Revive the energy bill
The Senate should jump-start the energy bill that stalled Thursday. It should also ensure that legislation isn't compromised in a manner that undermines its essential aim of promoting significant advances in alternative energy development, conservation and motor-vehicle fuel efficiency.
The bill faltered Thursday after New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, the ranking Republican on the Energy Committee, threatened a filibuster over a "Renewable Portfolio Standard" that would require utility companies to produce 15 percent of their power from wind, solar or biomass sources by 2020. The senator argued, with some validity, that such a mandate would impose particularly high costs on regions, including the Southeast, that lack the sustained high winds needed to make large volumes of electricity generation from wind power feasible.
But surely the panel can craft a reasonable compromise that both encourages the development of new power sources while making allowances for such geographical differences. And surely the bill's stipulation that U.S. auto makers raise the average mileage of passenger vehicles to 35 miles a gallon by 2020 is an achievable standard.
After all, those auto makers, to comply with the 1975 Corporate Fuel Economy Act, raised that standard from 13 miles per gallon to the current 27.5 miles per gallon in a mere decade.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he plans to seek new support for the bill, perhaps with some needed revisions, next week. The House Natural Resource Committee approved similar legislation Wednesday.
Both chambers of Congress should make this issue a top priority, working in a bipartisan manner to produce legislation that would ease our dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil while facilitating breakthroughs in the production of energy from alternative sources. Otherwise, we will never overcome what President Bush has aptly called our "addiction to oil."
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majorjohnson (anonymous) says...
When alternative energy makes financial sense it will certainly be incorporated into the grid...otherwise all the mandates legislators can legislate will only damage the economy and cause damage to families through higher energy and food costs. As far as new CAFE standards, if you can just mandate legislatively, why not just make the standard 60 mpg, or 100? Previous CAFE standards resulted in less safe vehicles and cost people their lives.
June 17, 2007 at 9:54 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
REngineer (anonymous) says...
Coal, Oil, Gas, and Nuclear have collectively received over 1.2 trillion dollars in subsidies since the 1950's. Photovoltaic, CSP, Wind, Geothermal, OTEC, Wave, Tidal, Current, etc. have cumulatively received less than 3 billion dollars in federal subsidies. Despite the disparity in federal funding, the unsubsidized price per kWh for CSP, Wind and Geothermal power are less than unsubsidized nuclear, and competitive with natural gas combined cycle.
When including carbon taxes and/or emissions trading schemes which incorporate negative externalities inherent to fossil based fuels into the economic equation, renewable energies are economically superior to coal, oil and gas.
Lastly, renewable energies keep power in the hands of the people, rather than the commanding heights (special interest). Farmers are capable of implementing and profiting from wind turbines, homeowners can generate all their power with PV panels: in contrast with nuclear, oil, gas and coal, power is centrally supplied, i.e. the rich get richer and individuals are incapable of equal access to power generation (and subsidies inherent to large power producers).
June 18, 2007 at 1:19 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
majorjohnson (anonymous) says...
You must not be a power engineer. We don't have the wind to supply constant or even substantial power here in SC, and to partially, not completely, supply my home with solar power requires a $20,000 investment, and I have an extremely small electical footprint. As far as your carbon tax scheme, what you suggest is to use taxation to raise the price of energy you don't like in order to make energy you do like seem more fiscally attractive. Typical thinking from someone who doesn't really think past the point where his opinion is supported.
June 18, 2007 at 8:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
REngineer (anonymous) says...
1) South Carolina has plenty of offshore wind, easily enough to meet the 15% requirement the proposed federal RPS stipulates by 2020. SC also has abundant wave, tidal, current, and biomass generation capacity, which in combination with offshore wind, could potentially provide all of South Carolina's energy needs, not to mention good solar resources, i.e. 5.2 peak sun hours (PSH) with relatively good clearness index values (kTbar).
2) Solar photovoltaic is currently expensive, and is only economical in subsidized markets (see my aforementioned comment on this), but this is changing. While PV prices still remains high, cost reductions have been realized following the "learning curve theorem," which states an 18% cost reduction for every doubling of capacity. Current average PV costs per watt are in the neighborhood of $2.30 per watt (module prices). The reason low costs haven't translated to low prices is reticent of our current oil predicament, demand vastly outstrips supply, thus increasing prices. Worldwide market projections for PV (solar panel) growth are exponential in nature. In 2006, 3.2 GW (3,200 MW) of PV were installed worldwide, this number is expected to grow to 12-15 GW by 2010. Increasing module supply should decrease module prices (assuming demand remains constant).
Also, technical change, through the increased use of thin-film and non-crystalline based modules should reduce prices further.
3) Lastly, emissions trading schemes have been recommended by a large majority of polluting industries on the fortune 500 as a market based approach to battle climate change. Using a market mechanism (emissions trading) is always better than point source carbon tax government regulation, although in both regulatory frameworks, renewable energy will directly benefit.
At the end of the day its all a question of equity, those that live near coal power stations are at greater risk for cancer, and other debilitative diseases. Shouldn't power generation costs include negative externalities such as these into energy prices?
June 19, 2007 at 2:41 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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