As the climate
continues to warm, and normally cool or even cold places like Alaska break records during what is only the
first month of summer, U.S. policy makers turn – belatedly – to the idea of
alternative power.
It’s far too
late to prevent some of the devastating effects of global warming, also known
as climate change. In fact, it’s very likely that the planet will not only
reach the unimaginable 2-degree increase in temperature predicted by the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), but exceed it. This, at least, is
the message from James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies and a highly reputable (if singularly disturbing) scientist in his own
right.
Hansen made his
prediction at the end of 2011, bluntly calling the 2-degree warming limit which
national leaders had agreed on at Doha, Qatar “…a prescription for disaster.”
His words were unsettling,
to say the least, and his prediction was bolstered by comments from the Union
of Concerned Scientists Director Alden Meyer.
“World leaders
set a goal of … 2 degrees, but the commitments they’ve made to meet that goal
are inadequate.”
We could almost
ignore Hansen’s dire prognosis. We might even be able to tune out Meyer. But
what about the United Nations Environment Report, which states that – even if
national leaders meet their most zealous climate goals – the world as a whole
is likely to contribute 52 gigatons (Gt) of greenhouse gases to the environment
in 2012 – a figure which is 8 Gt greater than is needed to confine warming at or below 2 degrees.
The International Energy Agency adds its own
chorus, noting that the 2-degree goal can only be kept if 66
percent of fossil fuels (oil, gas, etc.) are left in the ground.
For most of the world, this means alternative energy, or renewable
energy; that is, anything that doesn’t involve burning fossil fuels like coal,
oil or natural gas. Some “green” energy advocates even rule out nuclear power. These
forms of renewable energy are typified by solar and wind, with geothermal,
hydro and biofuels running close seconds. In fact, so intense has the race
become for alternative sources of energy that scientists are currently looking
into:
- Fecal power, from cow flatulence to adult diapers, which are repurposed into burnable pellets
The two top contenders are solar power and wind power. Regarding the
latter, the UK isn’t
doing too badly, at least in Scotland, which has 203 onshore wind farms. Unfortunately,
this level of commitment to renewable wind energy is underwritten by subsidies
– in effect, perks which supposedly support wind energy jobs. And they do, sometimes
to the extravagant tune of £1.3 million!
That is, instead of generating 60 jobs at £20,000, wind in the UK adds only a
few jobs at phenomenal salaries.
In fact, the
only saving grace of this initiative is that it provides alternative, or
renewable energy. In the UK, this amounts to 23.5 million megawatt-hours (MWh)
of energy from both offshore and onshore wind, serving 5.4 million homes.
Because wind energy represents a large part of renewable energy in the UK – a
small country in terms of acreage but surrounded on all sides by water – solar
energy is barely a fraction.
Bioenergy is
another huge UK energy solution, with wave and turbine energy creeping up on
wind. Overall, the UK’s renewable energy output in Q2 2012 is up to 8130
gigawatts (GW). This compares favorably with an overall energy output of 319,000
GW for all four quarters of 2011. The two figures break down into 9.8 percent
of energy from renewables. In the UK, as across the EU, utilities are backing
off investments in fossil-fuel burning generation and pouring that money into
both renewables and energy efficiency, in effect burning the candle from both
ends.
In the United
States, wind turbines added 13.2 percent to the total of renewable energy
generated in 2012. In 2011, this figure was 11.7 percent. 2011 was also the
year in which renewables produced more energy than nuclear power for the first
time. This was also the first year in which the total of renewable energy
sources passed 520,000 gigawatt hours (GWh), delivering 7.8 percent of total
power supplies, 119.75 of them solely from onshore wind.
As compared
with the UK’s renewable output (9.8 percent of the total), U.S. output is only
7.8 percent. This doesn’t look good for a nation that prides itself on being
first in new technology (as represented by renewable energy techniques). Then, too,
the U.S. has a very large, extremely powerful and enormously wealthy fossil
fuel energy sector – a sector that is reluctant to leave what it persistently
calls “200 years of coal” in the ground in
Appalachia, the Heartland, and the Powder River Basin of Montana, Wyoming,
Nevada and the Western slope of Colorado.
The biggest
problem, after the fossil-fuel sector’s immense lobby, is the dilemma of
storing renewable energy. The largest utility-scale electricity
storage developed to date is a 4-megawatt sodium-sulfur (NaS) battery
system in Presidio, Texas, but newer storage technologies are starting to prove
themselves, from molten salt to hot water storage. For homeowners unable to
afford these 2.0 storage technologies, ranked and shelved deep-discharge
(marine or offsite power) batteries fill the bill.
Going forward, however, it’s important that the U.S. uses the
technology tied up in its 17 laboratories, 10 of which operate at the behest of
the Office of Science, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE. These
labs are charged with finding better, cheaper and more efficient ways of
storing energy – a must-have if renewable technologies like wind and solar are to
continue to grow.
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