----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Edward Mainland <emainland@COMCAST.NET>
To: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG
Sent: Wed, June 2, 2010 12:43:22 AM
Subject: Picking the Right Low-Carbon Investment Strategy

Chris Paine blog circulated May 28 by Jim Magavern:

Picking the Right Low-Carbon Investment Strategy

So what would all the nuclear largesse mean in practice if the K-L bill as
written becomes law, and  perhaps 12-24 new nuclear power plants are
constructed  over the next fifteen years in response to the incentives the
bill creates? American taxpayers and consumers will have to pay through the
nose for the electricity from these plants, which is likely to cost -
depending on the project ownership and finance structure-anywhere from
17-34 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) (California Energy Commission, December
2009) when it enters the grid around 2018, instead of buying end-use
efficiency "negawatts" today at less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour,
industrial waste heat cogeneration today at less than 9 cents per kWh, wind
at less than 11.5 cents per kWh, and a wide variety of other renewable
sources at less than 17 cents per kilowatt hour,  with the expectation of
further price declines. In a recent analysis from DOE's National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL), for example, big box commercial rooftop PV solar
is expected to decline from about 11 - 15 cents/kWh (Phoenix versus Kansas
City) today to 4.5 - 6 cents per KWh in 2015.  Not only will new-nuclear
cost more than these other cleaner sources, but the effective carbon
displacement arrives 5-7 years later than the other technologies, further
raising the overall cost of meeting the GHG reduction targets.

The harder, farther, and earlier we push on energy efficiency in a climate
bill, the fewer costly nuclear, coal CCS or other "low-carbon" generating
plants we'll have to build later on to meet the GHG reduction targets.  So
there is actually a triple-barreled economic benefit from deferring
widespread deployment of the most costly decarbonization pathways (nuclear,
coal CCS, renewables in less-favorable locations) until we absolutely need
them to stay on track with meeting our reduction targets: (1) lower
electricity costs; (2) earlier GHG reductions; and (3) less required future
investment in low-carbon central station power plants that have other
serious environmental drawbacks.

This strategy not only frees up funding for massive early investments in
more cost-effective energy efficiency, but it also allows more time for
technology innovation to reduce future nuclear (and coal CCS) costs and
environmental impacts. The same holds true for currently costly,
land-intensive combinations of remotely located large-scale renewables and
new high-voltage transmission lines. Rapidly evolving technology and
plummeting manufacturing costs may enable a higher proportion of clean
energy to come from equally or more cost-effective distributed-generation
mounted along highway embankments and atop buildings and parking lots,
lessening the burden imposed by some large-scale renewable deployments on
the natural environment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to:
CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG

Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp