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September 20, 2006 Photo: Worldwatch Institute |
American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security, a report just released by the Worldwatch Institute and the Center for American Progress, details how the emerging renewable energy industries can address U.S. energy demands, national security, and the environment, as well as similar concerns around the globe.
"A new and better energy future is possible if the country can forge a compelling vision of where it wants to be." --American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security |
The following
is excerpted from the report's Introduction, titled "21st
Century Energy."
If there was ever a time when a major shift in the U.S. energy economy was possible,
it is now. Three decades of pioneering research and development by both the government
and the private sector have yielded a host of promising new technologies that
turn abundant domestic energy sources -- including solar, wind, geothermal, hydro,
biomass, and ocean
energy -- into transportation fuels, electricity, and heat.
Today, renewable resources provide just over 6 percent of total U.S. energy,
but that figure could increase rapidly in the years ahead. Many of the new technologies
that harness renewables are, or soon will be, economically competitive with the
fossil fuels that meet 85 percent of U.S. energy needs. With oil prices soaring,
the security risks of petroleum dependence growing, and the environmental costs
of today's fuels becoming more apparent, the country faces compelling reasons
to
put these technologies to use on a large scale.
Energy transitions take time, and no single technology will solve our energy
problems. But renewable energy technologies, combined with substantial improvements
in energy efficiency, have the potential to gradually transform the U.S. energy
system in ways that will benefit all Americans. The transition is easier to envision
if you look at the way the oil age emerged rapidly and unexpectedly in the first
two decades of the 20th century, propelled by technologies such as refineries
and internal combustion engines and driven by the efforts of entrepreneurs such
as John D. Rockefeller.
Americans today are no less clever or ambitious than their great-grandparents
were. A new and better energy future is possible if the country can forge a compelling
vision of where it wants to be. Recent developments in the global marketplace
show the potential:
-- Global wind energy generation has more than tripled since 2000, providing
enough electricity to power the homes of about 30 million Americans. The United
States led the world in wind energy installations
in 2005.
-- Production of electricity-generating solar cells is one of the world's fastest
growing industries, up 45 percent in 2005 to six times
the level in 2000.
-- Production of fuel ethanol from crops more than doubled between 2000 and 2005,
and biodiesel from vegetable oil and waste expanded nearly four-fold over this
period.
Global investment in renewable energy (excluding large hydropower) in 2005 is
estimated at $38 billion -- equivalent to nearly 20 percent of total annual investment
in the electric power sector. Renewable energy investments have nearly doubled
over the past three years, and have increased six-fold since 1995. Next to the
Internet, new energy technology has become one of the hottest investment fields
for venture
capitalists.
These dynamic growth rates are driving down costs and spurring rapid advances
in technologies. They are also creating new economic opportunities for people
around the globe. Today, renewable energy manufacturing, operations, and maintenance
provide approximately two
million jobs worldwide.
The United States will need a much stronger commitment to renewable energy if
it is to take advantage of these opportunities.
This vision will become reality only if Americans come together to achieve
it, mobilized behind the goal of increasing our national self-reliance and leaving
a healthy environment for the next
generation. The time is now.
The Worldwatch Institute, one of the partners for this report, is an independent
research organization that focuses on innovative solutions to global environmental,
resource, and economic issues. The other partner is the Center for American Progress,
a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong,
just and free
America that ensures opportunity for all.
Comments
Author:
Roger Plafkin Date Posted: September 22, 2006 |
If the "Time is Now", I believe
that we all are in agreement. Please
view "Plafkin Farms, Ada, Michigan" on Webshots.com. We are more than willing
to have wind and solar installations implemented on this
property. Roger Plafkin--1-616-676-0590--plafkin@juno.com |
Author:
Yann Tanguy Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
"The United States led the world in wind energy
installations in 2005.": Installations in US in 2005: 2.4GW Installations in Europe in 2005: 6.1GW Sources: EUREC website. Comparing country by country sure it is true, but slightly misleading. |
Author:
Glenn Andersen Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
The sentiment is good. The U.S. may be poised for improvement, but there are a lot of people with vested interests in older, dirtier technologies who will fight the development of new renewable energy sources tooth and nail. The battle is just started, and the consequences of losing the war are unbelievably grim. Public education, on the way to mobilising public action, should continue. Will the forces controlling big oil, coal, and nuclear join the effort to improve the planet? Reading web sites from those industries, I think the answer, at least in the English speaking countries, is no. |
Author:
Ronald Corso Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
Why does the report make the statement "excluding large hydropower" as if it is somehow not a renewable? Large hydropower does come with enevironmental impacts, but the other benefits of dams cannot be overlooked, such as world food production, flood control, domestic and industrial water supply, etc. Without dams, there would be mass starvation in the world, yet large hydropower is treated somehow as something other than a renewable energy resource. Hopefully, the report does include hydropower in some form since it is still the most efficient renewable energy resource. |
Author:
John Pfeifer Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
Everyone should be grateful for publications
like this because the majority of Americans are
not up to speed on the total scope of benefits
provided by renewable energy. The oil industry
has enormous momentum coupled with current PR
and hidden subsidities that it is going to take
a major effort to turn it around. It should be
made known that it now takes more energy to get
oil out of the ground and to the place where
it is used than the oil creates when it is burned.
This is the inconvenient truth of the matter.
Everyone should see the Al Gore film. And don't
forget that Renewable Energy IS Homeland Security. John Pfeifer, CEO Apollo Solar, Inc. |
Author:
E.F. (Gene) Lucas Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
I doubt it! Alternative energy is only "hot" because
oil is over $60/barrel. If Iraqi oil reserves
had reached the market (and they will someday)
the world would be awash in oil, and the collapse
in oil prices, predicted by the experts, would
be on. With oil under $30/barrel and gas at $1.25/gallon,
interest in alternative energy would probably
vanish - like it did in the 70's. The only way
alternative energy will ever succeed is for it
to be cheaper than oil and coal. Wind is already,
and direct solar-thermal trough (using the hot
liquid to produce heating and cooling - no grid)
may soon be. Alternative energy needs to get
down to $1/watt, and then it will start to take
off - without taxes, rebates (taxes), incentives (taxes), etc. |
Author:
Jeff Birkby Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
I for one am glad the report does not include
large hydro as a feasible renewable resource. A recent report from the World Commission on Dams (WCD) details the greenhouse gas emission implications of large hydro. "These are far more severe than previously thought. Basically, all reservoirs that have flooded forests are sources of greenhouse gases, often methane from rotting vegetation. Methane, however, has a global warming potential more than 20 times that of carbon dioxide by weight. The Balbina Dam in Brazil is estimated to produce about eight times the GHG emissions per year as a fossil fuel plant generating an equivalent amount of electricity. So, the "conventional wisdom" that large-scale hydro is a clean technology from a climate perspective is clearly wrong." |
Author:
Sean K. Barry Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
Hi Jeff Birkby, I accept your analysis that rotting vegetation under the water in large resevoirs produces substantial greenhouse gas emissions (CH4 and CO2, etc.) There is a solution to this problem. If the vegetation on "to-be-flooded" land is denuded by burning and burying the charcoal, then it will stay. The half-life of charcoal in the soil is measured in thousands of years! (See Terra Preta De Indio soils). If the biomass were gasified rather than burned (a co-product of gasification is charcoal), then the off-gas (synthesis gas) could be used as a fuel and the charcoal (~30% of the carbon in the original biomass) could still be buried. The best solution of all would be to harvest all of the biomass from the "to-be-flooded" land, convert it to gaseous fuel (or liquid fuels, like methanol) and charcoal, then use the charcoal as a soil amendment in the land surrounding the resevoir. Charcoal is a tremendous soil amendment (again, see Terra Preta De Indio soils). |
Author:
Sean K. Barry Date Posted: September 27, 2006 |
Hi E.F.Lucas Oil, coal, and nuclear power currently receive much larger subsidies than any of the alternative energy sources. On a level playing field (i.e. no subsidies for anyone, taxes on the public, incentives for corporation, tax relief for corporations, etc.) and a true costing of things like pollution, national security, carbon emissions, land remdiation, etc, then 21st century Alternative Energy sources could easily compete against oil, coal, and nuclear energy. The big footprints of the 20th century energy industry will cost us dearly in the 21st century. Alternative Energy in the 21st century is THE ONLY WAY to reduce those costs. The 20th century energy industry has to be made to play fair and be accountable for the mess they put us into, also. |
Author:
Brian Ballek Date Posted: September 29, 2006 |
In response to E.F. (Gene) Lukas' comment about Iraqui oil reserves someday reaching the market and dramatically reducing the price of oil and gasoline: don't forget the law of supply and demand. Iraq's oil reserves *will* reach the market someday. But in the meantime, the demand from countries like India and China will increase exponentially. They will easily absorb what Iraq can produce and come back for more. This is why the experts today are NOT predicting a reduction in oil prices, but rather just the opposite. |