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The View from New York, By Ned GrothCalifornia Maps America’s Energy FutureCalifornia, America’s largest state, has a reputation for social innovation. The Golden State is also ahead of the curve on global warming, suffering extreme weather, severe drought and raging wildfires that many experts attribute to climate change. Led by its formidable governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state is pursuing an aggressive strategy to reduce carbon emissions. California law aims to reduce CO2 emissions in the state 20 percent by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050. The state will increase energy efficiency in homes and businesses, replace coal-burning electric power plants with solar and wind facilities, and reduce emissions from automobiles and industrial operations. California is already our “greenest” state, in consumer attitudes and adoption of energy efficient designs. The governor’s plan is praised as visionary by many, but also attacked for its economic impacts. Even those who support radical action agree that huge technological and economic problems must be solved to achieve the desired reductions. For instance, the investment costs to use solar and wind powered electricity for individual homes and businesses are large. The technology is evolving, and costs will come down, but one-third of the state’s population, and many of its small businesses, cannot afford “green power,” especially as the recession has worsened. California must build many large new solar and wind-farm electric power stations. Renewable energy is somewhat unreliable (the sun doesn’t always shine, or the wind blow), so large storage capacity (not yet feasible) or more gas-burning or nuclear power plants (costly and for nuclear, politically banned in California) are needed to avoid possible power shortages. Reducing auto emissions by car-loving, car-dependent Californians is the toughest challenge. The state will raise fuel economy standards from 25 mpg to 44 mpg by 2020. This plan, blocked by the Bush Administration, is likely to get the green light from the Obama EPA. Can California succeed? Can it afford not to try? Conservatives argue that proposed measures will drive up the cost of energy in California, hurting low-income people and forcing many businesses to leave the state. In fact, those impacts seem likely. But supporters, like Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel-laureate energy-efficiency researcher, respond that regulation and price increases will promote technological innovation. Some businesses may leave California, but “green technology” industries will grow to replace them, finding energy solutions for California, the nation and the world. Subsidies will help low-income homeowners and small businesses benefit from those solutions. A recent study found that energy-efficiency policies adopted in California from 1977 to 2007 did eliminate 25,000 jobs, but they also created 1.5 million new jobs in the state, and saved consumers billions of dollars in energy costs. California is now moving ahead with its great energy experiment, slowed by the economic slump, but striding boldly into the future, leading the rest of us, as is their custom. President Obama and Secretary Chu will soon propose similar national energy strategies. Undoubtedly we will make some mistakes, but at last my country is tackling, rather than denying, the problem. That’s my view from here in New York. Feel free to respond to this column at info@schuttelaar.nl. For further information: Fortune – The big energy gamble gap |
Ned Groth |
