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If
Virginia were a country, it would rank among the
lustiest guzzlers of electricity in the world. On
average, we seven million Virginians each consumed
13,700 kilowatt hours per year of electricity in
2000.(1)
That would have ranked us as the 8th most
electricity- intensive economy in the world,
considerably ahead of the United States, which
averages around 12,250 kilowatt hours yearly -- not
to mention such advanced yet parsimonious nations as
Japan (7,400 kilowatt hours), France (7,100 kilowatt
hours) and Germany (6,200 kilowatt hours).(2)
Indeed
the citizens of our commonwealth, blessed though it
may be with a moderate climate, imbibe only slightly
less juice than the oil-rich United Arab Emirates
(14,700 kilowatt hours), which can afford the
world's most lavish air conditioning -- including an
indoor ski resort, Ski
Dubai, where temperatures amidst the desert heat
are maintained at a nippy
one to two degrees below freezing all year round!
One
reason Virginia consumes so much electricity is that
we make so little effort to conserve it. According
to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient
Economy, Virginia was one of only three states in
the U.S. in 2004 whose utilities spent nothing --
absolutely nothing -- on energy-efficiency
programs. Compare that to states like California,
which invested $380 million, and New York, which
spent $147 million.
Far
from curbing its consumption, Virginia's appetite is
likely to continue growing. The General Assembly has
approved a re-regulation bill that would make it
more remunerative for Dominion, Appalachian Power
and smaller electric utilities to build new,
large-scale electric power plants (see "Power
Politics," Feb. 5, 2007) than to invest in
conservation, energy efficiency or renewable fuels.
The
re-regulation bill actually displaces a piece of
legislation that would have mandated a Renewable
Portfolio Standard setting ambitious targets for
conservation and renewable fuels. Although the
Dominion-sponsored re-regulation initiative pays lip
service to energy efficiency, its provisions are so
watered down that they would accomplish very little,
says Diana Dascalu, staff attorney for the
Chesapeake Climate Action Network who helped draft
the RPS bill patroned by Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple,
D-Arlington.
Dascalu
says she is working with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's
office to modify the re-regulation bill. Says she: "Our
goal is to get it from an F to a C-."
At
stake is the vision for Virginia's energy future. No
one denies that a growing population will place
greater stress on the state's electric-power
infrastructure. The question is how we accommodate
that growth. Do we pursue the path favored by the
electric utilities -- building large-scale
coal-fired and nuclear facilities in isolated areas
and connecting them to population centers with giant
transmission lines? Or do we balance Big Grid with a
"small is beautiful" approach that relies
upon conservation, energy-efficiency and a multitude
of small power sources, often using renewable fuels,
located closer to the consumers?
Don't
mistake me for an Al Gore fan. I don't lose sleep
over global
warming melting the icecaps, inundating our
coastlines and resurrecting plagues like malaria,
yellow fever and scrofulous sores. All those
terrible things may conceivably happen, but I see such an
alarmist, one-sided presentation of the facts by
journalists and public policy gurus that I'm quite
certain
that there is less "consensus" about the hard science of climate change
than we're being told.
However,
I do worry about mundane but well- documented
threats like acid rain, nitrogen deposition and the release
of mercury and other toxic chemicals into the
environment, all of which result from burning coal,
as well as the piling up of spent radioactive fuel
rods from nuclear power plants. I also worry about
the unsustainable trajectory of massive countries
like India and China embarking upon the same
energy-intensive growth path as the United States. China, it is said, plans to build more than 2,000
coal-fired power plants, putting incredible price
pressure on petroleum, natural gas and coal.
Prudence dictates that we strive to reduce pollution
and insulate ourselves from the inevitable rising
cost of fossil fuels.
I'm
not convinced that the Renewable Portfolio Standard
legislation is the best way to go, but I do think
it's worth serious consideration.
The
RPS is simple in concept: Whipple's bill, SB 278,
would require Virginia's electric utilities to
derive 12 percent of their electricity from
renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro,
geothermal or biomass by 2020. It also would mandate
conservation and energy-efficiency measures
accounting for another five percent of electric
consumption by 2020.
That
would compare to goals of 7.5 percent renewables in
2020 adopted by Maryland and 11.5 percent in 2011
required by Washington, D.C., Dascalu says. At least
23 states have passed renewable portfolio standards,
and many others are debating the issue. “This
is the norm," she says. "We’re not
asking for some big, lofty environment concept.”
The
reason I'm leery of the RPS is that I don't like the
idea of arbitrary government mandates. Twelve
percent of Virginia's electric power supply
represents a whole lot of electric power. And as
much as I love the idea of renewable energy, I'm not
sure we can bring that much online except at great
expense.
Dr.
Michael Karmis, director of the Virginia Center for
Coal & Energy Research at Virginia Tech, is
skeptical, too. "We find people predicting
enormous amounts of renewables -- but the costs are
exorbitant," he says.
Of
all the renewable energy sources, hydro is the most
economical, but it's also fully exploited in
Virginia. Wind power is close
to being commercially competitive with fossil fuels,
but Virginia has limited potential. A wind farm
proposed on mountaintop ridges in Highland County
would provide about 39 megawatts of electricity,
enough to serve 39,000 homes. (That compares to a
coal-fired power plants, which are capable of
generating 1,000 megawatts or more.) But there are
only a handful of ridge-top locations worth
considering in Virginia. Virginia is well situated
to generate wind power off-shore (see "Wind
Shear," Nov. 20, 2006) but development on
the continental shelf could be at least a decade away.
"The
problem is one of cost," says Karmis. The best
wind-farm locations are remote. While the cost of
generating the electricity might be competitive, the
cost of transmitting it could be prohibitive.
"Are we in Virginia willing to pay more to have
green power?"
Daskalu
responds this way: "We're going to see
the renewables come down in price." As more countries in Europe and states in the U.S.
commit to wind, solar and biomass and as more projects
get funded, economies of scale begin to kick in.
Suppliers will have longer production runs. Innovators
will attract investment capital. Promising technologies
will be adopted more quickly. In the not-too-distant
future, renewables will be economically
competitive.
I
am even more optimistic about the potential for conservation.
Virginians could reduce their electricity
consumption significantly by installing energy-efficient
appliances, monitoring and managing heating and
air conditioning, and embracing new technologies
such as compact fluorescent light bulbs and
light-emitting diodes. The computer industry, a
major source of increased electricity consumption,
especially in the server farms of Northern Virginia,
is investing heavily in energy-efficient microchips
and other technologies to curtail the industry's
electricity consumption. The electric utility
industry itself has room to improve its efficiency;
at present, only 30 percent of the BTU content of
fossil fuels is converted into electricity.
The
problem is that power companies make money selling
electricity, not conserving it. Under Virginia's
electric re-regulation bill, the power companies
have no incentive to invest in conservation and
energy efficiency. Whipple's conservation mandate
would compel them to look for efficiencies they
would not otherwise seek.
Is
government compulsion the best way to achieve
conservationist goals? Are there no market-oriented
approaches to this dilemma? I would like to think
there are. But if there are, I haven't
encountered them yet.
Until
such time as we can devise free-market solutions to
promote conservation,
the potential savings are too enormous to ignore.
Just think, if Virginia could trim its per capita
electricity consumption to the U.S. average, we
could reduce demand by more than 10 percent. If
we could achieve French and German levels of energy
efficiency, we could
cut our electric consumption in half. If we factor
in the potential of renewable fuels, Virginia could
go decades without the need to add another power
plant or erect another high-voltage transmission
line. As a ratepayer and a friend of the
environment, I would be perfectly happy with that.
-- March
5, 2007
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