Renewable Energy
Contributed by Dr. Daniel M. Kammen, Class of 1935 Distinguished Chair in Energy; Director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL); Co-Director, Berkeley Institute of the Environment (BiE)
The Promise of Renewable Energy (background)
Energy is the largest industry on the planet, with sales of over three trillion dollars annually. In the U. S. alone energy is a trillion dollar industry, yet at the federal level we invest less than one percent of that total in research and development. By contrast, the biomedical and information technology industries reinvest well over 10% of revenues on new innovations to advance and expand those fields.
Our inattention to energy science and policy is at odds with its importance to the global economy and environment, and makes the U. S. needlessly vulnerable to financial, political, and environmental crises. Even worse, it’s bad business and specifically bad for American business.
Wind energy is the world’s fastest growing energy source on a percentage basis, at over 30%/year growth for the past five years. While the U. S. gets less than 1% of electricity from wind, parts of Europe meet over 25% of demand with wind, peaking during some months at over 50%. Is Europe the Saudi Arabia of wind? Hardly, Germany – with three times the wind electricity production of the U. S. -- has less of a wind resource than the state of North Dakota. Globally there was over $7 billion in wind energy investment in 2003 alone, and worldwide capacity is over 31,000 MW. The north German state of Schleswig-Holstein currently meets 25% of annual electricity demand wind power, and has met over 50% of demand for selected months.
The story for solar electricity – photovoltaics -- is the similar. Globally, sales have been climbing at 25%/year for the past decade with global production of solar cells now surpassing 700 MW/year, the equivalent of a large power plant. A wealth of new technologies are now on the horizon, from thin-films that use a fraction the materials of current cells, to plastic and even organic cells that hold the potential to dramatically reduce costs per watt. What is critically needed is support for both laboratory research and outreach and dissemination efforts.
Biomass too has the potential to play a major role in a low-carbon and diverse energy economy. Liquid biofuels for transportation applications, solid and gasified fuels for power plants, and the integration of energy and agricultural crops are now all realistic near-term possibilities.
How to Help
Some examples of good non-profit organizations working to develop and disseminate renewable energy technologies:
- Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) - Focused on renewable energy and climate change policy. Contact: Daniel Lashoff
- The Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) - Focused on renewable energy technology research, policy, and dissemination of emerging technologies. Contact: Professor Daniel M, Kammen, University of California, Berkeley
- Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) - Focused on state and federal energy policy. Contact: Alan Nogee