Copyright 1999 Electricity Daily
Tuesday, February 23, 1999
"Reicher: Renewables Won't Cut it for Kyoto"
by David Wojick (dwojick@shentel.net)

Non-hydro renewable energy is not expected to play a significant role in meeting Kyoto emission reduction goals. That's the message from Dan Reicher, assistant energy secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Presenting his budget request to House staff recently, Reicher said, "DOE's goal is to triple non-hydro U.S. renewable capacity to 25,000 MW by 2010." He acknowledged that since total U.S. capacity is over 750,000 MW, adding less than 2,000 MW of renewable capacity a year will not make a significant dent in fossil emissions when the Kyoto budget period starts in 2008.

Nevertheless, Reicher is requesting just over $325 million for power technology research in FY 2000, an increase of almost 20 percent over his 1999 budget. He said the focus will be on increasing photovoltaic efficiency, biomass cofiring, wind energy, and some hydropower initiatives. Reicher noted that a new category -- transmission reliability -- had been added. He told Electricity Daily that this research will focus on reducing transmission line losses.

Some staffers were openly hostile to the request, saying Reicher "had a lot of nerve coming up here" asking for a big increase with such a "trivial" return. Reicher responded that the payoff for renewables was further out, but would ultimately be large, and environmentalists seem to agree. Kevin Bell of Convergence Research says, "Non-hydro renewables are trivial at this point, and will still be trivial in 10 years at any rate of growth that passes the laugh test. Implementing any new energy technology infrastructure takes a long time, no matter how good an idea it is. Consider, for example, the 40 years and many trillions of dollars it took for commercial nuclear power to claw its way up to being slightly bigger than trivial as an energy source in the United States."

Ned Ford, Sierra Club energy maven, agrees, saying, "About ten years from now, about 3 percent of our total electric generation coming from renewable sources is about right. Ten years from now is my median point for the likely time when wind manages to become cheaper than new coal. Until then we can expect slow, steady growth along the curve that is presently being described."

Regarding Kyoto compliance, Ford argues, "Efficiency is the answer. Efficiency is not only the environmental cure, but it is also essential to preserving and expanding our economic health. The U.S. has never sustained the kind of economic burden that would be created by the inevitable need to replace the current nuclear fleet, while at the same time growing electric consumption at any of the argued current rates, assuming that replacement and new capacity was only as efficient as the current resource. I think we're smarter than that, but I don't know if we're smart enough to start planning now, before we run into the first telephone pole face first."