency and conservation. It’s part of the American ethic that parents go behind their children and turn off the lights in the house. We’re excited about some of the electricity conservation initiatives we’ve seen, like the “lights out” programs in which people in places like San Francisco and Chicago turn out the lights to highlight the importance of energy efficiency. Even if it means less coal being produced, less being hauled and less being used at power plants, it’s still the right thing to do and we’re very supportive of that.
Kelly:
I understand your concern. However, we can’t allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. We already know that we can take clean plants and make them more efficient over time, including the capture and storage of carbon. The other option is to wait for the perfect energy source, and if we’re going to be waiting on that, we’d better be prepared to sit around in the dark, because there’s no such thing as the perfect energy resource—each one has its challenges.