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Clean Energy: The Next High Tech Revolution
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GREEN ENERGY CORNERThis new feature of climate.org will seek 1) to identify options for large-scale near and medium term greenhouse reductions at little or no cost 2) to highlight the potential of new energy technologies such as ocean energy and hydrogen to play a large role in enabling humanity ultimately to stabilize greenhouse concentrations and 3) to explore trends in non-carbon energy development in countries outside the US. Some greenhouse emission reductions can be achieved at no net cost to the economy, although they may require initial capital outlays. One of these is the creation of a smart electric power grid. One of our first postings is a remarkable analysis by Olympia, Washington-based Climate Solutions http://www.climatesolutions.org/ of the potential for the US Pacific Northwest to boost its economy and cut greenhouse emissions by constructing a smart electric power grid. This would, the author Patrick Mazza contends, provide a great boost to the Pacific Northwest Economy. Ultimately most of the proposals Mazza advances could be implemented in other regions of the United States, in Canada and in many other nations. Building on some ties established at the April 2000 Seattle Summit on Climate Protection, Climate Solutions is working closely with clean energy groups in British Columbia, Canada. The electric power sector is becoming more transnational so some of these smart grid strategies can be implemented across national boundaries within North America and Europe and ultimately in other continents. "Globalization" has become a pejorative in some environmental discussions but the rapid extension of a smart grid is something that would seem to offer huge economic and environmental benefits to all concerned. Cogeneration or Generation of Electricity from Waste Heat is already responsible for about half of the electricity in Denmark and a very large proportion as well in the Netherlands and Finland. In the US it provides less than 10%. Large-scale greenhouse emission reductions and multi-billion dollar savings to consumers and industry may be available, energy pioneer Tom Casten has argued, by changing or striking down legal restrictions at the State Level on use of Combined Heat and Power. In some cases this might entail federal preemption of anticompetitive state laws restricting cogeneration. In coming weeks Green Energy Corner will explore some of these opportunities. Striking down of such restrictions might provide the US sizable greenhouse reductions and a simultaneous boost to the economy. Stabilization of the global concentration of greenhouse gases is likely to require emergence of some new non-carbon or very low carbon energy systems. This column highlights a recent Seminar of the DC Bar Association on Ocean Energy, particularly a remarkable speech by Mark Spalding, President of The Ocean Foundation. In coming months Green Energy Corner will explore such issues as strategies for a clean hydrogen economy- one in which hydrogen is produced with minimal use of fossil fuel and for movement to wide-scale use of plug-in hybrids. This portion of climate.org also will highlight interesting trends in countries outside the US in development of non-carbon based energy. An article by Mariam Ubilava, a Graduate Student from the Republic of Georgia at Evergreen State College describes trends in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia in non-carbon energy in the wake of Kyoto. A water resource expert who interned at the Climate Institute in the Summer of 2006, Mariam Ubilava describes trends in renewable energy, particularly hydropower, wind and solar, and in nuclear power generation. In coming weeks Green Energy Corner will highlight the emerging leadership of Iceland in catalyzing green energy development in China, Africa and perhaps India as well.
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