Here's a piece that is not directly related to electric vehicles, but does touch on the resourcefulness of the energy incumbents when faced with challengers...
Victims of Circumstance
By Charlotte LeGates
Energy.com Editor
Why don't we use more renewable energy? Don't renewables work?
Or are Americans just blind to good ideas?
As news outlets like Energy.com start receiving promotional material
for the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, those of us who remember the
first are wondering: Weren't we supposed to be driving solar cars by
now?
Then and Now
Maybe not. But we were supposed to be awash in renewables.
In the 1970s, experts predicted that by now, Americans would be
using almost 100,000 gigawatt hours of electricity generated from
solar/thermal technologies, and an equal amount from wind. Instead,
current solar/thermal generation is less than a thousand gigawatt hours, and windpower supplies
about 3,500.*
That's a big margin of error. But that doesn't mean that the technologies themselves were to blame,
say a group of researchers** from Resources for the Future (RFF), a Washington think-tank.
Achieving Goals
Writing in the journal Resources, the researchers point out that renewables technologies have
actually exceeded expectations.
Take wind, for instance. "Some early projections assumed that the exhaustion of good resource sites
would prevent costs from falling," the researchers say. "This has not occurred... the inventory of sites
identified to have strong resources has expanded and... technological advances in wind turbine
technologies have improved profitability at lower wind speeds."
In fact, wind power costs over the past 30 years have dropped from more than 50 cents per
kilowatt hour to 5.2 cents today.
That astounding improvement hasn't been mirrored by every renewable technology. But since the
1970s, the costs of solar/thermal, solar/photovoltaic, geothermal, and biomass generation have all
dropped at least as much as projected, and in many cases considerably more.
Grading on the Curve
The mistake of the 1970s, the RFF researchers point out, was in failing to foresee a drop in the
price of conventional electric generation. Fossil fuel technologies were assumed to be mature and
unlikely to improve greatly in the future.
But someone forgot to spread the word at General Electric and other turbine manufacturers. Their
engineers bypassed this supposed dead end. Instead, they made efficiency improvements in gas
combined-cycle technology that led a significant drop in the cost of generating electricity from
conventional fuels.
Renewables were projected to succeed in a world where the cost of fossil-fuel-generated electricity
was supposed to rise significantly. Instead, the RFF researchers point out, "real generation costs in
1995 were about 44 percent below what had been forecast from a 1983 base." And that difference
in the base makes renewable energy look "expensive" in comparison.
Alternatively Fueled Vehicles
A similar analysis could be made for motor fuels.
The 1970 tailpipe belched about 200 pounds of pollutants per year, and Detroit was publicly
pessimistic about prospects for reductions. In contrast, virtually everyone foresaw that gas-powered
vehicles -- using either natural gas or propane -- could achieve emission levels under ten pounds per
year.
That big differential led to government support and promotion for natural-gas vehicles (NGVs) and
other alternatively fueled cars and trucks.
The gas-powered vehicle sector more than held up its end of the bargain, achieving emissions well
below five pounds per year. But gasoline-based car manufacturers and refiners, faced with market
evaporation, suddenly "discovered" significant new emissions-reducing technologies.
Today, the difference in pounds of pollutants from comparable gasoline- and gas-powered vehicles
is in the low single digits. And given the billions of dollars in cost it would take to duplicate the
nation's gasoline infrastructure with natural gas and propane -- not to mention the advances in
gasoline-powered fuel cells -- public policy leaders are rethinking the commitment to alternative
fuels.
It's a tough break for all those who have invested in alternative energy projects. But it's a reality that
has to be faced.
* Energy Information Administration, Renewable Energy Annual 1998.
** Dallas Butraw, Joel Darnstadter, Karen Palmer, and James McVeigh, "Renewable Energy:
Winner, Loser, or Innocent Victim?" Resources, Spring 1999. |
