Topsy-Turvy World in Washington

by Scott Sklar
(Published March Issue: Solar Today)

After watching pronouncements by the new Administration on energy policy, with a loud echo from Congressional leaders, I am wondering whether it's a replay of the old Saturday Night Live show "Bizarro World," where everything is backwards.

Generally, we all agree to the same facts. The U.S. is the largest energy user in the world. Our natural gas pipelines are filled to capacity, and no one expects any relief for the next five to seven years if U.S. energy use continues to grow unabated. As The Washington Post reported in a February front page article, our electricity transmission system is also approaching over capacity, primarily because of under investment by the electric utility industry in the wake of utility deregulation. And who could blame them, at a time when it was unclear who would own and control those segments of the utility business? No expert was quoted in any energy story saying that the shaky electric transmission and distribution situation would be resolved quickly.

Petroleum prices are at a ten-year high, and even if we drill in ANWR and most of our other federal lands, the amount of oil we're likely to find is such a small amount in aggregate that it would have minimal impact on world oil prices. The U.S. has topped out on oil production, which is why we subsidize our domestic oil industry to the tune of billions of dollars per year, even waiving the mandatory alternative minimum tax on this domestic industry.

Yet renewable energy and energy efficiency, which can provide short-term breathing room for our immediate energy problems, is framed as a "long-term" solution. Regulation is anathema to some in the Congressional leadership. But energy efficiency advocates have asserted that a one mile per gallon increase in the new automobile mileage standards for cars and light trucks could generate enough energy savings to offset the need to drill in ANWR, AND would outlast ANWR's potential (unproven) production for years after its wells runs dry. And don't forget that adopting a higher residential air-conditioning efficiency standard, as proposed by the outgoing Administration and accepted by the air conditioning industry, could save enough energy to avoid the construction of over 100 new electric power plants before the first drop of oil ever bubbled out of an ANWR oil well.

In spite of the near-term benefits of efficiency and renewables, the Congressional leadership seems to consider "small-time" renewables to be a political bone for them to throw to the bipartisan House and Senate Renewable Energy Caucuses. In fact, the bill proposed by the Senate leadership provides tens of billions of dollars of tax, research, development and deployment and regulatory waivers for fossil fuel and nuclear industries with very little for renewables or efficiency.

"High-value" efficiency and renewables in residential and commercial buildings would empower citizens and businesses to address rolling brownouts and energy price spikes immediately-on their own, without government or utility assistance. This prospect, however, is apparently unthinkable for the "In the Beltway" government leadership.

And distributed electricity and thermal energy generation on a larger scale from biomass, geothermal, hydropower, photovoltaics, solar thermal and wind could add or displace energy within 15 months. It takes a minimum of three years to bring a natural gas generation plant on line-and much longer for the other "short term" solutions government leaders are pushing on the American public, such as "clean" coal, nuclear power or the standard oil patch approach.

Fitting hydropower plants with newer, more efficient fish-friendly turbines, restarting the California biomass-electric plants that were closed down over the last two years, permitting new wind farms, installing concentrating solar plants and encouraging building-based solar electric, solar thermal, small wind and ground-coupled geothermal could generate or displace well over 3500 megawatts in the California region alone over the next two years. Add some high-value residential and industrial energy efficiency incentives, and another 5000 megawatts of electricity capacity is offset. Include the new natural gas systems coming on line, other distributed technologies such as microturbines and fuels cells and we have another 3500 megawatts of capacity. This capacity could easily be doubled if some of the incentives proposed by Senator Murkowski,, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Chairman, for the traditional fossil and nuclear industries were redirected towards the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.

But we are facing a natural pull by traditional energy industries for their last chance wallow in the public trough. If nuclear is so safe, why to they need Congress to extend the Price-Anderson Act to provide an insurance ceiling in case of a power plant mishap? If coal is so abundant and cheap, why do they need hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax credits and research and development funding? If fossil fuel is to be our central energy source, why do mature industries with mature technologies in mature markets need to be subsidized with billions of dollars of tax credits, environmental waivers, drilling rights and research and development?

I am counseled by many in the political "know" to resign myself to these inequities. But the fundamental question I always ask is, "How do we expect emerging renewables to ever gain market share and market strength if we constantly subsidize the older, more polluting and finite technologies by billions and billions of dollars?".

In February, Royal Dutch Shell Group CEO Jeroen van der Veer stated that 50 percent of the energy needs of industrialized countries could be met by natural gas and renewables by 2020. Clearly the technology is ready. What's lacking is the political will.

Scott Sklar is President of The Stella Group, Ltd., 733 15th Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20005, e-mail: solarsklar@aol.com, (202) 347-2214, FAX (202) 347-2215.