How Is It Possible To Meet The Rising Demand For Energy With Clean And Renewable Sources Of Power?
Updated Dec 2009
[See printable PDF of this fact sail]
Where Our Energy Comes From
The U.S. has iv.half-dozen% of the world's population, 1 but uses 25% of the earth's oil, gas and electricity. 2 Annual U.S. free energy demand is 100 quads (quadrillion btus). 3 39% of this energy use is electricity, 33% is heating fuels and 28% is the transportation sector. 4
Our electricity comes from: coal (48%), nuclear (nineteen.3%), natural gas (21%), hydroelectric (6%) and oil (1.6%). The remaining 4.one% comes from wood and waste material burning, wind, solar, geothermal, and other pocket-sized sources. v
Oil plays a very minor role in electricity production, merely is the primary fuel (96%) in the transportation sector. Fuels used for transportation and heating in the U.S. are oil (37%), natural gas (48%) and coal (vii%). Oil is used to meet 40% of our total energy utilisation (transportation, heating and electricity combined). Coal and Natural gas each provide 22.5%. 6
66% of the oil nosotros use is imported. 49% of our oil imports come from the Americas (mostly Mexico, Canada and Venezuela). 16% of our imports come up from the Persian Gulf; 18% is from Africa (by and large Nigeria). 7 97% of natural gas comes from the U.South. and Canada via pipelines, but at present that we're starting to run brusk of gas in North America, there are over 60 proposals for liquefied natural gas import terminals, which would increment our dependence on foreign sources of natural gas, just as with oil. viii
The U.South. uses twice as much energy per person as Japan and Europe – countries with high standards of living. Cutting our energy use in half would make us as energy efficient as Japan and Europe. 11 Business and industrial customers account for 63% of electric use 12 and 79% of heating fuel use, 13 then most of the demand reduction burden isn't on the residential homeowner. 14 Much can exist saved by upgrading motors and lighting. Government, industry and independent analyses accept shown that toll-effective free energy efficiency improvements could reduce electricity utilise by 27% to 75% of total national apply within 10-20 years – without impacting quality of life or manufacturing output. This has been documented past the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1993, claiming 33% over 12 years); fifteen the Electric Power Inquiry Institute (1990, claiming 27-44% over 10 years); 16 and the Rocky Mountain Plant (1990, challenge 75% over 20 years). 17 The need for heating fuels can be reduced through weatherization and geothermal heat pumps, which use the relatively constant temperature of the globe to provide heating and cooling. Geothermal can reduce energy used for heating and cooling past 30-60%. xviii In the transportation sector, overall fuel economic system for cars and calorie-free trucks in the U.Due south. marketplace reached its highest level in 1987, when manufacturers managed 22.1 mpg. The average in 2004 was 20.8 mpg. Using hybrid applied science, this average can exist doubled past 2022. The Union of Concerned Scientists calls for increasing fuel economy to 40 mpg past 2022 and 55mpg by 2025. 19 In the by 20 years, wind engineering science has come a longway. The toll has dropped dramatically and continues to driblet as more than wind turbines are mass produced. Wind is already toll-competitive with coal and natural gas in some parts of the country. Off-shore wind energy also has great potential. A 2005 Section of Free energy report shows that almost 70% of U.S. electricity use can be met with off-shore wind-power within l miles of the U.Southward. coastline. 22 In 2005, researchers at Stanford University published a study showing that there is plenty wind power bachelor on each continent to see ane and a half times the entire world'southward energy needs. 23 Many have expressed concern about bird kills from current of air turbines. Wind turbines impale an boilerplate of about two birds per turbine per yr. To put this in perspective, the U.S. could get half its electricity from wind power and the bird fatalities would be less than 1% of the number of birds housecats kill each yr. 24 At sites in PA and WV, however, large numbers of bats have been killed by wind turbines. The manufacture is working to effigy out how to prevent this. When near people call up of solar power, they think of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, which produce electricity from sunlight. The Section of Free energy estimates that a distributed solar system sufficient to encounter the unabridged U.S. electricity need would require an boilerplate of 17 square miles of PV per country. 28 Using vacant land, parking lots and rooftops would provide enough land for this. Using just the estimated five one thousand thousand acres of abandoned industrial "brownfields" sites in our nation's cities could supply 90% of America'south current electric demand. 29 PV is still quite costly, but costs are dropping chop-chop Hydrogen is no alternative fuel, since it'due south not an energy source, but an energy carrier. It makes no sense to convert electricity to hydrogen simply to turn information technology dorsum into electricity in fuel cell vehicles. 37 Free energy tin exist saved – and a complex and expensive hydrogen fueling infrastructure can be avoided – past using electricity directly with plug-in hybrid electric cars. 38 The use of combustible fuels in transportation can be eliminated with the apply of electrical cars (and plug-in hybrids in nigh term), using wind-powered electricity, at a cost less than $one/gallon gasoline equivalent. For the next x-20 years, money for "alternative" fuels should instead be focused on conservation and efficiency tactics, including hybrids and public transit improvements. Ultimately, cars should be run on clean electricity, avoiding all forms of combustion.Plans for More Dirty Energy
As of November 2007, there are plans for 120 new coalfired power plants in the U.S., at to the lowest degree 25 new nuclear reactors, two new oil refineries, 190 new ethanol biorefineries (most of which would be powered by mini-coal ability plants), dozens of biomass incinerators, and effectually a dozen coal-to-oil refineries. All of these would cause serious damage to the environment. Grassroots community groups are rising up to fight off many of these proposals. Previous waves of dirty energy development take been stopped by grassroots activism, including threescore-90% of the nuclear reactors, trash incinerators and natural gas power plants planned since the 1970s. The Good News: Nosotros Don't Need Muddied Energy
A combination of conservation, efficiency, wind and solar can run into 100% of our free energy needs. It'southward technically and economically possible to exercise this and it tin can probably be done within 20 years. Co-ordinate to a January 2006 analysis past the Section of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the entire U.S. electricity demand could technically exist met by renewable energy resources by 2022 and longer term, the potential of domestic renewable resources is huge – more than 85 times electric current U.S. free energy employ. Solar lone tin can provide 55 times our current energy use. Wind can provide 6 times our current free energy utilize. 9 Conservation and Efficiency
Currently our energy demand creeps up 1-two% each year. x This trend tin be reversed. Conservation and efficiency have huge potential to reduce demand. Air current Power
Since 1993, the Department of Free energy has published information showing that wind power tin can provide more than power than the entire nation's electricity needs. twenty The plains states have been chosen the Kingdom of saudi arabia of wind. Due north and South Dakota alone have enough air current energy from its highest wind speed sites to supply over half of the nation's electricity needs. 21 Solar Power
Solar can exist used in many ways. Passive solar can exist used by designing new homes and buildings to take advantage of natural sunlight. Energy used to heat water tin can be reduced through solar hot water heating. Solar thermal technologies can be used to concentrate sunlight to heat h2o and make electricity. Carbon taxes could potentially make it toll constructive to use concentrated solar for free energy intensive industries like cement manufacturing so that they don't need to burn coal or wastes. 25 Commercial-scale concentrating solar power facilities are becoming economically competitive; facilities over x megawatts are coming in at 11 cents/kwh, and is projected to go down to less than 6 cents, 26 making information technology cheaper than current residential and commercial electricity rates. 27
equally demand increases, largely thank you to state-based
renewable energy incentives, similar those in NJ and CA.What Nearly When the Air current Isn't Bravado...
What about when the air current isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining? A 2005 study by the International Energy Agency found that wind power, spread across a wide enough area, connected to the regional electric grids, can provide stable, predictable amounts of electricity. 30 Also, off-shore air current power is more regularly available and can provide the regular "baseload" sort of power that fossil fuels and nuclear power are used for. Every bit we approach high percentages of electricity produced from current of air and solar, energy storage methods will become necessary. Hydrogen for Energy Storage
When there is excess wind and solar power, that ability can be used to electrolyze h2o, turning it into hydrogen and oxygen. That hydrogen can be stored and when power is needed, information technology can exist used to produce electricity, while turning hydrogen back into water. Filigree-tied fuel cells make it possible to rely entirely on "intermittent" technologies similar wind and solar. Other strategies, including fly wheels, supercapacitors, 31 compressed air, or (electric) vehicle-to-filigree systems may emerge as winners one time we get to the indicate where we have to worry about over-reliance on intermittent generation sources. 32 Culling Transportation/Heating Fuels
Currently, there are many schemes for producing alternative fuels. Unfortunately, none of them are available in big enough quantities to replace oil and gas. Also, if used on a mass scale, they all involve serious environmental harms, whether nosotros're talking nearly coal-based liquid fuels, 33 ethanol, 34 biodiesel (80% is from biotech soy) 35 or waste product-based fuels. 36
Source: http://www.energyjustice.net/solutions/factsheet
Posted by: hansoneque1986.blogspot.com
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