U.S. sees more potential of wind power by 2030
Cox News Service
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Wind energy provides only a tiny fraction of the nation's electricity today, but with technology advancements the country could get 20 percent of its power from wind by 2030, the Energy Department reported Monday.
The report comes on the heels of a record-breaking year for the wind energy business — led by producers in Texas — and as the U.S. House prepares to consider extending tax credits for wind and other renewable energy companies.
In releasing the report, Energy Department officials and industry representatives acknowledged that wind power has a long way to go before it becomes a major electricity source. Today, only about 1 percent of nation's energy comes from wind power.
But wind energy also is among the fastest-growing sources of renewable energy. It also holds the most promise for offsetting high energy prices and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, officials said.
"The economics and opportunity are on our side with respect to the wind industry," Andy Karsner, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for efficiency and renewable energy, said in a news conference in Washington. Karsner is a former wind energy developer from Central Texas.
The report says that the raw materials needed for expanding wind generation are in ample supply, and the costs of integrating the extra power into the national grid are modest.
But technological hurdles exist to providing 20 percent of the nation's power by 2030. Chief among them, according to the report, is the need for intrastate electricity transmission lines that could carry electricity from, say, Texas or Tennessee to Georgia and Florida. Also needed are new regulations to make it easier to build and site windmills and better training for U.S. workers, according to the study.
Today, about 50 percent of U.S. electricity is generated with coal, while nuclear fuel and natural gas each produce about 20 percent. Raising wind's share to 20 percent could save billions of dollars, reduce emissions by 20 percent, cut natural gas use by 11 percent and create 500,000 new jobs, according to the report.
Critics cautioned that predictions are easy to make but hard to reach.
"Anything is possible, but making forecasts about the future is like throwing darts at the wall," said Jerry Taylor, senior fellow of the libertarian Cato Institute, which opposes tax credits for wind energy producers.
Taylor said that previous government forecasts predict that all renewable energy sources — including wind, solar and geothermal — are expected to produce just 6 percent of the nation's power by 2025.
"Obviously technological evolution could allow wind energy to compete with conventional energy, but we're a long way from that day right now ... and I would not make any bets" on wind energy, he said.
Clearly, though, the wind industry is on a roll. Last year, the wind energy industry accounted for 35 percent of the nation's new electricity generating capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Almost all of the rest of the new power generating capacity came from natural gas-fired power plants.
Texas recently surpassed California as the nation's No. 1 wind energy producer, and today nearly every part of the country — with the notable exception of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and other Southeastern states — gets at least some of its electricity from the wind, according to industry advocates.
"It's no longer just a niche — wind is clearly a major player in the nation's electric power industry now," said Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association.
The report released Monday doesn't address the need for government incentives like the renewable energy production tax credit that's up for debate in Congress, but officials said such tax credits would clearly help the industry grow.
Currently, wind and other renewable energy producers can get an income tax credit of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity they generate. The credit is set to expire at the end of this year.
The Senate has approved a bill that could extend it for another year. The House has yet to decide.
Bob Keefe is a correspondent for Cox Newspapers.
