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The Rise of Renewable Energy
The Rise of Renewable Energy
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The
Rise of
OVERVIEW
Renewable
Thanks to advanc-
es in technology,
renewable sources
could soon become
large contributors to
global energy.
To hasten the tran-
sition, the U.S. must
Energy
significantly boost
its R&D spending
on energy. Solar cells, wind turbines and biofuels are poised to become major energy sources.
The U.S. should
also levy a fee on New policies could dramatically accelerate that evolution BY DANIEL M. KAMMEN
carbon to reward
clean energy sources
over those that harm
the environment.
KENN BROWN
▼ A world of clean energy could rely on wind turbines and solar cells to generate its electricity and
biofuels derived from switchgrass and other plants to power its vehicles.
Solar cells, wind power and biofuels are rapidly gaining traction in the energy markets, but they remain marginal providers compared
with fossil-fuel sources such as coal, natural gas and oil.
Photovoltaic Production
2,000
1,500
Megawatts
1,000
J E N C H R I S T I A N S E N ; S O U R C E S : P V N E W S , B T M C O N S U L T, A W E A , E W E A , F. O . L I C H T A N D B P S TAT I S T I C A L R E V I E W O F W O R L D E N E R G Y 20 0 6 ;
500
2%
Breakdown of
0 nonhydropower
1980 1990 2000 renewables
S H A R P E L E C T R O N I C S C O R P O R A T I O N ( s o l a r a r r a y s) ; D O N R YA N A P P h o t o ( w i n d t u r b i n e s) ; D O U G W I L S O N C o r b i s ( c o r n)
Biomass Geothermal
Wind Energy Generating Capacity
60,000 Wind Solar
50,000
40,000
Megawatts
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
1980 1990 2000 THE CHALLENGE AHEAD
Suppliers of renewable energy must
Ethanol Production overcome several technological,
40 economic and political hurdles to
rival the market share of the fossil-
30 fuel providers. To compete with coal-
fired power plants, for example, the
Billion Liters
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SOLAR CONCENTRATOR
A solar-thermal array consists
of thousands of dish-shaped
solar concentrators, each
attached to a Stirling engine
that converts heat to
electricity. The mirrors in the
concentrator are positioned to
focus reflected sunlight on the
Stirling engine’s receiver.
Receiver
Stirling engine
Cold piston
Regenerator
Heater
Hot piston
Cooler Heat in
Mirrors
b
D O N F O L E Y; S O U R C E : U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F E N E R G Y
STIRLING ENGINE
A high-performance Stirling engine shuttles a working fluid, such as hydrogen gas,
d between two chambers (a). The cold chamber (blue) is separated from the hot chamber
(orange) by a regenerator that maintains the temperature difference between them.
Solar energy from the receiver heats the gas in the hot chamber, causing it to expand
and move the hot piston (b). This piston then reverses direction, pushing the heated
gas into the cold chamber (c). As the gas cools, the cold piston can easily compress it,
Heat out allowing the cycle to start anew (d). The movement of the pistons drives a turbine that
generates electricity in an alternator.
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▼
America has enormous wind
energy resources, enough to
generate as much as 11 trillion
kilowatt-hours of electricity each
year. Some of the best locations
for wind turbines are the Great
Plains states, the Great Lakes
and the mountain ridges of the
Rockies and the Appalachians.
ethanol benefit from a substantial tax credit: with the help of reduce its reliance on foreign oil, it will probably not do much
the $2-billion annual subsidy, they sold more than 16 billion to slow global warming unless the production of the biofuel
liters of ethanol in 2005 (almost 3 percent of all automobile becomes cleaner.
fuel by volume), and production is expected to rise 50 percent But the calculations change substantially when the ethanol
by 2007. Some policymakers have questioned the wisdom of is made from cellulosic sources: woody plants such as switch-
the subsidy, pointing to studies showing that it takes more grass or poplar. Whereas most makers of corn-based ethanol
energy to harvest the corn and refine the ethanol than the fuel burn fossil fuels to provide the heat for fermentation, the pro-
can deliver to combustion engines. In a recent analysis, ducers of cellulosic ethanol burn lignin— an unfermentable
though, my colleagues and I discovered that some of these part of the organic material— to heat the plant sugars. Burning
studies did not properly account for the lignin does not add any greenhouse gas-
energy content of the by-products man- es to the atmosphere, because the emis-
ufactured along with the ethanol. When sions are offset by the carbon dioxide
all the inputs and outputs were correct-
ly factored in, we found that ethanol has
16.2 billion absorbed during the growth of the plants
used to make the ethanol. As a result,
JEN CHRIS TI A NSEN; S OURCE: N ATION A L RENE WA BLE ENERG Y L A BOR ATORY
a positive net energy of almost five Liters of ethanol substituting cellulosic ethanol for gaso-
megajoules per liter. produced in the U.S. line can slash greenhouse gas emissions
We also found, however, that etha- by 90 percent or more.
nol’s impact on greenhouse gas emis-
in 2005 Another promising biofuel is so-
sions is more ambiguous. Our best esti- called green diesel. Researchers have
mates indicate that substituting corn- 2.8 percent produced this fuel by first gasifying bio-
based ethanol for gasoline reduces Ethanol’s share mass — heating organic materials
greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent, enough that they release hydrogen and
but the analysis is hampered by large
of all automobile fuel carbon monoxide— and then converting
uncertainties regarding certain agricul- by volume these compounds into long-chain hy-
tural practices, particularly the environ- drocarbons using the Fischer-Tropsch
mental costs of fertilizers. If we use dif-
ferent assumptions about these practic-
es, the results of switching to ethanol
$2 billion
Annual subsidy for
process. (During World War II, Ger-
man engineers employed these chemical
reactions to make synthetic motor fuels
range from a 36 percent drop in emis- out of coal.) The result would be an eco-
sions to a 29 percent increase. Although corn-based ethanol nomically competitive liquid fuel for
corn-based ethanol may help the U.S. motor vehicles that would add virtually
no greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Oil giant Royal Even President George W. Bush said, in his now famous
Dutch/Shell is currently investigating the technology. State of the Union address this past January, that the U.S. is
“addicted to oil.” And although Bush did not make the link
The Need for R&D to global warming, nearly all scientists agree that humanity’s
e ac h of t h e se renewable sources is now at or near a tip- addiction to fossil fuels is disrupting the earth’s climate. The
ping point, the crucial stage when investment and innovation, time for action is now, and at last the tools exist to alter en-
as well as market access, could enable these attractive but ergy production and consumption in ways that simultane-
generally marginal providers to become major contributors ously benefit the economy and the environment. Over the past
to regional and global energy supplies. At the same time, ag- 25 years, however, the public and private funding of research
gressive policies designed to open markets for renewables are and development in the energy sector has withered. Between
taking hold at city, state and federal levels around the world. 1980 and 2005 the fraction of all U.S. R&D spending de-
Governments have adopted these policies for a wide variety voted to energy declined from 10 to 2 percent. Annual public
of reasons: to promote market diversity or energy security, to R&D funding for energy sank from $8 billion to $3 billion
bolster industries and jobs, and to protect the environment on (in 2002 dollars); private R&D plummeted from $4 billion to
both the local and global scales. In the U.S. more than 20 $1 billion [see box on next page].
states have adopted standards setting a minimum for the frac- To put these declines in perspective, consider that in the
tion of electricity that must be supplied with renewable sourc- early 1980s energy companies were investing more in R&D
es. Germany plans to generate 20 percent of its electricity than were drug companies, whereas today investment by en-
HYMOTION
from renewables by 2020, and Sweden intends to give up fos- ergy firms is an order of magnitude lower. Total private R&D
sil fuels entirely. funding for the entire energy sector is less than that of a single
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J E N C H R I S T I A N S E N ; S O U R C E : R E V E R S I N G T H E I N C R E D I B L E S H R I N K I N G E N E R G Y R & D B U D G E T; D . M . K A M M E N A N D G . N E M E T I N I S S U E S I N S C I E N C E A N D T E C H N O L O G Y, F A L L 2 0 0 5
patent activity suggest that the drop in funding has slowed comparable to those that occurred during previous federal
the development of renewable energy technologies. For R&D initiatives such as the Manhattan Project and the Apol-
example, the number of successful patent applications in
lo program, each of which produced demonstrable economic
photovoltaics and wind power has plummeted as R&D
benefits in addition to meeting its objectives. American en-
spending in these fields has declined.
ergy companies could also boost their R&D spending by a
factor of 10, and it would still be below the average for U.S.
industry overall. Although government funding is essential to
U.S. R&D SPENDING IN THE ENERGY SECTOR
supporting early-stage technologies, private-sector R&D is
8
the key to winnowing the best ideas and reducing the barriers
Public funds
to commercialization.
Billions of Dollars
6 Private funds
Raising R&D spending, though, is not the only way to
4 make clean energy a national priority. Educators at all grade
levels, from kindergarten to college, can stimulate public inter-
2 est and activism by teaching how energy use and production
affect the social and natural environment. Nonprofit organi-
0 zations can establish a series of contests that would reward the
1975 1985 1995 2005 fi rst company or private group to achieve a challenging and
worthwhile energy goal, such as constructing a building or
LAGGING INNOVATION IN PHOTOVOLTAICS ... appliance that can generate its own power or developing a
150
commercial vehicle that can go 200 miles on a single gallon of
300
Public R&D fuel. The contests could be modeled after the Ashoka awards
Millions of Dollars
Patents for pioneers in public policy and the Ansari X Prize for the
Patents
200 100
developers of space vehicles. Scientists and entrepreneurs
should also focus on finding clean, affordable ways to meet the
100 50 energy needs of people in the developing world. My colleagues
and I, for instance, recently detailed the environmental bene-
0 0 fits of improving cooking stoves in Africa.
1975 1985 1995 2005 But perhaps the most important step toward creating a
... AND IN WIND POWER sustainable energy economy is to institute market-based
30
160
schemes to make the prices of carbon fuels reflect their social
Public R&D
cost. The use of coal, oil and natural gas imposes a huge col-
Millions of Dollars
Patents
120 20 lective toll on society, in the form of health care expenditures
Patents
than $7 per million Btu today. consequences for the global climate.)
The price increases have been so Improving energy efficiency and
alarming that in 2003, then Federal Reserve developing renewable sources can be faster,
Board Chair Alan Greenspan warned that the U.S. cheaper and cleaner and provide more security
faced a natural gas crisis. The primary solution than developing new gas supplies. Electricity from a
proposed by the White House and some in Congress was to wind farm costs less than that produced by a natural gas
increase gas production. The 2005 Energy Policy Act included power plant if the comparison factors in the full cost of plant
large subsidies to support gas producers, increase construction and forecasted gas prices. Also, wind farms and
exploration and expand imports of liquefied natural gas solar arrays can be built more rapidly than large-scale
(LNG). These measures, however, may not enhance energy natural gas plants. Most critically, diversity of supply is
security, because most of the imported LNG would come from America’s greatest ally in maintaining a competitive and
some of the same OPEC countries that supply petroleum to innovative energy sector. Promoting renewable sources
the U.S. Furthermore, generating electricity from even the makes sense strictly on economic grounds, even before the
cleanest natural gas power plants would still emit too much environmental benefits are considered. — D.M.K.
ignated to compensate low-income families who spend a larg- turn the nation’s energy sector into something that was once
er share of their income on energy. Furthermore, the carbon deemed impossible: a vibrant, environmentally sustainable
fee could be combined with a cap-and-trade program that engine of growth.
would set limits on carbon emissions but also allow the clean-
est energy suppliers to sell permits to their dirtier competitors. MORE TO EXPLORE
The federal government has used such programs with great Reversing the Incredible Shrinking Energy R&D Budget.
success to curb other pollutants, and several northeastern D. M. Kammen and G. F. Nemet in Issues in Science and Technology,
states are already experimenting with greenhouse gas emis- pages 84–88; Fall 2005.
sions trading. Science and Engineering Research That Values the Planet.
Best of all, these steps would give energy companies an A. Jacobson and D. M. Kammen in The Bridge, Vol. 35, No. 4,
pages 11–17; Winter 2005.
enormous financial incentive to advance the development and
commercialization of renewable energy sources. In essence, Renewables 2005: Global Status Report. Renewable Energy Policy
Network for the 21st Century. Worldwatch Institute, 2005.
the U.S. has the opportunity to foster an entirely new indus-
Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals.
try. The threat of climate change can be a rallying cry for a
A. E. Farrell, R. J. Plevin, B. T. Turner, A. D. Jones, M. O’Hare
clean-technology revolution that would strengthen the coun- and D. M. Kammen in Science, Vol. 311, pages 506–508;
try’s manufacturing base, create thousands of jobs and allevi- January 27, 2006.
ate our international trade deficits — instead of importing for- All these papers are available online at
eign oil, we can export high-efficiency vehicles, appliances, http://rael.berkeley.edu/papers.html
wind turbines and photovoltaics. This transformation can
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