CSP World

From Abengoa Blog: http://blog.abengoa.com/

Bill Richardson
Former Governor of New Mexico (United States) and member of the Abengoa’s International Advisory Board.

As a candidate for U.S. President in 2008, I argued for an Apollo-like effort to increase energy independence. While we have made progress since then, we are at a historic crossroads that demands a national push – a shove, really – to overcome the challenges as we shift from fossil fuels to renewables.

History suggests that it takes roughly 50 years to transition from one basic fuel to another – such as coal to oil, and oil to gas. This adds urgency to the timeframe for transitioning to a more sustainable energy future. Also, because energy infrastructures tend to have a life-span of at least a half a century, the investment decisions we make today will be with us for decades to come. The urgency of climate change means we simply don’t have another 50 years. In an extremely abbreviated time frame of the next couple of decades, we have to develop alternative energy sources — along with production and distribution systems — at a scale that serves billions of people every day, in perpetuity.

On top of this, the global population will increase from 6 B to 9 B people by 2050, while energy demand will surge by 60 % during the next 25 years. Moving the least developed countries up on UN human development index will entail a major increase in energy consumption. There are reasons for optimism.

Nuclear power supplies about 20 % of the electricity in the USA We could not replace these tens of thousands of megawatts overnight, even if we wanted to. Nuclear, for all its issues, generates carbon free electricity. It is the only truly large-scale, nocarbon energy source we currently have for power generation.

Shale gas production is now the number one producer of natural gas in the world. Abundant domestic supplies of natural gas are creating new opportunities for reducing carbon emissions in both the electricity and transportation sectors. They can also enable the transition to electricity fueled with renewable fuels.

It took more than 20 years to develop the technologies to affordably-produce shale gas – and research alone was not enough. A public-private partnership was a critical element in the process. Also, a well-timed and time-limited tax credit, and sustained research funding over time were essential to the shale gas success story.

Natural gas power generation provides another clear benefit for reducing carbon and other emissions: It supplies the firming power needed for intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

Thirty-two US states have some kind of renewable electricity or portfolio standards. These standards are critical for establishing firm market share for renewables and they help incentivize innovation in the renewable space. These innovations have dramatically reduced the cost of renewables, particularly for wind and solar. Onshore wind is costcompetitive with natural gas. While solar remains more expensive, its costs have been dramatically reduced in recent years.

But we must develop the technologies for the affordable utility-scale storage that we need to provide reliable, largescale power. When the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, we will need natural gas generation to help manage the intermittency of wind and solar.

Natural gas represents a low-carbon bridge fuel and can increase our energy security. Most important, is a key enabler for increased power generation from intermittent renewables such as wind and solar. However, natural gas is still a fossil fuel. In the longer-term, it is too carbonintensive to meet 2050 CO2 emission reduction targets sufficient to forestall significant global temperature increases.

This is where renewables comes in. We need to continue and increase our investments in research of renewable energy technologies, with a focus on lowering their costs, which remain high relative to current costs of natural gas and coal.

We also need to aid in the deployment of these technologies, ensuring that we provide incentives and an appropriate market structure for a critical partnership between renewables and natural gas.

We should support carbon capture and sequestration research and demonstration for both coal and natural gas power generation. Carbon capture and sequestration is an essential technology for ensuring the future of coal use without emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. The current CCS program at DOE is focused exclusively on coal. It should be expanded to include and enhance the longer-term options not just for coal use in a carbon constrained world, but for natural gas as well.

The US is woefully under-spending on federal research to support renewable energy and a sustainable energy future.

I understand that industry is, by far, the largest investor in energy research. This research, however, tends to have a shortterm focus. We also need long term solutions to enhance our competitiveness, lower consumer prices and help ease the transition to an economy fueled by renewable energy sources.

President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology – recently recommended a three-fold increase in spending on federal energy research, with a strong focus on demonstration of alternative energy technologies and carbon capture and sequestration.

Still, a new roadmap is needed to address the daunting energy challenges of the 21st century. There are several new programs at the Department of Energy that are “outside the typical bureaucratic box”. These new programs are designed to solve basic energy research problem, support transformational energy technologies and businesses, and develop cross-cutting centers of energy excellence focused on moving technologies from the concept to commercialization phase.

We need to be prepared for these challenges. In the end, the only way we can effectively address these daunting and critical needs is to develop affordable, scalable renewable energy supplies.

The US should re-double its efforts to accelerate the transformation to a renewable energy future. We need an Apollo-like effort: Committed leadership, additional research and development, investment incentives, an innovative workforce, and policies that effectively and efficiently condition the marketplace for widespread diffusion of renewable energy sufficient to sustain our economy, employ our citizens, and power our energy future.