Low-Carbon Transition Doesn't Rely On Federal Policy – Report

What happens if Congress fails to pass a climate or energy bill in 2010? Even without a federal carbon policy, the United States could move from the business-as-usual status quo to a dramatically cleaner and healthier approach to meeting its electrical power needs, according to a new report from the nonprofit Civil Society Institute think tank.

The report was prepared by Synapse Energy Economics of Cambridge, Mass. and outlines a "Transition Scenario" that would step up energy efficiency and the use of clean, renewable energy, allowing the country to retire all coal-fired power plants, and over a quarter of existing nuclear reactors. The overall cost of the plan would involve modest near-term costs over a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, but result in savings by 2040.

In addition, many environmental and health impacts of the electric power industry would be dramatically reduced, including emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) the primary cause of global warming, emissions of from mercury, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Production of coal ash would also be eliminated, as would the damages and risks of coal mining, including mountaintop removal (MTR) mining. Further, the production of high-level radioactive waste at nuclear power plants would be reduced.

"The electric power industry in the U.S. is at a crossroads," Pam Solo, president of the Civil Society Institute, said. "There is an opportunity today to make the transition without multi-billion dollar gambles on unproven carbon capture and sequestration technology and risky nuclear loan-guarantee bailouts. What elected officials and other Americans need to understand is that, even if the climate bill falters, we can still make the move to dramatically cleaner and healthier electricity generation."

Using only existing technology and making no assumption or adjustment for the passage of federal carbon legislation and related price setting, the report develops a scenario for 2010- 2050 that would provide the following benefits.

• Aggressive investments in more efficient technologies in every sector could reduce electricity use by 15% from today’s requirements, or over 40% from a BAU scenario. Utilities in several states are already achieving savings at this level.
• The U.S. could feasibly retire the entire fleet of coal-fired plants and build no new coal-fired generation, rather than burning more coal. Tens of billions could be saved in avoided pollution control costs at the coal-fired plants retired between 2010 and 2020. At the same time, we could retire 28% of the nation’s nuclear capacity.
• Electric sector emissions of carbon dioxide fall by 82% relative to predicted 2010 levels. Emissions of SO2, NOx, and mercury fall in the BAU Case, as new emission controls are installed at coal-fired plants, but they fall much more in the Transition Scenario. Emissions of NOx fall by 60% over the study period, and emissions of SO2 fall by 97%. Electric sector mercury emissions are virtually eliminated.
• Renewable energy, including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass, would increase throughout the nation, eventually providing half of the nation’s electricity requirements. Natural gas use in the electric sector would grow more slowly than under business as usual, leaving more gas for clean cars and other uses.
• There would be modest near-term costs of the scenario, but over the long term it would cost less than a BAU energy future. The scenario would cost an estimated $10 billion per year more than the BAU in 2020, but it would save $5 billion annually by 2040 and $13 billion annually by 2050. These are direct costs only; they do not include savings resulting from reduced CO2 emissions or public health costs. (A recent National Academies study estimated the annual health impacts of power generation in the U.S. at $62 billion in 2005.) For a typical residential consumer, purchasing about 900 kWh per month, the 2020 cost increase would amount to about $2.20 per month. By 2040, the same customer would be saving about $1.50 per month and by 2050, saving nearly $4.00 per month.

The report also looks at the regional consequences of moving away from business as usual in the US electric sector. Under the report’s "Transition Scenario," the country’s massive Midwestern wind resource is tapped, and that energy is used primarily in the Midwest. The South Central wind resource is developed and used there and in the Southeast. The Northeast and California import less power from other regions than they do today, and the Northwest continues to export electricity from its low-cost renewable resources. Solar energy is developed across the country and especially in the Southwest. The country’s biomass and geothermal resources are also developed. Aggressive energy efficiency efforts allow renewable energy to be developed with much less new transmission infrastructure than some other studies have envisioned.

The Transition Scenario also projects a major drop in water use. Water consumption at coal-fired and nuclear power plants would grow by an estimated 440 billion gallons in the BAU Case, and it would fall by over 710 billion gallons in the Transition Scenario.

The BAU/Reference Case is based directly on EIA’s 2010 Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), a forecast extending out 25 years. The EIA uses the AEO as a Reference Case to evaluate various policy proposals in a similar way. The key difference is that the trends in the AEO Reference Case have been extrapolated to 2050 for this study.

The full text of the Civil Society Institute report is available at the link below.