The Loma Prietan
May/June 2001
Power Crisis Could Turn the Tide for Alternative Energy
by Kurt Newick and Dale F. Mead
Stage 3 power alerts.... rolling blackouts.... wholesale electricity price spikes. They’ve dominated the headlines for months and are forecast to get worse. Suddenly, our State’s blissful blind faith in cheap, abundant energy has been exploded. Some environmentalists have lobbied for years to end hidden subsidies that keep power prices artificially low, feeding our long-standing perception of
energy as inherently affordable and limitless.
Energy interests pried the government’s hands off the controls, and now we’re paying the price. Certainly, the current situation is forcing consumers to conserve in the short term; the question is: What will our long-term response be? Will the energy crunch encourage our elected representatives to weaken clean air regulations, allowing for hastily built, high-polluting power plants? Or, will we use this “opportunity” to increase power production in a sustainable, clean manner?
The clamor is all about costs to the consumer and to the State, but the implications are more far-reaching. This may well be the pivotal set of circumstances that pushes our society to embrace smarter solutions. Most of our electricity supply comes from pollution-emitting sources (fossil fuels and nuclear). This crisis, however, could give a boost to proven technologies that dramatically reduce the environmental costs of electricity production.
How we got here
So why is the price of electricity rising so much? First, a botched, deregulated market for wholesale electricity allowed wholesalers to charge many times the cost of power generation—in other words, price gouging. In response, state legislators have been attempting to lock in long term contracts to reduce the spot market bidding that drives wholesales prices sky high. Nonetheless, in the immediate future, consumers are likely to pay higher electricity prices.
Second, older, beleaguered power plants were taken off line last winter for preventive maintenance to prepare them for peak summer demand. The effect was to create less-than-adequate winter supplies.
Until recently, power was a cheap commodity that had been taken for granted. Even if the price of electricity doubles or triples, we still depend on power for refrigerators, stoves, computers and televisions. Recently deregulated, profit-hungry energy companies know they can charge what the traffic will bear.
Most of us are already familiar with the consequences of global warming. We know that tampering with the climate may be
devastating in both economic and environmental terms. Common sense tells us that the risks of continued atmospheric contamination are intolerable. But those citizens who wouldn’t change their lifestyle for such
abstract goals and values will do so when the cost of living becomes intolerable.
“Green building”
We are more adaptable and independent than the power sellers (electrical and legislative) give us credit. California is poised for a power transformation. The Sierra Club backs a two-pronged answer: (1) energy efficiency and conservation, and (2) the promotion of renewable energy resources.
To achieve energy efficiency, we can apply green principles to buildings (electrical
energy savings within buildings are aptly dubbed “negawatts”). For example, buildings can be designed to capture more natural daylight, which increases worker productivity while reducing energy-intensive artificial lighting and heating. Companies paying for construction now have a financial incentive to invest in such “green building” techniques.
Renewable energy
Likewise, the cost-effectiveness of using renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, has been improving over the past two decades. Ironically, higher electricity prices are a boon for these technologies, as this allows them to be more cost competitive relative to traditional fossil fuel power sources. Their major drawback, inconsistent availability, can be offset with modernized natural gas power plants.
Most new power plants proposed for construction in California are natural gas-fired facilities. Renewable energy, however, is the real long-term solution to the energy supply problem. Sunny roofs are ripe for photo-
voltaic (PV) systems that create electricity during the day, when peak demand strains the power grid. Until now, the economic payback for a PV system has taken about 25 years; but with the price of electricity increasing, the return on investment will be far faster.
Solar power is particularly appropriate for buildings in sunny locations. It is clean and silent, with essentially no transmission losses. Grid-based systems can export any extra electricity to the nearest neighbor. The net metering laws just passed require utilities to credit utility bills for customers with grid-connected PV
systems using the retail price of electricity.
For a homeowner or business, a PV
system is a virtual declaration of independence from price-hiking power companies. Environmentally aware residents who install PV systems are taking an important and powerful environmental step to help solve our power supply woes.
Wind power (which accounts for less than two percent of California’s energy mix) already is cost competitive on pure economic terms in certain regions. It has disadvantages, however, that PV systems do not, such as the amount of land required and the long transmissions lines needed to move the electricity to market.
Solar and wind power currently account for a paltry share of electricity generation in California, but the shift in conventional power prices could change that at a startling pace. And the sooner renewable energy sources and conservation become the mainstays of the power infrastructure, the better off the Earth’s climate will be.
Kurt Newick is the global warming committee chair for the Loma Prieta Chapter. He will soon be presenting a personal emissions calculator so interested environmentalists can become aware of their own CO emissions.