SUSTAINABLE WORLDVIEW production in 2030, and that wind’s gener-

ating cost will remain over 6 cents per kilo-

watt-hour through 2030!
How strange. Obviously EIA neglected
to read the May 2007 DOE report, Annu-

Real Homeland Security al Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation,

Cost, and Performance Trends: 2006
(www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41435.pdf),
A renewables advocate shares his view of the relative merits of which summarizes the empirical evidence.
wind and conventional energy technologies. Wind power has been competitive in
wholesale electricity markets since 1998,
By Michael Totten and the last 8 gigawatts (GW) of installed
wind power had an average generating price

T
he battle has been won, and now
the question looms — is the war
being lost?
There is overwhelming scientific vali-
dation, public consensus, state and local
actions and federal (if anemic) accept-
ance of the reality that climate change
poses a multi-century threat to humani-
ty’s economic growth, health and well-
being and ecological stability. It seems
we have finally won that battle.
However, even a cursory review of
legislation introduced in Congress shows
that pork barrel politics are thriving under supposed experts informing federal policy-
the new banner of climate solutions.
If post-9/11 national politics showed us
anything, it's that patriotism is serving as Information Administration (EIA), Annual
justification for pandering to special inter- Energy Outlook with Projections to 2030
ests. Taxpayers are shelling out $1 trillion ( w w w. e i a . d o e . g o v / o i a f / a e o / i n d e x .
every 24 months to fuel administration
forays into “global conflict management.”
How ironic that as more and more
taxpayer revolts limit local and
state budgets (already starved by
decreasing federal funds), an
administration that proclaims
itself fiscally conservative is bleed-
ing taxpayers’ dollars as if the
world was ending.
What does this have to do
with ecologically sustainable
energy services, or wind power,
this column's putative topic?
More than mainstream media is
willing to discuss.
It is a straightforward case of
system dynamics. If governments
at all levels lack discretionary
funds to shape public policies;
efficiency, combined of 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (including
heat and power production tax credits [PTCs] and some
(CHP) and energy with renewable energy certificates [RECs]).
from wind, solar, In contrast, EIA estimates nuclear power
geothermal and bio- will generate electricity at 6 cents per kilo-
mass wastes are watt-hour by 2015 and less than 6 cents per
going to be margin- kilowatt-hour by 2030, leading to the con-
alized as boutique struction of 12 GW of new reactors (more
industries. Disagree? than all the wind currently installed in
North America). Moreover, only 2.6 GW of
The Facts, Michael Totten
the existing 100 GW of nuclear reactors are
Please projected to retire before 2030, even
Consider some recent findings by though most reactors are over 30 years
old. The nuclear cost estimates are well
makers. The June 2007 report by the U.S. below the June report on nuclear power by
Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Energy the Keystone Center, whose experts esti-
mate new nuclear generation costing 8 to
11 cents per kilowatt-hour.
EIA estimates even cheaper coal-
html), concludes that wind power will generated electricity, basically because EIA
not exceed 1 percent of total electricity concludes that “carbon capture and
sequestration (CCS) technology is
not projected to come into use
during the projection period”! As
a result, EIA projects development
of 10 GW of new pulverizing coal
and nearly 18 GW of combined
cycle plants. New coal accounts
for 54 percent of all new genera-
tion capacity through 2030, at a
non-CCS generation cost of 5
cents per kilowatt-hour.
EIA could have cited two
comprehensive and authoritative
CCS reports. The first is the recent
Future of Coal MIT report (http://
web.mit.edu/coal/The_
Future_of_Coal_Summary_Report
.pdf), which estimates CCS will
COURTESY OF VESTAS WIND SYSTEMS A/S

taxpayers’ revolts keep a tight lid add 3 cents per kilowatt-hour

on new initiatives; the govern- to the cost of electricity from coal
ment is dramatically less commit- plants. The second is the 2005
ted to enforcing environmental Intergovernmental Panel on
laws, let alone superseding anti- Climate Change (IPCC) special
quated regulations; and deep tax report on Carbon Dioxide Capture
breaks for corporations and and Storage (www.ipcc.ch/
wealthy investors reinforce the activity/srccs/index.htm), which
business-as-usual investment in estimates CCS costs at between
uncompetitive, heavily subsidized 1 and 5 cents per kilowatt-hour,
smokestack industries, then other- Wind is a cost-effective electricity generation strategy that reduces depending on a number of
wise stellar options like end-use carbon dioxide emissions economically. key variables.

16 www.solartoday.org SOLAR TODAY

Wind Wins
Add a couple of cents per kilowatt-hour
for transmission and distribution, putting
the delivered cost of coal plus CCS and
nuclear at 9 to 13 cents per kilowatt-hour,
and two things become obvious. First, a
greatly increased pool of end-use efficien-
cy, CHP and on-site solar becomes eco-
nomically preferable, and second, given its
attractive economics, the expansion of
wind power merits a high priority.
Scaling up wind 20 times today’s 10
GW by 2020 and twice that by 2030 will
require substantial research, development,
demonstration and commercialization,
combined with stable, long-term incen-
tives. Coal and nuclear advocates respond
sarcastically to these rapid growth rates.
Yet it should be obvious that scaling up
any future energy option, including coal
plus CCS or next-generation nuclear reac-
tors, will require exactly the same “big
game change” kinds of extraordinary pol-
icy commitments.
Yet federal policymakers continue to
ignore this fundamental point. Hence, we
get business-as-usual research and develop-
ment (R&D) budgets, subsidies and policies
for coal, coal-to-liquids, oil shale, tar sands
and nuclear power, while hamstringing
September/October 2007
R&D for advancing wind and solar and sun-
setting PTCs in ever-shorter timespans.
The Senate’s rejection of the renew-
able portfolio standards (RPS) legislation
in June is a case in point. Too many sen-
ators simply ignored industry analyses,
such as Wood Mackenzie’s (http://public
utilities.utah.gov/archive/federalrenew
ableenergyportfoliostandard.pdf), show-
ing $240 billion gross consumer savings
from a 15 percent RPS by 2020, while
increasing renewable capacity 500 per-
cent beyond 2006.
But Coal Still Rules
Meanwhile, senior members of Con-
gress are grandstanding for large-scale
expansion of coal-to-liquids (www.future
coalfuels.org/documents/bunning_
bill.pdf), calling for 25-year Pentagon fuel-
procurement contracts, guaranteed loans
and tax credits. In addition, a mania is
being mounted to accelerate CCS, without
any sort of mandated comparison with
lower-cost, lower-risk options.
Even CCS proponents like the authors
of the MIT report highlight major CCS
challenges. The nearly 4 billion tons of
carbon dioxide per year (tCO2/yr) from
600 GW of U.S. coal plants will require
injecting 50 million barrels per day
(bbl/day) of superfluid CO2. This is a vol-
ume equivalent to total current U.S. oil
consumption. Each 1-GW coal plant emits
6 million tCO2/yr, requiring CCS injec-
tion of 100,000 bbl/day. By contrast, the
biggest injection operation today is 40,000
bbl/day and 3,000 bbl/day is the average.
CCS is projected to cost $40 per ton of
CO2, prior to transport and injection/stor-
age, which adds an additional cost of
$1.50 (low) to $11.50 (high) t/CO2. Of
most immediate concern, CCS is not yet
ready for prime time. The MIT study rec-
ommends demonstrations injecting 1 mil-
lion tCO2/yr for five years, with 10 CCS
demonstration projects, each at a cost of
$15 million per year for 10 years. Mean-
while, wind power achieves CO2 reduc-
tions at $6 per tCO2 now, and end-use
efficiency efforts are reducing CO2 while
saving money.
Maybe it’s time to define real home-
land security. ●
Michael Totten, the senior director of
Climate, Water and Ecosystem Services at
Conservation International, resides in
Denver and works in China. Contact him at
m.totten@conservation.org.
17