By Dave Anderson:
Powerplants are long-lasting assets. Most plants are designed for fifty or one hundred year lifespans with perhaps a once in a generation long-term shut-down for maintenance. Changing the composition of newly constructed power plants locks in choices for a generation or more. Wind and other renewable power sources are constituting a growing fraction of new power generation compared to twenty years ago, or forty years ago when the choice was coal, nuclear, limited hydro (most US mega-hydro had already been tapped by then), or natural gas. Now wind is cost superior at the marginal kilowatt hour and within the ballpark of coal and natural gas when capitalization is taking into account. This means there the possibility of a structural change in US generation composition.
Reality Based Community is passing along a US EIA report on carbon dioxide emissions. The most encouraging long term trend is that the structural composition of the US power supply system is becoming less carbon intensive. Wind is becoming a bigger player and the impact of a wind farm that went into operation in 2008 will continue to be felt for another thirty to fifty years as it displaces the alternative and dirtier fossil plant emissions.
The recent national average emission rate for all electric
generation is around 601 metric tons per million kWh. Thus, increased
wind-based generation since 2000 was responsible for about 39 million
metric tons of avoided emissions in 2009 relative to electricity
supplied at the average emissions rate. Wind generation increased by
15,000 million kilowatthours in 2009 alone.
Using the same methodology, the increase in nuclear generation since
2000 would signify an additional 26 million metric tons of emissions
avoided in 2009.
And at this point, changes in incentives such as cap and trade, or a straight up carbon tax, or expedited environmental approvals or a host of other tweaks could encourage private development of an energy sector that is way less carbon intensive with minimal noticeable disruption to the end-consumer.
Outstanding post. My enthusiasm for wind and solar got a boost when I came across that line about "electricity too cheap to meter." In one of those D'oh... moments it hit me that except for heat, the only power we really need it electricity, and even heat is cheaper from the sun than other sources (double-D'oh...).
ReplyDeleteEarly into Got Sun, Go Solar my hopes for my own windmill were dashed when they said it was best to have at least an acre of land and be mounted sixty feet over the nearest elevated feature nearby (roof, tree, etc). But photo-voltaic cells are very feasible for residential use.
Meantime, I didn't know until the president's trip to Iowa that twenty percent of that state's electricity is from wind. (T.Boone Pickens is more than an eccentric old fart. He's really onto something with wind promotion. Too bad he pooped on himself politically with that Swift Boat mess.)