CLEAN TECHNOLOGY:Political emphasis on renewables is leading to increased funding and an historic high point for clean energy technologies in the US, writes FRANK MCDONALD
IMAGINE SOLAR cells so thin that they could be rolled out like 35mm film and slapped onto the facades of buildings? That’s just one of the innovative ideas being developed at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.
Founded in 1974 as a federally-funded solar energy research institute, NREL has 1,900 full-time staff working on projects that will help to make the transition to a low-carbon economy. And right now, as policy analyst Ted James says, “it’s a really exciting time to be here”.
The laboratory’s funding has fluctuated over time, “reflecting national priorities and political leadership”, he explains. During the Bush era, it was largely unloved and almost forgotten. But now, because of Barack Obama’s emphasis on renewables, it’s very much back in favour. “We’re at a high point historically for clean energy technologies,” James says. “But even if [the US] Congress passes the climate bill, it’s still going to take a few years to ramp up.” In the meantime, more US companies are “positioning themselves for a low-carbon future”.
Jeffrey Logan, another senior analyst at the NREL, says energy security, the economy and the environment were the “three Es” of current US policy, bearing in mind that 60 per cent of its petroleum needs to be imported and coal fuels 50 per cent of its electricity.
“The whole energy policy of the US is tied to international oil prices. When prices are high, we take action. But when they fall, nothing much happens,” he says. Another factor was the surge in demand by China and the fear among Americans of jobs being “outsourced”.
With both nuclear and hydro power in the US “stagnant since the 1980s”, Logan says wind and solar energy was now being prioritised – especially with China now spending three times as much as the US on renewables and taking the lead in wind turbine production.
At present, wind only accounts for 2 per cent of electricity generation in the US. “A lot of the demand [for electricity] is located far from areas with the best wind resources, so we need new transmission lines,” says James, adding that it’s up to individual states to deal with that.
Colorado itself is a prime example of how states can move forward, irrespective of what happens at the federal level. Its Democrat governor, Bill Ritter, has led the drive to make the state a national and even international leader in building the “new energy economy”.
Morey Wolfson, Ritter’s chief adviser on renewable energy, noted that the former district attorney had won by a landslide in 2006 and attributed his victory – in a state that had voted for George W Bush to “connecting the dots between economy, energy and environment”.
Two years earlier, alternative energy campaigners – including Wolfson – had initiated a referendum to require utility companies in Colorado (principally Xcel Energy) to produce 10 per cent of their electricity from renewables by 2015, and this was approved by a majority of voters. Since then, the target has been increased to 30 per cent by 2020, which “makes Colorado number two in the country, after California, for its commitment to renewables or number one if you exclude large hydro,” Wolfson says. Now, even Xcel is on the renewables bandwagon.
Under Ritter’s leadership, an unprecedented agreement was reached recently to “take off-line” 900 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity by 2015. This is intended not only to boost renewables, but also to improve air quality in the Denver area which has a population of three million.
Wolfson, who is the state’s electricity transmission manager, says the four ageing coal-fired plants being phased out were going to be replaced with natural gas-fired power station. “It’s not nirvana, but gas has no sulphur and only 50 per cent of carbon emissions.
“This state has 300 days of sunshine a year, a tremendous wind resource, a great educational climate and an infrastructure of intelligence,” says Wolfson.
But Colorado is also characterised by classic North American sprawl, with the outskirts of Denver almost merging with the outskirts of Boulder, nearly 40km away. What will change this, Wolfson believes, is when petrol costs five or six dollars a gallon – at present it’s $2.75.
Ritter’s biggest coup was to get Vestas, the Danish wind power company, to establish its US manufacturing base in Colorado. Vestas is investing €775 million ($1 billion) in three plants, creating 2,500 jobs in building towers, nacelles and blades for wind turbines.
“The president signed the Recovery Bill in Denver because Colorado has gone straight up exponential growth curve on renewable energy,” says Wolfson. “If the US followed Colorado’s example, it would break this country wide open, creating huge business opportunities.”
But he concedes that major fossil fuel companies are opposing this great leap forward, “spending money to stop the changes that need to happen” – notably “cap-and-trade” legislation. This, he says, has created a “distortion and corruption of democracy” in Washington.
Nonetheless, Wolfson believes that Obama “gets it and wants to make the change”. And under Bill Ritter’s leadership Colorado, even though it’s a small state accounting for five million of the total US population of 307 million-plus, is getting on with it.
The Colorado Clean Tech Initiative meets every month, bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and companies. They include Ion Engineering which was founded by scientists at the University of Colorado and is at the coalface of carbon capture and storage technology. “Using new solutions based around ionic liquid technology, we’ve developed the most economical way for the global energy industry to remove CO2 and other contaminants from fossil fuel power plant emissions and raw natural gas,” says Ion’s chief executive Alfred “Buz” Brown.
Or take Power Tagging, which is now a leading provider of “smart grid” communications; the technology it has developed can enable smart grids to operate at a fraction of the cost of existing technologies. Irish woman Lorraine Masterson runs its outreach programme. “In the smart grid of the future, electric power will be measurable, traceable and auditable much like data on the internet today,” she says. Encrypted “power tags” that monitor production, consumption and transmission of electricity gives the grid “embedded intelligence”.
No wonder Morey Wolfson feels his dreams are finally coming true, after 40 years in the environmental movement. “When you look at different sectors of the economy, new energy is doing much better than any other sector. It’s the bright spot in the economic downturn.”
