SCIENTISTS' FINDINGS ON NEW ENERGY’S PROMISE, CHALLENGES

Renewable Energy Could Contribute to U.S. Electricity Needs, Yet Challenges Remain
Rebecca Alania and Luwam Yeibio, June 15, 2009 (News from the National Academies)

SUMMARY
Electricity From Renewables: Status, Prospectus and Impediments, from the America's Energy Future Panel on Electricity from Renewable Resources of the National Research Council, breaks little new ground but concludes with great scientific authority that New Energy, now only 2.5% of the power mix and long bypassed for more energy-dense sources, could meet up to 10% of U.S. electricity demand by 2020 and 20% or more by 2035.

This decisively contradicts a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA) that concluded New Energy will only meet 8% of U.S. 2030 power demand.

The National Research Council scientists explain how to get past the BAU scenario and why it is a good idea. (The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.)

They begin with an example of the scale of new manufacturing, employment, investment, and installation they are proposing: The DOE projections by which wind energy would provide 20% of U.S. electricity by 2030 included (1) the manufacture 100,000 wind turbines, (2) $100 billion of additional capital investment and transmission upgrades, and (3) employees to fill 140,000 jobs.

DOE's EIA sees New Energy advancing in the next 2 decades. (click to enlarge)

To transform New Energy’s potential into the U.S.’s dominant power generation source, major scientific advances and changes to the way the nation generates, transmits, and uses electricity will be necessary.

It must begin with increased deployment of present technologies.

Enhanced technologies to cut costs, increase efficiencies and solve the problems of large-scale and distributed electricity storage must follow.

And there must be large scale financial investment, especially in transmission. There must be development of intelligent, two-way electric grids and significantly enhanced, yet cost-effective, long-distance electricity transmission.

These things will require implementation of policies to drive increased use of New Energy including long-term and consistent policies that encourage investment, such as the investment tax credit (ITC) and the production tax credit (PTC), as well as spending for research and development (R&D) as well as policies that give developers access to capital.

DOE's EIA sees New Energy advancing in the next 2 decades. (click to enlarge)

The payoff will be in the growth of manufacturing and installation technologies, offering significant employment and economic opportunities. There will also be a huge step forward in emissions-free energy that redirects energy spending to domestic sources while minimizing the use of water and water contamination.

Problems that can be anticipated include compromises of land use and other local impacts (wind turbine noise, desert-invasion by solar power plants, some compromise of public spaces by geothermal plants and some interference with coastal activities by hydrokinetic devices). These things will become increasingly common as deployment grows.

Challenges and Opportunities Ahead:

New Energy resources are virtually untapped. Turning to them to cut energy imports and interrupt dependence on fossil fuels will require major changes but address important challenges.

New Energy sources are less concentrated than fossil fuel or nuclear power. Electricity system operators must deal with spatial and temporal constraints to integrating New Energy-generated electricity into the transmission system while ensuring reliability and stability of supply.

DOE's EIA sees New Energy advancing in the next 2 decades. (click to enlarge)

Large deployment also will result in new, potentially controversial land uses, including the siting of generation and transmission facilities.

Many types of New Energy technologies can be developed and deployed as smaller power plants over more dispersed terrain. They can also be constructed more quickly than large-scale fossil or nuclear generation, allowing a faster return on expensive capital investments.

Most importantly, New Energy reduces vulnerability to the vagaries of fossil fuel prices and eliminates their environmental impacts.

Distributed New Energy generation at or near the point of use, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) rooftop and small wind systems at residential, commercial, or industrial sites, can offer operational and economic benefits beyond the reach of traditional centralized power generation.

The America's Energy Future project overseeing this study is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, BP America, Dow Chemical Company Foundation, Fred Kavli and the Kavli Foundation, GE Energy, General Motors Corp., Intel Corp., and the W.M. Keck Foundation. Support also came from the National Academies through endowed funds created to perpetually support the work of the National Research Council

The IEA sees New Energy turning the climate change fight in the next 2 decades. There is way too much CCS and nuclear in their model, but they're right about New energy being the key. (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
Findings for three time periods (a-through 2020, b-2020 to 2035, c-beyond 2035):

(1) To 2020, there are no current technological constraints on wind, solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar power, conventional geothermal, and biopower technologies. There are current barriers: (a) cost-competitiveness of existing technologies relative to sources of electricity that do not pay for externalities (fossil fuels and nuclear power); (b) the lack of sufficient transmission to move New Energy-generated electricity, and (c) the lack of sustained policies.
(2) For 2020 to 2035, if the challenges are met, more and faster deployment could potentially result in 20%+ of domestic electricity generation by 2035.
(3) Beyond 2035, economies of scale and technological breakthroughs could make it possible for New Energy top provide more than 50% of U.S. power.

Without New Energy, fossil fuels dominate - and climate change gets out of control. (click to enlarge)

Resource Base:

(1) Solar energy, with a potential 13.9 million terawatt-hours, exceeds by several thousand-fold the present annual U.S. electricity demand of ~4,000 terawatt hours.
(2) The landbased wind resource can provide at least 10-to-20% of U.S. power needs, and in some regions much more.
(3) Other New Energies, especially biopower and hydrokinetic energies, can contribute significantly to U.S. power demand in some regions of the country.
(4) Though the U.S. New Energies are not distributed uniformly, they can provide a significant portion of domestic power needs.

Renewable Technologies:

(1) Through 2020, wind, solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar power, conventional geothermal, and biomass technologies are technically ready for accelerated deployment. (up to ~10% of electricity generation). Others (enhanced geothermal systems, hydrokinetic technologies) require further development. The costs of already-developed New Energy electricity technologies will likely be driven down by economies of scale and technological breakthroughs.
(2) 2020 to 2035: A “unified intelligent electronic control and communications system overlaid on the entire electricity delivery infrastructure” will be required to make viable the continued expansion of New Energy.
(3) 2035 and beyond: Further expansion w/advanced technologies leading to lower costs and higher performance with maturing technology and an increasing scale of deployment will make it possible for New Energy to provide more than 50% of U.S. electricity.

The resources are more than adequate. (click to enlarge)

Economics:

(1) Cost is a principal barrier, especially because New Energies create few externalities and Old Energies don’t pay for their very costly externalities. Policy incentives (tax credits, RESs, feed-in tariffs, GhG-reduction regimes) will be vital for New Energies to compete until volumes generate economies of scale and the externalities can no longer be ignored.
(2) Future costs will depend on technological progress and breakthroughs.
(3) At present, onshore wind is economically viable under present policies. is therefore expected to grow most rapidly (if recent policy initiatives are sustained).
(4) Biopower will play an important role if policies incentivizing liquid biofuels continue and the backlash against the impacts of biomass for energy on food prices does not interfere.
(5) Accurate predictions about future price are problematic. Past forecasts of New Energy market penetration and actual data show that New Energy has tended to meet forecasts of cost decreases but not deployment projections.

Environmental Impacts:

(1) New Energy has low life-cycle GhG emissions as compared to fossil-fuel-based electricity. Most emissions are in the manufacturing and deployment phases. New Energies have low-to-zero direct emissions of other regulated atmospheric pollutants (SO2, NOx, mercury).
(2) Biopower is an exception because it produces NOx emissions at levels similar to those
associated with fossil fuel power plants.
(3) New Energy technologies (except biopower, some high-temperature solar power plant technologies and some geothermal technologies) also consume significantly less water and have much smaller impacts on water quality than do nuclear, natural gas and coal.
(4) The land use of New Energies is more wide-spread but less toxic and less concentrated, allowing for dual uses. Impacts are localized while traditional generation sources pollute regionally.

With economies of scale, prices will come down. (click to enlarge)

Deployment:

(1) Policy, technology, and capital are all critical for the deployment of New Energy.
(2) These will lead to enhanced technological capabilities, adequate manufacturing capacity, predictable policy conditions, acceptable financial risks, and further access to capital, which will greatly accelerate deployment.
(3) Integration of the intermittent characteristics of wind and solar power into
the electricity system is critical for large-scale deployment of renewable electricity.
(4) Advanced storage technologies will play an important role in supporting the widespread deployment of intermittent renewable electric power above approximately 20 percent of electricity generation, although electricity storage is not necessary below 20 percent.

Scale of Deployment:

Large increases over current levels of manufacturing, employment, investment, and installation will be vital for New Energy to move from its present role to a significant and ultimately dominant power generation source. The efforts in domestically available economic benefits and reduction of externalities will make the scaling up worth the effort.

Integration of New Energy Electricity:

(1) The cost of new transmission and upgrades will be decisive factors for integrating increasing amounts of New Energy.
(2) Transmission improvements can (a) bring New Energy, (b) provide geographical diversity and (c) allow competition in wholesale electricity markets. They also (d) enhance reliability, (e) stability, and (f) security of supply. Upgrades allowing two-way electricity flow will (g) make demand response and (h) time-of-day pricing possible. Such improvements would also (i) make more efficient the integration of distributed New Energy generation (rooftop solar PV, small wind, etc.).
(3) The integration of more New Energy would also be improved by fast-responding backup generation and/or storage capacity, such as that available with natural gas or hydropower.

Shell Oil's "aggressive" scenario puts New Energy at nearly half of U.S. power generation by mid century. (click to enlarge)

Future Prospects:

(1) Presently, New Energy costs exceed fossil-based electricity generation because the latter don’t include the costs of emissions and other unpriced externalities. Market interventions or incentives are required. With sustained, consistent, long-term policies (tax credits, market incentives, streamlined permitting, RESs), essential to support significant growth, New Energy could provide up to 20% of electricity generation in the next 25 years.
(2) Technological and scientific barriers must be broken down for New Energy to generate more than 50% of U.S. power. The barriers include: (a) New transmission and system integration, (b) large scale and distributed storage and/or capacities for more and faster generation, and (c) a system wide intelligent, digitally controlled grid.

Critical Unknowns: (1) Technologies (2) Economics (3) Policy (4) Transmission (5) Transportation

New Energy growth will be faster or slower, depending on policies, technological breakthroughs and investment. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- From the report: “As a result of its study, the panel found that technologies for generation of electricity from renewable resources represent a significant opportunity with attendant challenges to provide low carbon dioxide (CO2)-emitting electricity generation from resources available domestically and to generate new economic opportunities for the United States. Sufficient domestic renewable resources exist to allow renewable electricity to play a significant role in future electricity generation and thus help confront issues related to climate change, energy security, and the escalation of energy costs.”
- From the report: “A future characterized by a large penetration of renewable electricity represents a paradigm shift from the current electricity generation, transmission, and distribution system.”
- From the report: “Wind and solar, renewable energy resources with the potential for large near-term growth in deployment, are intermittent resources that have some of their base located far from demand centers. The transformations required to incorporate a significant penetration of additional renewables include transformation in ancillary capabilities, especially the expansion of transmission and back-up power resources, and deployment of technologies that improve grid intelligence and provide greater system flexibility.”

(click to enlarge)

- From the report: “…supplying renewable resources on a scale that would make a major contribution to U.S. electricity generation would require vast investment in and deployment of manufacturing and human resources, as well as additional capital costs relative to those associated with current generating technologies that have no controls on greenhouse gas emissions. The realization of such a future would require a predictable policy environment and sufficient financial resources.”
- From the report: “…the promise of renewable resources is that they offer significant potential for low-carbon generation of electricity from domestic sources of energy that are much less vulnerable to fuel cost increases than are other electricity sources. Overall success depends on having technology, capital, and policy working together to enable renewable electricity technologies to become a major contributor to America’s energy future.”