Introduction
The four Northwest states boast abundant supplies of competitively priced clean energy -- more than enough to meet all new demand for electricity through 2020. A clean and affordable energy future can be ours, just by delivering the energy efficiency, wind power and other clean, renewable resources at our disposal. This energy future has more family-wage jobs and competitive businesses and a healthier rural economy than any alternative.
This Citizens Energy Plan is a roadmap to that future. Only citizens from diverse backgrounds working together can move the region farther along this road.
The energy crisis of 2000-01 was a wake-up call for the Northwest. We were confronted with painful realities about our power system: It’s not efficient enough, it’s not diverse, and it’s falling behind. Energy use overwhelmed the Northwest’s drought-stricken hydroelectric dams that year, forcing us into the energy marketplace. Consumers, industry, and utilities are still suffering from the exorbitant electricity prices of that period. Many workers permanently lost their jobs as high energy prices closed plants. Meanwhile, migrating juvenile salmon were slaughtered as the Bonneville Power Administration squeezed dwindling river flows through hydroelectric turbines.
These harsh realities underscore what we have known for years: The Northwest needs a more diverse mix of energy resources to shield us from wild fluctuations in the price of fossil fuels, to strengthen domestic security, and to protect our environment. And we must consistently capture the benefits of saving electricity through energy efficiency.
We also know that electric demand will continue to grow, requiring us to find additional power sources.
What are our choices?
• Increase hydropower? Not likely. The region already relies too heavily on hydroelectric dams, which are vulnerable to drought. Plus, our over-dependence on renewable hydropower already has pushed Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead to the brink of extinction, violating tribal commitments and threatening the thousands of jobs associated with the fishing, tourism and recreation industries.
• More natural gas-fired power plants? Quite likely, but not a good idea. In 2001, more than 22,000 megawatts of new fossil-fuel plants were proposed. About half of those proposed facilities went to the back burner when wholesale electricity prices nose-dived, but they’ll be back when the economy picks up again. Though they spew climate-wrecking greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide), consume large amounts of water and contribute to air pollution, gas-fired plants remain the conventional choice for cheap generation. Yet, with natural gas prices as high as they have been in decades and predicted to remain high, depending on gas to produce our electricity introduces a whole new level of cost and price uncertainty, something our economy cannot afford. Without a proactive search for clean and affordable alternatives, nearly a third of the Northwest’s power supply (double the current proportion) could be generated by this non-renewable, volatile priced, environmentally harmful resource.
• Move to “clean” coal and “next-generation” nuclear? No amount of smokestack scrubbing will turn coal into a renewable resource – let alone a truly “clean” one -- or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from the plant. New “clean” coal technologies are highly speculative and very costly. Coal plants always will be susceptible to the high risk of future environmental regulation. Nuclear-power advocates have seized on the recent fuel-cell fervor to paint new plants as the most “cost-effective” means of producing hydrogen. The doubtful validity of those claims aside, nuclear power production always comes up against the intractable quandary of waste management. The eternal costs of dealing with radioactive garbage – almost entirely borne by the public -- are incalculable.
• Increase energy efficiency and develop new renewable energy resources? The clear winner!
Two studies released in 2002, detail the region’s abundance of clean energy resources and establish that they are affordable -- now.
In a study commissioned by the NW Energy Coalition, the Tellus Institute finds that the Northwest can meet its new energy needs many times over through cost-effective energy efficiency and clean renewable energy. Tellus identified 16,000 average megawatts (aMW) of potential clean energy from efficiency and renewables, 13,000 aMW of which can be tapped as cheaply as gas. (For a sense of scale, the entire regional load for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Western Montana is only 20,000 aMW.) That gives us enough potential clean, affordable power to meet twice the new demand through 2020 – or to meet all the load growth AND replace 35 percent of existing generating resources --even after we forego the power produced by the four lower Snake River dams.
Furthermore, a recent report from RAND Corporation says the Northwest can replace the power it receives from the four lower Snake River dams through energy efficiency and renewable resources without harming the regional economy. RAND outlines the regional benefits, such as boosting employment, diversifying the resource base and increasing the stocks of clean energy. Local dislocation and employment impacts must be addressed and managed to reduce undue economic hardship. Renewables and efficiency, RAND reports, make economic sense and improve system reliability by reducing the risks associated with the volatile price and uncertain supply of natural gas. In the past three years, market electricity prices have fluctuated from $18 per megawatt-hour (MWh) to more than $300/MWh. Many factors contribute to these price swings, but the lesson is constant: relying on fossil fuel-based resources and wholesale markets is risky and unpredictable.
The Northwest needs a new energy vision in which we meet our power needs with resources that DO NOT extinguish wild salmon or devastate our climate and DO retain family-wage jobs, diversify our energy resources and strengthen our local economies.