Green Tech

If you think the lack of technology is the reason we don't have more wind and solar power, think again.

The National Research Council on Monday published a report that finds that renewable energy sources--wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, and biomass--could supply 10 percent of U.S. electricity supply in 2020 with existing technology. Today, renewable energies excluding hydro power are about 2.5 percent of the U.S. electricity mix.

Getting to 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2035 is possible with sustained policies and investment, it said. To achieve more than 50 percent of electricity generation from renewable sources, excluding hydro power, beyond 2035 would require new scientific advances and dramatic changes in the power-generating industry, the report concludes.

The primary barriers to deeper penetration in the near and medium term are cost, policy, and insufficient transmission lines, the report finds.

More solar power in the cards?

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

The study, called "Electricity from Renewable Resources, Status, Prospects, and Impediments," was done to inform politicians on energy policy, which is in a crucial period. The House and Senate are considering bills to mandate more renewable energy and efficiency. The House bill includes regulations to cap greenhouse gas emissions. The National Research Council is the main operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Of the technologies available, wind and solar offer the most potential in the U.S., which has good resources for both in different regions. Conventional geothermal and biomass resources are also ready for deployment. Enhanced geothermal--which involves fracturing rock underground and injecting water to heat it--and wave and tidal power are still not commercially available.

On-land wind farms could provide 10 percent to 20 percent of current electricity demand. The only technological improvements in the short term revolve around optimizing performance of components and better integrating wind into the grid.

Solar energy--both photovoltaic panels and concentrating solar power systems--"is capable, in principle, of providing enormous amounts of electricity without stress to the resource base."

To increase the penetration of renewable energy beyond 20 percent, the report says that energy storage technologies are required. Smart-grid technology to better manage the flow of energy from variable resources like the sun and wind is also necessary.

Technology, policy, capital
Costs for solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources are going down but are still more expensive than fossil fuel-derived electricity.

The report says that consistent policies, such as renewable portfolio standards, are required to attract investment in renewable energy, which should improve the technology and bring down costs. Attaching a price for releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through carbon regulations will make cleaner forms of energy generation than fossil fuels more cost-competitive, it said.

"Currently, use of renewable resources for electricity generation generally incurs higher direct costs than those currently seen for fossil-based electricity generation, whose price does not now include the costs associated with carbon emissions and other unpriced externalities. Some form of market intervention or combination of incentives is thus required to enable renewable resources to contribute substantially to the national electrical energy generation mix," according to the report.

Another key challenge related to cost is industrial scale. Without an increase in manufacturing capacity for energy products, it will be difficult for renewable energy to move beyond single-digit contributions, the study said.

For example, a Department of Energy report calculated that to increase wind power to 20 percent of U.S. electricity would require construction of 100,000 wind turbines, an additional $100 billion of capital, and 140,000 workers in manufacturing and transmission upgrades.

On an environmental level, a significant barrier to wind and solar is conflict over how land is used for power plants and new transmissions lines.

The report says that investments in research and development are needed now to improve costs and for enabling technologies, such as storage and grid management. "Overall, technological developments and consistent policy will need to be coordinated with manufacturing capacity and access to capital in order to accelerate deployment of renewable electricity."

The American Wind Energy Association is holding its annual conference in Chicago this week but many of its attendees' thoughts are in Washington, D.C.

Wind industry executives said on a media conference call on Wednesday that a national renewable electricity standard (RES) that would require power generation from wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass is necessary to significantly expand the U.S. wind industry.

On Tuesday, governors from industrial-heavy Midwestern states--Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio--and the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission spoke on another media conference call and also called for a national RES, which they said would bring several economic benefits.

(Credit: National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Wind power has grown rapidly around the world over the past four years and supplies enough electricity for 7 million average U.S. homes. But wind still contributes a tiny percentage of the total power generation in the U.S. Installed capacity of wind power, which was 8,500 megawatts last year, is expected to slow this year, in large part because of the recession.

But the bigger concern is whether the U.S. industry can dig roots in the U.S. and grow over the long term, said industry executives. The U.S. Department of Energy last year published a study that found that the U.S. could get 20 percent of its electricity from wind by 2030. That target is doable but only with a long-term policy, executives said on Wednesday.

"Investors are nervous because they have seen the stop-go nature of government policies," said retired general and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark who is now on the boards of wind energy companies and an investment bank. "We know that a RES is necessary. The question is: is it sufficient. But it's too early to say because we don't know what's in it."

Many states have renewable energy mandates, but the House and Senate are both considering bills that would establish a national standard. The House bill calls for utilities to get 6 percent of its electricity from wind, solar, biomass, or geothermal by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.

The RES would serve to bulk up demand for wind energy and lead to an influx of investment in the U.S., which would touch an entire supply chain of companies because wind turbine manufacturers and developers prefer to source components locally.

"We want to be the state that goes from the rust belt to the green belt," said Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday's panel. "We have 700 auto suppliers that could be doing wind components...We have companies making light-weight composite materials for autos--they could be doing the same in wind."

Stronger demand for wind energy would also drive technical innovation and greater efficiency in manufacturing, said Victor Abate, vice president for renewables at GE Energy on Wednesday Investments in research and development ultimately leads to lower cost of delivered electricity, added Ditlev Engel, president and CEO of Danish wind company Vestas Wind Systems, during the same panel.

"Basically nothing has been spent on R&D and yet we have been able to get to the level where we are," said Engel, adding that the lack of long-term policy has kept Vestas from making larger investments in the U.S. "The key question is how much further can we bring costs down."

Engel noted that wind is one renewable energy source that does not use water, an advantage it has over other renewable energy sources.

Feasible?
In addition to a national mandate, wind executives and government officials said that getting a substantial portion of electricity from wind will require more transmission lines and an extension to the tax credit for wind developers

"We simply cannot believe we can incrementally continue to develop new renewable energy without building up our entire grid into a strong grid," FERC Chairman Join Wellinghoff said on Tuesday.

The recovery plan passed earlier this year forestalled a dramatic slowdown in wind with loan guarantees and an extension to the tax incentives for wind farm developers. But those incentives will expire at the end of next year. "There's a lot of waiting and seeing what's going to happen," Clark said.

Detractors of renewable energy subsidies argue that these policies are only necessary because renewable energy is more expensive. Another political barrier to getting a national RES passed is that different regions of the U.S., notably the southeast U.S., do not have good wind and solar resources.

On the question of cost, Michael Polsky, CEO of wind energy developer Invenergy, said on Wednesday that installing new wind capacity is less than building a new coal or nuclear power plant. "When compared to nuclear and coal, wind is one of the least costly sources of energy especially if you consider the environmental benefits," said Polsky. "It's very, very competitive."

Natural gas power plants do deliver cheaper electricity but gas prices are lower because of the recession and are likely to go up, he said. Wind also helps achieve national goals of lowering imports of fossil fuels, lowering carbon emissions, and economic development, executives said.

Although the Southeastern United States does not have the same excellent wind resources as the Western U.S., those states can meet renewable energy targets with biomass, said Don Furman, the president of AWEA and a senior vice president at Iberdrola Renewables.

The Obama administration and Congress are determined to ratchet up the production of green energy in the United States, but that goal is being undermined by "radical environmental activism," the business community is trying to convince Washington.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday stepped up its campaign for congressional action to streamline the production of clean-energy infrastructure by launching the Web site ProjectNoProject.com.

Too many infrastructure projects, including electric transmission lines and solar farms, the chamber says, are held up by what it refers to as "green tape": lengthy permitting processes, litigation from concerned local activists and environmental groups, and other hurdles like rezoning. In many cases, the chamber says, these challenges delay projects for so long that financing dries up and the projects are abandoned.

"If we're truly going to be a green society and begin deploying these projects, we're going to have to find a way to streamline these projects into commerce," said William Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber's vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs.

Within the last 18 months, around 65 projects have been substantially delayed or killed, he said.

The new Web site gives examples of delayed projects in each state, and it gives visitors a "grassroots toolkit" to promote the site. It also provides a link to a standard letter that visitors can send to Congress members to urge them to shorten the environmental permitting process and more strictly regulate litigation against green-energy projects.

The chamber is asking Congress to set a 270-day time limit for the environmental assessments that must be completed for a stimulus-funded green-energy project to move forward. The organization would also like to see some limits on litigation against these projects, such as a time limit on legal actions or limits on the number of appeals possible. Alternatively, the chamber may ask for adjustments to the litigating process, such as taking cases directly to a court of appeals.

"We're not trying to change anyone's rights," Kovacs said. "All we're saying is there has to be an end point."

The Sierra Club and other prominent groups have adamantly opposed some projects, such as San Diego Gas & Electric's proposed Sunrise Powerlink project, a 1,000-megawatt transmission line that would transfer geothermal energy from California's Imperial Valley to the San Diego area.

"The center pin at a bowling alley isn't better positioned to do more damage at once than this reckless scheme which would string a power line over eagles, waterfalls, and history," the Sierra Club said in its April newsletter (PDF).

The energy bill proposed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is too tolerant of this kind of opposition, said Kovacs, since it has no limits on lawsuits against energy projects.

Janet Kavinoky, the chamber's director of transportation infrastructure, said the chamber's message is catching on around Capitol Hill and already has support from some members like Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) and David Vitter (R-La.).

"We have heard from members interested in finding out what projects have been stopped in their states," she said.

A fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan--or so the saying goes, according to T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oilman turned clean-energy advocate.

To provide a plan to boost the nation's use of clean energy, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Monday he will introduce major legislation this week to reform electric transmission line development. Reid made the announcement at a Washington conference where he, Pickens, former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and others met to discuss guiding principles to reform the United States' energy policy. The forum was titled the "National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy."

The Obama administration has said it would like 25 percent of the nation's energy to come from renewable sources by 2025, and the billions of dollars provided in the recently signed stimulus package offer the means to get there, Reid said. His bill, he said, will provide more guidance for that funding to be used appropriately.

The deployment of renewable energy across the country has faced setbacks because of the challenges facing the construction of electric transmission lines, such as who will fund them and where to site the lines. The bill aims to give the federal government more authority over those questions.

It's a proposal that has been met with some resistance, Reid said at the conference, hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

"If this is going to succeed, we're going to have to accept that's how we've always done things," he said, citing the federal government's central role in developing railroads and a national highway system. "Everyone should get off the kick this program won't work if the government's involved in it."

The legislation will call for the president to designate renewable energy zones with significant clean-energy-generating potential. Once that occurs, the bill will call for massive planning efforts to site transmission lines around those zones--a process that the federal government will take over if it stalls.

By coordinating the movement of spinning balls, start-up Fallbrook Technologies says it has made a more efficient transmission system suitable for a wide range of mechanical devices.

The San Diego, Calif., company on Monday said that it has raised $25.4 million in a round of funding led by venture capital firm NGEN and the investment arm of Dutch bank Rabobank to expand production of its transmission.

(Credit: FallBrook Technologies)

Rather than use gears, Fallbrook's NuVinci transmission relies mainly on a series of balls, which rotate and tilt, to transfer mechanical power. There are other "continuously variable planetary" drive technologies, but NuVinci can be made relatively inexpensively because it's easy to manufacture, said the company's CEO William Klehm.

The auto and transportation area is seeing more venture capital money flow into it, as start-ups look for more fuel-efficient technologies.

At the end of last year, Fallbrook began to supply a transmission for electric bicycles. Klehm intends to find partners in other industries, including light electric vehicles and wind turbines.

"This is a very basic device, but it has the potential to have an immediate impact on improving the efficiency of hundreds of devices out there," he said.