Obama’s Renewable Energy Goals, Just BAU?
February 5th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
One of the frequent (and perfectly legitimate) criticisms of both George W. Bush’s and the European Union’s very different approaches to climate policy over the past 8 years has been that despite differences in rhetoric, both approaches have allowed business as usual to continue in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.
The Obama Administration has come in to office with great expectations for accelerating the decarbonization of the U.S. economy. After taking a close look at one of President Obama’s enery commitments, Adam Zemel and Jesse Jenkins of the Breakthrough Institute (where I am a Senior Fellow) ask an uncomfortable question. Are Obama’s ambitious goals for expanding renewable energy production just business as usual presented as policy objectives? Here are Adam and Jesse writing in The Huffington Post:
Early on, before the Inauguration, Obama gave his address announcing the key components of his stimulus plan. For clean energy, the big punch line was this:
“To finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years.”
On the surface, this sounds like an ambitious and transformative goal. Doubling alternative energy production in just three years sounds like quite a feat. But, as usual, the devil is in the details, and it all depends on what Obama actually means when he says “double alternative energy production.”
What does he include in the baseline of “alternative energy production” we’re doubling from? And what kinds of “alternative energy” will be counted towards the objective? The answers to those kinds of questions can turn this transformative-sounding goal into a simple continuation of business as usual. Here’s how…
The key question is this: when Obama says “we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years,” is he really pledging double the production of non-hydropower renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power by the end of 2011? The assumption among pundits and policymakers is that this is what he has in mind.
If so, this goal is far less inspiring than the soaring vision of a transformed energy economy painted by Obama’s rhetoric. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), non-hydropower renewable energy sources (wind, geothermal, solar, biomass) accounted for 72.4 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity production in 2007, just 1.8% of the total U.S. electricity supply that year. Doubling electricity production from these sources of alternative energy means bringing non-hydro renewable energy production to 144.8 billion kWh over the next three years. That would mean that after the ambitious sounding goal of “doubling alternative energy production,” these sources would still just produce 3.6% of projected 2011 electricity generation.
For comparison, EIA’s early release of their Annual Energy Outlook 2009 predicts 150 billion kWh of non-hydro alternatives in 2011 (or about 3.7% of projected electricity supply). That’s under a business-as-usual “frozen policy” scenario (i.e. they assume no new policies that aren’t already on the books and no government spending programs that aren’t already appropriated). In other words, the EIA’s early release of its annual report on projected energy patterns and predictions estimates that non-hydro alternative energy will double … even under a relatively conservative business-as-usual scenario.
In other words, if this is how the impressive sounding goal of “doubling alternative energy” is calculated, what Obama is essentially pledging is to simply maintain business-as-usual growth in alternative energy production.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Roger: One thing I’ve noticed about this new administration is its imprecision. When Obama made this renewable pledge, an aid of his clarified later to a reporter that he was talking about doubling the combined generating capacity—not production—of wind, solar, and geothermal technologies in the power sector over three years (presumably 2009 to 2011). That changes things considerably.
I’ve taken a quick look at this goal and compared it to EIA’s AEO 2009. Assuming all the new plants are of average size, it looks like if you build wind turbines at the same pace as in 2007 (roughly 5,000 1.65 Mw turbines per year), add about 50 geothermal plants, and assume solar grows at the projected rate, you can double the total generating capacity of these technologies by 2011.
By the way, the numbers for wind and geothermal look to be well ahead of EIA’s reference case, which projects construction of fewer than 3,000 wind turbines and only about 5 geothermal plants from 2009 to 2011.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:06 am
It seems problematic to try to read too much into Obama’s statement. If “alternative energy” is taken to include hydro and/or biofuels, the goal of doubling alternative energy production in three years wouldn’t represent a continuation of business as usually, but a wildly unrealistic goal. The definition of alternative energy to include only electricity from wind, solar and geothermal was provided after the speech in response to criticism over the attainability of the goal. The comment was rendered even more meaningless when, as Saint points out, an aid indicated that “production” actually meant “generating capacity.” The difference between production and capacity is far from insignificant when talking about a set of energy sources that can have capacity factors as high as 90% (in the case of geothermal) or as low as 10-20% (in the case of photovoltaic). I think it’s best to consider the comment to be a simple screw-up, and wait for something more definitive.
February 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Imprecision is a virtue in politics.
Do we honestly expect this new administration to set policy and measure its effectiveness based upon clearly defined metrics?
Such an expectation would be hopelessly naive in my opinion.
February 6th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Saint-
Thanks for this. I understand your numbers but not your implications ??
February 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Now I see the President has said (at yesterday’s Williamsburg speech) that his plan will double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy like wind, solar, and biofuels in three years. So now it looks like biofuels are in the mix, after all. Tough keeping track of all this!
But hey, the administration is just getting on its feet. Eventually the folks at 1600 will figure out (if they haven’t already) that what the President says gets a great deal of scrutiny (all of it deserved, by the way). I think Solman is right to a point. Imprecision, while perhaps not a virtue, is nonetheless the way of the world in our most political governmental body, the legislative branch, but it is definitely not a virtue in the executive branch.
As far as the numbers, it’s hard to say what the implications are. Leave aside the latest addition of biofuels. Most of what we are talking about is wind, really, and while EIA expects a big increase in wind capacity in 2009, the numbers for 2010 and 2011 are relatively flat–not anywhere near a doubling. We also had a really good year for wind in 2008, better than I think EIA anticipated, so when the wind capacity number for 2008–presumably President Obama’s base year–is revised, it probably will be a bit higher than the estimate EIA used in its AEO 2009. The success in 2008, of course, will raise the baseline, making a doubling even more challenging. If 2009 is, as expected, a bust for wind, we’re really going to have to see a huge build out in 2010 and 2011 to come close. If you throw biofuels in the mix and who knows?
February 6th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Biofuels? I thought there was a consensus developing that it is stupid to be burning our food, for many reasons besides the obvious problems with food prices and shortages (GHGs, fertilizer pollution, deforestation, etc.). No?
The present Administration would be wise to have a big week-long retreat at some posh resort, wherein they are introduced to some physics, especially the laws of thermodynamics. They really need to understand the concept of energy density.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Jae, they also need to realize the cost of processing and emplacing a portable energy source form a source that is about 8% efficient. The ability to make a profit, even if they are given large subsidies, is severely constrained by this inefficiency. Small return/efficiency ratios can be managed in a mature market with suitable infrastructure. However, the recent event where a school bus system could not run because their bio-diesel froze (natural contaminants of the bio-processing) indicate that many of these “solutions” will have expensive solutions required in order to really work. The economic analyses that I have read, gloss over this and assume that there is typical “tooling” period where costs will be reduced by efficiencies as the market matures. This type of assumption leads to sizable underestimations of actual costs, and most important, the amount of time to get the infrastructure working dependable for a modern society. The cost of time is an important fact for individuals and corporations. The dependence on “Just in Time” manufacturing and supply to keep costs down has its associated energy use factor that does not appear to be included in the analyses that I have read. The devil is always in the details. Inefficiencies of this sort are not tolerate well by modern techologies and supply systems.