Climate Bill Could Bring Total Energy Revolution

Related subjects: Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Economic Recovery, Energy Supply, Environment & Ecology, J.E. Robertson, Legislation, Renewable Resources, Sustainable Development, U.S. Economy, U.S. Environment, U.S. Law, U.S. Politics, U.S. news Comments (5)

2 July 2009 :: J.E. Robertson

While some industry allies claim that HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) will raise costs for energy-producers and thereby raise energy costs across the board, there are signs that technologies already being tested and implemented could benefit in such a way as to bring about a complete, economy-wide revolution in energy production, distribution and pricing. Renewable resources are now showing themselves to be far more efficient than ever previously thought, and bold initiatives are getting ready to test new limits that would allow even airplanes to be 100% fuel-free.

Economically speaking, we have to consider the big picture, whenever we hear alarmist rhetoric from fossil-fuel producers about the hit the overall economy will take if their near monopoly on power generation and fueling were broken. There is no doubt, the future looks to be a more difficult business environment for those firms, at least in the US, Europe and Japan. Even in North Africa, a new initiative backed by European capital, looks to create the largest clean energy export market ever seen, with an investment of 400 billion € in solar farms across the Sahara.

The Great Plains of the United States are known to be one of the most secure and productive wind-energy corridors in the world, if the adequate infrastructure is built. As early as 1991, then existing technology was found to permit full exploitation of just Texas, Kansas and North Dakota’s potential wind resources to power the entire US consumer electricity market. By 2003, those three states, using state of the art technology to fully exploit their wind resources, were found to be capable of producing enough energy to power the entire US market, consumer, industrial and military.

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Now, the Swiss-based firm Solar Impulse has unveiled its first prototype for a 100% solar-powered airplane. The first night flight is scheduled for 2010. Solar Impulse set out in 2003 to prove that clean ambient energy (solar, in this case) could be used to “fuel” high-energy vehicles as demanding as airplanes. Their first HB-SIA model has a wingspan of a 747 and the weight of an individual family car. The success of a project like Solar Impulse would augur a new energy age where combustion is accurately seen as the more rudimentary form of vehicle fueling and energy generation and renewables become the standard.

HR 2454 will shift tax-related and market incentives away from carbon-based fuels and toward zero-combustion renewables. Taking full advantage of the vast industrial production capacity of the United States, its deep scientific base of knowledge and the dynamic way in which wealth moves through its markets, a shift in energy priorities could permit the US to establish itself as the world’s foremost exporter of both clean energy technologies and even zero-combustion energy itself. Such a shift will require a massive investment in new energy infrastructure, but much of this will come as market priorities are redirected, by way of normal energy investment flows.

A major way in which clean energy markets emerging from this legislation could overhaul and innovate the American energy economy is tied to how individuals access and pay for electricity and/or automotive fuel. Tesla Motors recently received part of an $8 billion package from the government to help US automakers produce electric vehicles. Tesla aims to become the leader in developing a wide range of models of high-performance electric cars. Shai Agassi’s Better Place corporation is working to develop a global network of battery switch-out stations for “refilling” electric cars.

The development of advanced organic solar concentrators, a unique technology that allows transparent windows to harvest solar energy via edge-mounted micro solar cells, means the installation of solar panels could soon become an integral part of even retrofitting old structures. Individual family homes and small businesses will be much better equipped than ever to produce their own electricity and possibly break even or turn a profit selling surplus electricity back to the grid. By incentivizing the implementation of such dynamic clean energy solutions, HR 2454 could go a long way toward establishing a majority-renewable energy economy.

As noted in a recent Huffington Post article on the subject, the bill’s emissions curbing rules and efficiency standards will cost money to implement:

Investors would see a new line item on companies financial reports: the cost of carbon permits.

Some increases would be reflected in the prices of goods and services, economics say. It might mean shelling out more for a toy because plastic, a petroleum based product, is more expensive, or paying more for a house because of new efficiency requirements.

Not all the higher energy cost would show up in people’s utility bills. Households, as well as business and factories — including those, for example, making plastic for toys — could use less energy, or at least use it more efficiently. The poorest of homes could get a government check as a rebate for high energy costs. That money would come from selling pollution allowances for industry.

That last piece is the most important, in judging the economically generative capabilities of the ACES bill. Fuel efficiency requirements will lower the cost of energy consumption by lowering the amount of energy consumed. Protestations from the carbon-based energy sector will not be stopped by that fact, however, as their own higher costs, taken with lower consumption, mean their profits most likely will not rebound to the all-time record highs seen in recent years. But many environmental science advocates and economists now argue, such measures are only shifting the real costs of carbon-based fuels to those who produce and profit from them.

Those new “pressures” on the carbon-based energy sector would lead to important innovations in the overall energy economy: 1) the carbon fuels sector should see its own entry into the renewables business as not only favorable, but necessary; 2) efficiency requirements would push the wealthiest segments of the energy economy to develop the most advanced efficiency-enhancing technologies, and methods of preventing electricity “run-off” would enhance the overall electricity grid in a way that benefits renewable energy providers, including individuals.

In the interim, there may be a shift to natural gas, which burns cleaner than other carbon-based fuels. But the use of methane, which is 2o times as greenhouse-effect intensive as carbon dioxide, means natural gas is not —assuming the use of current prevailing technology— a good candidate for working within the ACES carbon emissions protocols. Development of a broader natural gas sector will also require significant improvements to carbon-capture and re-use. Scientists are now looking at innovative ways that carbon captured from fuel production or refinement could be recycled into the production of plastics and other carbon-based synthetics.

That kind of innovative molecular recycling solution could save enormous economic and environmental costs related to harvesting carbon-based fuels, further reinforcing the capacity of major markets to invest heavily in a transition to renewable resources. Each of the solutions listed above will also enable the creation of new 21st century jobs more relevant to the needs today’s economy must address and more stable in their skills set as relating to ongoing developments in the energy, chemical and broader industrial and building sectors.

• Going Deep Green: renewables to guarantee clean energy supply for export (discussion)
• Waxman Includes Titus-Giffords-Heinrich Clean Energy Amendment in H.R. 2454
• Official House Energy & Commerce Committee Summary of H.R. 2454: Climate Bill
• Climate Bill Would Achieve Far Lower Costs than Critics Projected
• 190-page White House Report Urges Immediate Climate Action (discussion)
• Transition to Renewables Cannot Wait, Devotion to Carbon Fuel is Folly
• Comprehensive US Energy Bill: Does it Do Enough? (discussion)
• Cap & Trade: Paradigm Shift or Same Ole Story?
• ‘WindCube’ Marks New Phase in Wind-power Amplification
• THE END OF AN ERA: Closing the Door on Building New Coal-fired Power Plants in America
• ‘We Cannot Rebuild this Economy on the Same Pile of Sand’
• Fmr. VP Al Gore Testifies in Hearings Related to Landmark Emissions Legislation
• EPA to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions, After Review Shows Dangers
• Obama Tasks Interior Dept. with Conservation, Energy Security, Science-based Policy
• Obama Acts to Enable Energy Innovation, Raise Emissions Standards
• Obama May Issue Executive Order to Raise Fuel Efficiency Standards
• Economic Downturn Cannot Be Allowed to Slow Shift to Green Resources
• Massive Pollution-based Weather-system Choking South & East Asia
• EPA Chief Says Congress Should Pass Laws to Mandate Emissions Reduction Regulations
• US Supreme Court Rules EPA Must Regulate Carbon Emissions, Citing Clean Air Act