Report: US wind power tomorrow will be what coal power is today

President Obama has made wind energy a key component of his efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions from the US power sector. A new report suggests it could make up more than a third of US power production by midcentury. 

|
Larry Downing/Reuters
US President Barack Obama talks to the media on the Heil Family Wind Farm, in Haverhill, Iowa in 2012. Obama has made expanding wind energy a focus of his environmental policies.

Wind is poised to provide almost as much power in 2050 as coal-fired power plants provide today, according to an Obama administration analysis released Thursday. Only 4.5 percent of US power currently comes from wind.

How is such rapid growth in wind capacity possible? Falling costs for wind power are helping it compete with traditional fossil fuels, even without the government support that fostered the industry’s development. And while so-called grid parity may exist in only a few regions now, wind power’s competitiveness will eventually spread across the country, according to the report.

“Every year, wind becomes cost competitive in more states, and this wind vision report shows that all 50 states could have utility-scale energy by 2050,” White House Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Dan Utech said in a statement Thursday. “The United States is uniquely poised to accelerate development of this important resource and technology, and the report will help us continue to build on the strong progress we’ve already made.”

Thursday’s report is a part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to tackle climate change by reining in the greenhouse emissions that are causing the planet’s temperatures to rise. Switching from dirtier-burning coal to cleaner sources – wind, solar, geothermal, and even natural gas – has been a staple of Mr. Obama’s clean energy policies.

If government and private sector support for wind remains strong, the report says, wind can play a pivotal role in moving the US toward energy sources that are carbon-free and replenishable.

“The stakes for the nation are high,” José Zayas, director of the wind and water power technologies office at the US Department of Energy, wrote in the report. “I am confident that, with sustained leadership in innovation, US wind power will continue to make a significant contribution to the ever-evolving energy landscape.”

Today wind power meets 4.5 percent of US electricity demand, while coal provides 38.7 percent, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. The Department of Energy expects wind to provide 10 percent of US electricity by 2020, and it’s possible wind could produce 35 percent of US electricity in 2050.

 

Critics in the fossil fuel industry and in Congress say the White House’s renewable energy pronouncements are more bluster than anything else. They point out that wind and solar provide intermittent power, only producing electricity when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

That’s a drawback compared to coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, which produce a continuous flow of electricity. What’s more, the wind industry took hold in the US largely due to a production tax credit, which has since expired. Without that federal support, some say the future of the industry isn’t so bright.

Thursday’s report acknowledges some of those challenges, including the difficulty of reaching price parity with traditional fossil fuel sources of power. But in some parts of the US, wind power already competes with traditional sources without subsidies, and the report suggests that trend will continue to spread across the country.

“National average wind costs are rapidly approaching cost competitive levels, but, without incentives, these costs are higher than the national average for natural gas and coal costs as of 2013,” the analysis says. “With continued cost reductions, the [analysis] envisions new wind power generation costs to be below national average costs for both new and existing fossil plants within the next decade.”

To provide 35 percent of US electricity by 2050, the US would need 400 gigawatts of wind by 2050 – enough to power 100 million homes, the White House says.

Getting to 400 gigawatts would require adding about 10 new gigawatts of turbine capacity every year from now till mid-century, given the current 60 gigawatt capacity. The US installed 11 gigawatts of wind capacity in 2012 under the wind production tax credit, the White House says.

It’s progress the industry thinks is possible.

"We can do this," Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, the industry's trade group, told USA Today. "The industry stands ready to achieve these numbers."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Report: US wind power tomorrow will be what coal power is today
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy/2015/0312/Report-US-wind-power-tomorrow-will-be-what-coal-power-is-today
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe