Climate and energy

“Comprehensive state energy plan.” A phrase many of us became very familiar with during the last legislative session - regardless, whatever that plan ends up looking like, it’s good to get many different voices involved in the conversation.

Recently the Salina Journal has been running different guest editorials on what the energy future might look like for Kansas. Here’s two.

Many of you will probably disagree with parts or all of the following. But you might find points you agree upon, too.

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Prof. Ruth Douglas Miller
“Solar, wind on the horizon”

What does the future hold for energy use and energy sources in Kansas? Our state is well placed to produce a significant part of the nation’s renewable energy within the next 20 years.

The western third of the state will have several hundred wind farms of 200 to 400 megawatts each scattered roughly along a north-south line from near Goodland down to Spearville, a line that soon will be the route of a major high-voltage transmission line.

A similar amount of solar energy will be feasible within a 50-year time frame through large-scale solar plants. If they happen, they will concentrate in the southwestern quarter of the state.

More importantly, to lower carbon dioxide production, most towns now large enough to own their own local gas- or oil-fired electricity generation will own one to three medium- or large-sized wind turbines.

And many homes will have enough solar panels, or in rural areas a small wind turbine, to produce a third or more of their individual energy needs.

We won’t burn oil for electricity, but natural gas plants paired with wind and/or solar generation will be fueled from renewable sources. When the wind dies, the gas plants will take over; when the sun shines or the wind picks up, the gas plants will be turned off.

We will probably still import coal from Wyoming, but we’ll export more than enough wind and solar-generated power to balance the coal imports. If we are really serious about global warming, we will add another nuclear plant somewhere in the eastern third of the state.

Within 20 years, the bio-ethanol and bio-diesel craze will be recognized as a dead end. We cannot produce 20 percent of current 2007 gasoline demand in ethanol even if we figure out how to convert all available biomass in the country to ethanol.

And we cannot grow enough oil seed (soy, canola, sunflower or others) to meet 20 percent of current diesel demand, either.

By 2020 it will be clear we do not have land, fertilizer or especially water to make ethanol work. However, we will have realized that manure and garbage are excellent sources of methane while they are decomposing enough to use as fertilizer. So much of our natural gas, probably still needed for heat and to balance wind and solar electricity generation, will come from sources such as feedlots and municipal landfills.

What will we be doing for transportation? Driving a lot less, biking more, and driving small, light vehicles that are either hybrids or pure electric cars, whose batteries are charged from solar panels on roofs.

Instead of driving from Manhattan to Wichita for a day conference, I expect I will sit at my computer, call my Wichita, Topeka and Lawrence colleagues on the phone and join them in a vivid videoconference in which we’ll feel we’re in the same room with each other.

Kansas will be more of a desert, but we will know, watching wind turbines spin, that we’re doing our part to undo the damage of the previous century.

Ruth Douglas Miller is an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Kansas State University and a coordinator for the Kansas Wind for Schools program.

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Stuart Lowry, KEPCo
“The clash of wants and needs”

The “climate crisis” is driving our energy debate. Recently Al Gore announced a goal that in 10 years, 100 percent of our nation’s electricity will be generated from renewable resources. For Mr. Gore and others who share his vision, this policy is necessary to save the planet and, therefore, cost is no object.

As the costs of such a policy become apparent, however, many will argue that we cannot afford it. Certainty about the scope of the climate crisis or low-cost energy solutions to solve that crisis would make energy policy work quite simple. If neither exists, developing sound energy policy will require reconciliation of what we need and what we can afford.

Energy efficiency — deriving the benefits of electricity while actually consuming less of it — will increase in the coming years as never before. Unfortunately, even the best energy efficiency programs will not lead us to the point of negative usage. We will still need electric supply, and that supply has to come from somewhere.

Renewable energy has an undeniable appeal to everyone — including electric utilities. At the risk of throwing cold water in the face of Mr. Gore’s dream, it is unlikely that renewable energy will provide all of our supply in the next 10 years — at least in the absence of a major technological breakthrough or a seismic shift in public policy.

We will see the use of more renewable energy, though. In Kansas, the renewable energy focus is primarily on wind energy. Electricity supply solely from wind, however, is like the wind itself: present some of the time and absent at others. Integrating wind resources into an electricity system while maintaining balance between electricity load and electric supply requires the continued use of traditional generation resources.

Experts in both the wind and utility industries believe that we can reasonably expect to integrate roughly 20 percent of our energy from wind in the future. Utilities in Kansas have made steps toward that goal. Wind power could be generated in Kansas and exported to regions that do not have renewable energy alternatives. The transmission lines and facilities needed to move bulk power, including wind energy, between regions will need to be more fully developed.

If less than 100 percent of our power is generated from renewable resources, the remainder will likely come from new versions of generation resources that build on established technologies — coal, nuclear and natural gas in combination.

Concern with carbon dioxide emissions and global climate change resulted in the current Kansas debate about the use of coal generation. If this concern drives our energy policy, it would predict a movement toward more nuclear energy, which does not have the emissions of coal plants. Proposals for more nuclear energy will likely bring equal, but different, objections from the same people that oppose the use of coal. Improvements will continue to be made in both coal and nuclear technologies. With coal, technological innovations to sequester or reduce carbon emissions will develop. Nuclear has a strong safety record and the industry will build on that success.

Any discussion of the energy future in Kansas should include consideration of the cost. Ascertaining the cost we are willing to bear requires that we discern our priorities. If we want more renewable energy, need to limit carbon dioxide emissions and want to maintain reliable service, we can do that.

If we want to provide the most reliable service at the lowest possible cost, we can do that.

The correct policy answer is found at the intersection of what we want and what we can afford.

Stuart Lowry is executive vice president of Kansas Electric Cooperatives and a member of the Kansas Energy Council and the governor’s Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org