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« Responding to Climate Change
Excerpt from In Search of Environmental Excellence:
Moving Beyond Blame
by Bruce Piasecki and Peter Asmus
CHAPTER 3
A Global Greenhouse: Framing the Debate
Page 12 of 14
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By better coordinating its activities with Canada's B.C. Hydro — which built U.S.-financed dams under a special treaty in the 1960s — BPA has captured an additional 600 megawatts of power, some of which is now being marketed to California on an experimental basis. This is the equivalent of one nuclear reactor's worth of power, but it did not require one bucketful of cement. Furthermore, BPA has negotiated a trend-setting contract with Southern California Edison, which serves the Los Angeles basin, whereby the two parties exchange power to take advantage of each other's energy peaks and demands without contributing to "the air quality problems of Southern California or the greenhouse effect," notes BPA's deputy administrator, Jack Robertson.
"If the West Coast was better able to integrate utility systems, there could be 5,000 to 6,000 megawatts of additional power that could be achieved by squeezing the existing systems and using integration and interregional energy transfers as resources," Robertson added. Instead of building more nuclear and coal plants, we should build much less costly reinforcement of transmission links, allowing for transfers of energy back and forth. This upgrade should be part of our national energy plan.
One way to entice the entire United States to become more energy-efficient would be to establish a "golf score" for utilities. Under a system proposed by David Moskovitz, former utility commissioner of the state of Maine, a utility's score would equal the cost of serving its average residential or commercial customer. As in the game of golf — where the lower score is better — utilities would compete with one another on the basis of efficiency, not power generation. Tying profits to an index of average regional customer bills would provide incentives for supply-side efficiency improvements and would reduce pollution. Under these rewritten profit rules, utilities could increase revenues by selling energy services — such as better windows and light bulbs.
All eyes are on America to determine how far it can go with a second generation of efficiency enhancements. All told, Americans already save $150 billion per year because of reduced oil consumption fostered by improvements in cars, buildings, and manufactories since 1973. Without the first generation of these improvements, the carbon dioxide feeding global warming would be fifty percent worse. Moreover, our trade deficit would have slipped another $50 billion into the red.22
Winning the War
The Global End-Use Oriented Energy Project asserts that it is indeed possible to hold energy use constant while reducing carbon dioxide over the next fifty years, even as the world population doubles and gross world product quadruples.
Meeting these goals will require a national energy policy. Will President Bush, a former Texas oilman, take the responsible path toward national security by following the lead of such states as California or New York, or will he follow the path of least resistance and continue to blindly embrace our past mistakes?
PER CAPITA ELECTRICITY USE IN CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK,
TEXAS, AND THE UNITED STATES, 1977-1987
Average Annual
Growth Rate
(percent per year)
Source: Robert J. Mowris, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; U.S. Energy Information Agency, Electric Power Annual (1982, 1987), U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Statistical Abstract of the United States (1985, 1989).
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Footnotes
- These statistics, as well as others scattered throughout this chapter, were presented by Claudine Schneider, Republican Representative from Rhode Island, in an article entitled "Preventing Climatic Change," in the Summer 1989 edition of Issues in Science and Technology. Schneider writes: "The slow pace of climate change breeds complacency, but we must remember that the climate will also be slow to respond to after-the-fact solutions. We must begin now to adopt the good stewardship practices that will reduce the likelihood of human-induced climate disruption." She also notes: "A fifty percent cut since 1980 in the federal energy efficiency R&D budget has meant that there have been no new research projects begun this decade. These budget cuts seem particularly shortsighted in light of the spectacular success of federal energy-efficiency R&D. According to a 1987 analysis by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the $16 million that DOE spent on cooperative projects with industry to develop heat pumps, more efficient refrigerators, new ballasts to improve the efficiency of fluorescent lights, and glass coatings that control heat loss and gain through windows will help save the country billions of dollars through energy savings." [« back]
