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Asleep Before the Energy Crisis
GUEST EDITORIAL
Jim Eckelberger
Asleep Before the Energy Crisis I. The Problem The overriding criticism historians will chronicle about the past decade will be our failure to understand the oncoming energy crisis. We slept through the years where foresight might have averted a crisis. Now, the energy problem cannot be solved without a crisis, during which we can expect unaffordable, and even unavailable and unreliable, energy supplies. emand for energy is global, growing, and unrelenting. Home utility bills for gas, oil, and electricity have grown immensely in the past year and are expected to double in many parts of the country in the coming two years. Gasoline is a problematic four dollars a gallon.
D
Jim Eckelberger, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (retired), is Chairman of the Board for Southwest Power Pool, Inc. Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization with 50 members across eight states, is mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure, and competitive wholesale prices of electricity.
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These exploding costs could have been averted, but their reality will have a huge impact on the American lifestyle and economy. Imported oil and gas are not the answer to the supply problem. Those sources just exacerbate our problem of being a debtor nation on a warming Earth. New energy sources must be discovered and developed immediately. That leaves a short-term supply gap which must be filled by sources available within the U.S., and ‘‘green’’ sources won’t suffice.
II. Discussion Demand for energy in the U.S. historically grows at 2 percent annually, and supplying that demand is increasingly problematic. Our electrical generating equipment is old – 49 percent of our capacity is nearing or beyond planned end-of-life. Within the next two decades, we will also need one new generating plant for every four that exist. With the lengthy legal and permitting process, it takes at least seven years to build a plant, sometimes twice that long for nuclear. Unless new plants are built soon, reserve margins in many parts of the country will drop to perilously low levels. The
probability of brown- and blackouts is increasing, even without the added demand that could emerge from electric cars. The political climate says, ‘‘Develop wind and solar power.’’ However, these are comparatively expensive and unreliable sources. The wind usually doesn’t blow when temperatures and demand are highest, and solar isn’t available when temperatures are lowest and during storms. A major issue is that these sources are geographically limited, and transmission lines to move the renewable energy to population centers don’t exist. Since cost-effective technologies to store intermittent wind and solar generation haven’t been developed, coal or gas plants must be built and paired with green energy sources to ensure reliability. The cost of effectively trapping carbon from fossil plants is unknown. Liquefied natural gas has up to three-quarters the carbon emissions of coal, so a switch to imported natural gas does not solve the carbon problem. The best method of storing nuclear waste is unknown; in fact, the better approach would be to improve our ability to reduce waste. How to do that is also unknown, but scientists with good ideas are pursuing the problem.
1040-6190/$–see front matter # 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved., doi:/10.1016/j.tej.2008.09.015
The Electricity Journal
T
he cost of transmitting electricity from sites with wind or solar generation falls on citizens where the plant is located. Why would local citizens pay for expensive transmission to send energy to far-away population centers? High-voltage lines should be built using national transmission ‘‘highways,’’ similar to the Eisenhower interstate highway system. Federal leadership must provide new strategies to route these transmission corridors and allocate the costs. Citizens have a contribution to make in reducing demand. Reduction would be encouraged if household equipment provided knowledge and incentive for smartly using the electric grid. Industrial users could reduce wholesale demand nationwide if the retail/wholesale split in the markets operated under different rules. For portable fuels, we rely on gasoline, amended by ethanol. The American choice of corn ethanol has accelerated food costs and increased pollution of rivers and oceans. Alternative crops that could optimize this problem are unknown, and will involve a politically difficult transition. The cost of oil is 10 times what it was 10 years ago and double what it was one year ago. Natural gas prices have increased five-fold in the last seven years. These prices reflect supply and demand more than speculation. These high costs are permanent, growing, and will
November 2008
become increasingly politicized as overseas economies compete for these sparse resources. The energy impact on the balance of payments is both exacerbating and calamitous. The impact of imported oil and gas on the trade imbalance is four times what it was 10 years ago, and 50 percent worse than last year. Energy spending is breaking the back of American capitalism. Foreign countries are ensuring their future wealth in a post-oil world, but draining our ownership of stateside businesses. We have 250 years of coal resources, and both on- and offshore oil and gas resources we aren’t developing. Meanwhile, we are shipping coal overseas. Foreign users of our coal are building power plants that support factories that are alternatives to ‘‘made in the USA.’’ They have the same or worse impact on the environment and global warming than if we had burned the coal.
III. Solutions We need an energy policy that will do what the last two Energy Acts have failed to do: deal with the heart of the problem. Global warming, balance of payments, American jobs, environmental pollution, nuclear safety, and reliability must be addressed. The core to finding answers is research, and the drivers are political will and public education.
We need a ‘‘Manhattan Project,’’ or a commitment like President Kennedy’s goal to put a man on the moon, to find the right answers to storing electricity, producing cost-effective green energy, optimizing sources of portable energy, dealing with emissions, and developing alternative methodologies for nuclear generation and waste reduction. We must find the best long-term answers and commit to them in an energy policy tailored to control the huge costs. We need a national policy which encourages smart use of the electrical grid and provides households with tools to participate in demand management. We need changes in the structure of electrical markets so industrial customers can participate in demand reduction at the wholesale level. We need a national transmission highway system for electrical energy. We need new fossil plants in the short-term to offset the irregularity of solar and wind power, and the political leadership to help people understand why we need them. ost importantly, we need to change the psyche of national leadership which acts as if oil is the solution. The development of new energy sources is the key to our future and to truncating an energy crisis that could paralyze the American economy. The time for concerted action by our federal government is now!&
M
1040-6190/$–see front matter # 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved., doi:/10.1016/j.tej.2008.09.015
67
Jim Eckelberger
Asleep Before the Energy Crisis I. The Problem The overriding criticism historians will chronicle about the past decade will be our failure to understand the oncoming energy crisis. We slept through the years where foresight might have averted a crisis. Now, the energy problem cannot be solved without a crisis, during which we can expect unaffordable, and even unavailable and unreliable, energy supplies. emand for energy is global, growing, and unrelenting. Home utility bills for gas, oil, and electricity have grown immensely in the past year and are expected to double in many parts of the country in the coming two years. Gasoline is a problematic four dollars a gallon.
D
Jim Eckelberger, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (retired), is Chairman of the Board for Southwest Power Pool, Inc. Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization with 50 members across eight states, is mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure, and competitive wholesale prices of electricity.
66
These exploding costs could have been averted, but their reality will have a huge impact on the American lifestyle and economy. Imported oil and gas are not the answer to the supply problem. Those sources just exacerbate our problem of being a debtor nation on a warming Earth. New energy sources must be discovered and developed immediately. That leaves a short-term supply gap which must be filled by sources available within the U.S., and ‘‘green’’ sources won’t suffice.
II. Discussion Demand for energy in the U.S. historically grows at 2 percent annually, and supplying that demand is increasingly problematic. Our electrical generating equipment is old – 49 percent of our capacity is nearing or beyond planned end-of-life. Within the next two decades, we will also need one new generating plant for every four that exist. With the lengthy legal and permitting process, it takes at least seven years to build a plant, sometimes twice that long for nuclear. Unless new plants are built soon, reserve margins in many parts of the country will drop to perilously low levels. The
probability of brown- and blackouts is increasing, even without the added demand that could emerge from electric cars. The political climate says, ‘‘Develop wind and solar power.’’ However, these are comparatively expensive and unreliable sources. The wind usually doesn’t blow when temperatures and demand are highest, and solar isn’t available when temperatures are lowest and during storms. A major issue is that these sources are geographically limited, and transmission lines to move the renewable energy to population centers don’t exist. Since cost-effective technologies to store intermittent wind and solar generation haven’t been developed, coal or gas plants must be built and paired with green energy sources to ensure reliability. The cost of effectively trapping carbon from fossil plants is unknown. Liquefied natural gas has up to three-quarters the carbon emissions of coal, so a switch to imported natural gas does not solve the carbon problem. The best method of storing nuclear waste is unknown; in fact, the better approach would be to improve our ability to reduce waste. How to do that is also unknown, but scientists with good ideas are pursuing the problem.
1040-6190/$–see front matter # 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved., doi:/10.1016/j.tej.2008.09.015
The Electricity Journal
T
he cost of transmitting electricity from sites with wind or solar generation falls on citizens where the plant is located. Why would local citizens pay for expensive transmission to send energy to far-away population centers? High-voltage lines should be built using national transmission ‘‘highways,’’ similar to the Eisenhower interstate highway system. Federal leadership must provide new strategies to route these transmission corridors and allocate the costs. Citizens have a contribution to make in reducing demand. Reduction would be encouraged if household equipment provided knowledge and incentive for smartly using the electric grid. Industrial users could reduce wholesale demand nationwide if the retail/wholesale split in the markets operated under different rules. For portable fuels, we rely on gasoline, amended by ethanol. The American choice of corn ethanol has accelerated food costs and increased pollution of rivers and oceans. Alternative crops that could optimize this problem are unknown, and will involve a politically difficult transition. The cost of oil is 10 times what it was 10 years ago and double what it was one year ago. Natural gas prices have increased five-fold in the last seven years. These prices reflect supply and demand more than speculation. These high costs are permanent, growing, and will
November 2008
become increasingly politicized as overseas economies compete for these sparse resources. The energy impact on the balance of payments is both exacerbating and calamitous. The impact of imported oil and gas on the trade imbalance is four times what it was 10 years ago, and 50 percent worse than last year. Energy spending is breaking the back of American capitalism. Foreign countries are ensuring their future wealth in a post-oil world, but draining our ownership of stateside businesses. We have 250 years of coal resources, and both on- and offshore oil and gas resources we aren’t developing. Meanwhile, we are shipping coal overseas. Foreign users of our coal are building power plants that support factories that are alternatives to ‘‘made in the USA.’’ They have the same or worse impact on the environment and global warming than if we had burned the coal.
III. Solutions We need an energy policy that will do what the last two Energy Acts have failed to do: deal with the heart of the problem. Global warming, balance of payments, American jobs, environmental pollution, nuclear safety, and reliability must be addressed. The core to finding answers is research, and the drivers are political will and public education.
We need a ‘‘Manhattan Project,’’ or a commitment like President Kennedy’s goal to put a man on the moon, to find the right answers to storing electricity, producing cost-effective green energy, optimizing sources of portable energy, dealing with emissions, and developing alternative methodologies for nuclear generation and waste reduction. We must find the best long-term answers and commit to them in an energy policy tailored to control the huge costs. We need a national policy which encourages smart use of the electrical grid and provides households with tools to participate in demand management. We need changes in the structure of electrical markets so industrial customers can participate in demand reduction at the wholesale level. We need a national transmission highway system for electrical energy. We need new fossil plants in the short-term to offset the irregularity of solar and wind power, and the political leadership to help people understand why we need them. ost importantly, we need to change the psyche of national leadership which acts as if oil is the solution. The development of new energy sources is the key to our future and to truncating an energy crisis that could paralyze the American economy. The time for concerted action by our federal government is now!&
M
1040-6190/$–see front matter # 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved., doi:/10.1016/j.tej.2008.09.015
67