World on the Edge by Brown Lester R

Author:Brown, Lester R. [Brown, Lester R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi

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Data, endnotes, and additional resources can be found on Earth Policy’s Web site, at www.earth-policy.org.

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9

Harnessing Wind, Solar, and Geothermal Energy

As fossil fuel prices rise, as oil insecurity deepens, and as concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new world energy economy is emerging. The old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced with an economy powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. Despite the global economic crisis, this energy transition is moving at a pace and on a scale that we could not have imagined even two years ago.

The transition is well under way in the United States, where both oil and coal consumption have recently peaked. Oil consumption fell 8 percent between 2007 and 2010 and will likely continue falling over the longer term. During the same period, coal use also dropped 8 percent as a powerful grassroots anti-coal movement brought the licensing of new coal plants to a near standstill and began to work on closing existing ones.

While U.S. coal use was falling, some 300 wind farms with a generating capacity of 21,000 megawatts came online. Geothermal generating capacity, which had been stagnant for 20 years, came alive. In mid-2010, the U.S.-based Geothermal Energy Association announced that 152 new geothermal power plants were being developed, enough to triple U.S. geothermal generating capacity. On the solar front, solar cell installations are doubling every two years. The dozens of U.S. solar thermal power plants in the works could collectively add some 9,900 megawatts of generating capacity.

This chapter lays out the worldwide Plan B goals for developing renewable sources of energy by 2020. The goal of cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020 is based on what we think is needed to avoid civilization-threatening climate change. This is not Plan A, business as usual. This is Plan B—a wartime mobilization, an all-out effort to restructure the world energy economy.

To reach the Plan B goal, we replace all coal-and oil-fired electricity generation with that from renewable sources. Whereas the twentieth century was marked by the globalization of the world energy economy as countries everywhere turned to oil, much of it coming from the Middle East, this century will see the localization of energy production as the world turns to wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

The Plan B energy economy, which will be powered largely by electricity, does not rely on a buildup in nuclear power. If we used full-cost pricing—insisting that utilities pay for disposing of nuclear waste, decommissioning worn-out plants, and insuring reactors against possible accidents and terrorist attacks—no one would build a nuclear plant. They are simply not economical. Plan B also excludes the oft-discussed option of capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants. Given the costs and the lack of investor interest within the coal community itself, this technology is not likely to be economically viable by 2020, if ever.

Instead, wind is the centerpiece of the Plan B energy economy. It is abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales up easily and can be developed quickly.

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