Hi, everyone. I wanted to take a few minutes here to get a few things off my chest about energy policy and about the upcoming debate on climate and energy that we are going to have this summer.
I want to start by saying that for something to happen on climate and energy this year, we as a community are going to need to fight hard. Something that concerns me, however, is that we as a community have unrealistic expectations about our energy system as a whole which, of course, is comprised of three main parts: electric power, transportation, and industry.
Now, I could talk about this stuff for hours: it's what I do everyday. But I want to keep this short and sweet and confine my advice to a few areas relating to the constraints that we face in moving towards a clean energy economy.
1. Renewables are a long term, not a short term solution. The problem that I see is that a lot of folks here don't seem to intuitively grasp how an electric power system works. In MB's diary from a few hours ago, a commenter asked a very fair question: why can't we just use building codes to force adoption of building-integrated renewables? My answer is this: while doing that isn't a crazy idea at all, it has several problems, including, but not limited to cost and the feasibility of placing both an energy storage system plus solar panels and wind turbines on every roof (both are not to scale yet, there isn't enough sun and wind everywhere to make it even a halfway decent investment, etc.). We will get there, but there will need to be several different steps taken first, including a new and sustainable business model for utilities. We need to make sure these kinds of facts are known, and we can't tell ourselves that renewables are going to replace fossil fuels in the short term, because we need more research and greater scale to bring down the cost.
2. Don't write off nuclear power or carbon capture and sequestration as important climate solutions. We have to have something to kill off inefficient old coal plants. While I know that most longtime environmentalists and others who care about all of our natural resources (not just coal and oil) think that nuclear and coal should just either be strangled to death (coal with carbon sequestration) or left to die on the vine (nuclear), if they can be designed and implemented in such a way that their levels of greenhouse gas, air and water pollution can be kept to a minimum, they can be very effective solutions to our climate crisis for one reason: they are the plants that are running all the time. Solar and wind are, by nature, intermittent, and while storage technology can make them more viable on a daily basis, we still need to use technology that works on demand and works for nearly 100% of the time at a low price. For now, that's nuclear and coal. And nuclear has ZERO greenhouse gas emissions.
3. We need to be more open to the continuing use of fossil fuels for at least 30-50 more years, if not longer. the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill, which I think will be our only shot at capping carbon for the next 5-10 years, will likely create a "clean energy standard" that gives incentives and creates a market for nukes, CCS and maybe even coal bed natural gas (ugh). If we want a cap, we will have to accept this, I predict, and after all, given how our power system currently works, it's hardly a bad thing. The other thing is, since it probably will be a 2050 standard rather than just a 2020 standard, if nukes and CCS fall apart, we will have 50% wind, solar, geothermal and biomass by 2050. A win for everyone!
4. With a carbon cap, we have to live in the real world, politically. The yet to be released Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill or the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR act are the only potential pieces of legislation that include a cap on carbon that have even a sliver of a chance of passage, the former having a much better chance than the latter. It would be great also if we could make deeper cuts in emissions, eliminate free credits and subject all carbon emissions to the same standard price signal. But it's not going to happen. That being said, either of the bills I described above would be very positive for creating a clean energy economy and avoiding some of the worst effects on climate change by getting investment money off of the sideline and into the economy
With this diary, I don't want to condescend, and I also don't want to imply that other approaches are wrong. I want environmental and climate justice as badly as anyone else. But my suggestion would be to make sure that we are considering ALL of the truly feasible options out there in the fight to reduce climate change and to use real economics and data about our energy systems when contemplating reform.
With these next few months, we have a real chance to take a big step in the right direction on an issue of unparalleled importance, just like we did with health care. I hope we all take that leap together.