Solution to our latest energy crisis

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SOLUTION TO OUR LATEST ENERGY CRISIS

By Thomas R. Kuhn. Thomas R. Kuhn is president of the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based trade association. October 27, 2000

Soaring gasoline prices at the pump, natural gas prices rising with winter approaching, electricity customers burning utility bills in California--feel like you've seen this movie before? Some say these shocks may add up to an energy crisis that rivals those of 1991, 1978 and 1973.

Once again, surging oil prices get top billing, but there's an additional story line this time. The cost of natural gas has doubled this year and newly deregulated electricity markets in California and New York have suffered supply shortages and sharp price volatility. If it's not yet a crisis, it's certainly a problem.

The solution? We need a national energy policy that capitalizes on all the natural resources that are abundant in the U.S.

As winter approaches, it shouldn't be hard to gas up the car, stay warm and keep the lights on in a country that has many different energy options. But the costs of key energy sources are likely to be sharply higher, in part because we haven't yet taken a broad-based approach to using all our resources.

Part of the perceived energy crisis is the price of electricity, which is high now in some parts of California and New York because of a rough transition to a deregulated market. Electricity runs most appliances and is also a heating source. But electricity is not, itself, a fuel.

The U.S. now uses a mixture of energy sources to generate electricity. For example, about 56 percent of the nation's electricity supply is generated from coal. Natural gas provides about 10 percent. Nuclear fuel produces almost 22 percent of the supply. Hydropower provides 9 percent of the electricity supply. Fuel oil provides nearly 3 percent. The remainder, nearly 1 percent, comes from wind energy, solar power and geothermal energy.

Sounds like a good mix of fuel sources, right? Yes, but nearly every fuel that's burned or consumed to provide electricity is under some kind of pressure or opposition right now. Many in the environmental community, perceiving coal as a "dirty" fuel, want to eradicate coal-fired electric generation. Natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, is the most popular--but its price has doubled during the past year, and meeting the growing demand for natural gas in the coming years will be difficult.

For years, hydroelectric dams were viewed as a cheap, emission-free and inexhaustible source of electricity. Today, the federal relicensing of many dams is snarled in litigation and red tape by groups that say dams are harmful to some kinds of fish. Nuclear power? With sustained opposition for decades, there hasn't been a nuclear plant built since the early 1980s, even though nuclear power, like hydro, produces no air emissions.

Electricity from harnessing the sun, the wind and earth's crust (geothermal power) is attractive and growing, but the technology, still imperfect and costly, cannot yet be used on a scale large enough to replace other fuels.

Moreover, many public policies--coupled with consumer apathy or opposition--have thwarted a coherent energy strategy that would foster U.S. energy security. There is a fundamental irony at work. For example, we need more electricity to power the growing economy. Yet, complex permitting and siting rules make it difficult to build new power plants. Consumers demand reliable electricity that must be carried across high-voltage transmission lines, but adamantly refuse to allow new lines or power plants to be built near their neighborhoods.

Similarly, some rich reserves of natural gas can't be tapped because of federal rules that bar industry from exploring for and producing more natural gas, while complex rules make it difficult to move gas to market. Coal is under even more pressure, even though key emissions from burning coal--nitrogen oxide and and sulfur dioxide--are being reduced significantly and new, clean-coal technologies are being developed. Still, efforts from many quarters seek to undermine its use as a generating fuel in power plants.

Even more vexing has been the erratic nature of energy policy over the years. For example, back during the Carter administration in the late 1970s, Congress passed a law banning construction of new power plants using natural gas as a boiler fuel in favor of coal. Today, public policies are tilting heavily in the opposite direction and natural gas is now the fuel of choice.

That flip-flop illustrates the folly of trying to put all of our energy eggs into a single basket by favoring just one fuel source, however attractive that source may appear to be at this time. The key to U.S. energy stability is to resist fashionable trends by harnessing the full range of domestically available fuel choices, including those that are currently unfashionable, such as coal and nuclear. To do otherwise means running the risk of repeating mistakes from the past and condemning future generations to pay a penalty for our short-sightedness.

http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/article/0,2669,SAV-0010270194,FF.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 28, 2000

Answers

I knew, if I waited long enough, Martin, you would come up with a solution.

-- JackW (jpayne@webtv.net), October 28, 2000.

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