Renewable Energy Revolution … Oh Yeah!
“During his address to Congress last week, President Barack Obama declared, ‘We will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years.’
While that statement — along with his pledge to impose a ‘cap on carbon pollution’ — drew applause, let’s slow down for a moment and get realistic about this country’s energy future….
By promising to double our supply of renewables, Mr. Obama is only trying to keep pace with his predecessor. Yes, that’s right: From 2005 to 2007, the former Texas oil man oversaw a near-doubling of the electrical output from solar and wind power. And between 2007 and 2008, output from those sources grew by another 30%.
Mr. Bush’s record aside, the key problem facing Mr. Obama, and anyone else advocating a rapid transition away from the hydrocarbons that have dominated the world’s energy mix since the dawn of the Industrial Age, .…
Let’s start by deciphering exactly what Mr. Obama includes in his definition of ‘renewable’ energy. If he’s including hydropower, which now provides about 2.4% of America’s total primary energy needs, then the president clearly has no concept of what he is promising. Hydro now provides more than 16 times as much energy as wind and solar power combined. Yet more dams are being dismantled than built. Since 1999, more than 200 dams in the U.S. have been removed.
If Mr. Obama is only counting wind power and solar power as renewables, then his promise is clearly doable. But the unfortunate truth is that even if he matches Mr. Bush’s effort by doubling wind and solar output by 2012, the contribution of those two sources to America’s overall energy needs will still be almost inconsequential.
Here’s why. The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that total solar and wind output for 2008 will likely be about 45,493,000 megawatt-hours. That sounds significant until you consider this number: 4,118,198,000 megawatt-hours. That’s the total amount of electricity generated during the rolling 12-month period that ended last November. Solar and wind, in other words, produce about 1.1% of America’s total electricity consumption….
The conversion of electricity into oil terms is straightforward: one barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of 1.64 megawatt-hours of electricity. Thus, 45,493,000 megawatt-hours divided by 1.64 megawatt-hours per barrel of oil equals 27.7 million barrels of oil equivalent from solar and wind for all of 2008.
Now divide that 27.7 million barrels by 365 days and you find that solar and wind sources are providing the equivalent of 76,000 barrels of oil per day. America’s total primary energy use is about 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Of that 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, oil itself has the biggest share — we consume about 19 million barrels per day. Natural gas is the second-biggest contributor, supplying the equivalent of 11.9 million barrels of oil, while coal provides the equivalent of 11.5 million barrels of oil per day. The balance comes from nuclear power (about 3.8 million barrels per day), and hydropower (about 1.1 million barrels), with smaller contributions coming from wind, solar, geothermal, wood waste, and other sources.
Well, that’s enough plagiarism. That comes from:
Let’s Get Real About Renewable Energy
By ROBERT BRYCE
in the Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal
Go there for the rest of Bryce’s analysis. But finish this, my own take on this, before you go.
Do you get the picture, here? There is no way in hell we are going to become energy independent (i.e. not spending a huge part of our national wealth on foreign oil) for decades to come unless we, at the very least, get hell-bent-for-leather into developing (drilling for oil, natural gas, and coal) our own existing energy resources, thereby keeping our own wealth at home and using it to develop and build these “alternative” sources over the next decades.
Change comes slowly in a nation our size. Like a huge ship, it is slow to turn, accelerate, or come to a stop. Unless we are willing to live at the level of an African village society (or Aleutian village, if you give up hoping for global warming instead of the long expected global winter) we can’t make it no matter how much we want to. You might change your life to fit a “natural” low carbon footprint, but if you have a family, it will be a lot tougher and slower. If you have a nation of 300,000,000 souls, “slow” isn’t even the word.
Maybe, to repeat myself from my previous post, we might better develop our plans and expectations around an evolution instead of revolution. Figure on a decade or two or three and let our economy recover and our scientists to get a handle on what really is going on, and technology to really come up with some tried and proven alternatives to our oil-based economy, and our folks to come up with the money to buy replacements for the 350,000,000 cars they own right now, and the land-fills and recyclers to get rid of the old cars, and the environmental lawsuits to clear the courts so we can build the new power plants and power lines we need to make the changeover.
