The changing economic realities of energy production bring us to an environmental opportunity and decision point. Which path will we take? This week in CIB:

Coast Watch: Wind Power Controversy

Wind power is one of the cleanest sources of energy available. It generates no waste or greenhouse gases, doesn’t pollute rivers or groundwater, doesn’t rip the tops off mountains, doesn’t displace food crops, and it doesn’t even take nights or rainy days off. It can–especially in the wrong location–create problems for bird and bat populations. And no matter where it’s proposed, there almost always seems to be some local opposition expressed on visual appearance grounds. On balance, however, most environmentalists are enthusiastic about increasing the amount of electricity produced from wind, in place of sources like oil, coal, nuclear, or even natural gas.

Coastal wind power off the Mid-Atlantic states (including North Carolina) is in particular an enormous potential source of generation. So why is project after project facing delays, unanswered local opposition, or dropping out of sight altogether?

The answer is a combination of problems. First, there’s that basic reality: no such thing as a free lunch. No matter where a large turbine or turbines are located, there is at least some increased risk of wildlife mortality. In addition, local residents near a particular project, even those who may support wind energy in general, can be understandably put out with the idea of something cluttering their beautiful view horizon.

And then there are people like John Droz, the conservative activist who helped make North Carolina a national laughingstock by helping to persuade our legislature to outlaw climate science in the estimation of future sea level rise.  Among other things, Droz is a coastal real estate investor and a “senior fellow” for the American Tradition Institute, which rakes in funding from coal, gas, and oil interests that find the science of climate change and investment in renewable energy generation to be economically inconvenient.

Droz is also a crusader against wind energy, and he is currently plying his attacks against the proposed Mill Pond Wind Farm near Newport and Morehead City. Torch Renewable Energy LLC has applied for permits to build a 50-turbine wind energy farm, along with a 50-75 acre solar farm, on property currently owned by Weyerhauser timber and paper company. It would be the first facility permitted under new wind energy regulatory legislation passed by the NC General Assembly this year.

Droz and his anti-wind arguments have helped persuade a number of concerned local citizens to oppose the project. Some coastal clean energy advocates are expressing frustration over their perceived inability to garner more active backing from state environmental groups supportive of renewable energy development.

They raise a good question. Will environmental groups that support the development of wind energy in general lend weight to particular projects facing the targeted attacks of anti-renewable energy interests? If not, could a string of project proposal losses end up killing a potential North Carolina wind power boom before it gets started?

[CIB does not intend to presume a conclusion that the proposed Mill Pond facility should or should not be permitted as proposed. We only use this example to call attention to the broader policy question it helps serve to pose.]

Active conversations are underway now among coastal conservation and renewable energy advocates.

Nuclear Update: A New Nuke for Duke?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week released its final EIS (environmental impact study) of Duke Energy’s proposed Lee nuclear plant. The NRC’s Lee EIS concludes that the Lee plant can be safely built and operated on the Broad River near Gaffney, SC, about 40 miles southwest of Charlotte.

Of course, such a conclusion by the NRC is no surprise. If they went around issuing determinations that new nuclear plants shouldn’t be built, they’d be declaring themselves on the road to obsolescence, and their staff and contractors all surely realize that. Their EIS reaches its pro-Lee conclusion despite finding that the plant’s consumptive (non-returned) water withdrawal would use up 4% of the river’s average flow (and a much higher percentage during drought conditions). What water the plant returned to the river would be much warmer, with biological impacts.

Area skeptics of the proposal, including residents of Columbia, SC, one of the major downstream users of the river, are not so sanguine about its impacts. The SC Sierra Club chair told reporters, “There was a joke going around that by the time it [the Broad River] got to Columbia, it was going to be the Skinny River.”

For the article appearing in the Charlotte Observer, more here.

To see the NRC’s final EIS on the proposed Lee nuclear plant go here.

For a more skeptical view of the proposed plant’s water impacts, see here  or  here.

In viewing these two energy project stories in conjunction, some broader comments seem timely. In recent years, calls for an “all of the above” energy strategy have become a handy political euphemism for candidates and lawmakers on both sides of the energy production policy divide. It implies that we have no need to make choices between increased dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power, or moving toward renewable sources like solar and wind energy.

The economic realities tell a different tale, however. Market demand follows the least expensive alternatives, driving out incentive to invest in more expensive choices. And public investment and regulatory policies both drive technological development and determine whether all costs are taken into account (or some are treated as “externalities” and hidden, especially pollution and its impacts). These decisions heavily affect costs as felt by energy consumers, which in turn shape market demand.

In this economic real world, implementation of energy efficiency in buildings and appliances has limited rising demand. Falling natural gas prices driven by “fracking” production have driven down gas costs, leading to the construction of gas turbine generating plants in place of new coal or nuclear.

Renewable energy portfolio standards have increased demand for solar and wind, leading to falling per-unit photovoltaic generation costs and a boom in solar “farm” development. Solar entrepreneurs report that solar panels now sell for half the price of just four years ago, and installation costs have also dropped “as a trained workforce grew and suppliers and bankers became solar-savvy.”

Wind power development is rising throughout the western high plains states–and poised to take off along the Atlantic shore. Economies similar to those being realized in solar are likely to materialize as local labor and financial markets respond to similar wind energy development.

One path available to our state and region is to continue to press this solar and wind development. In the alternative, we can push for increased “fracking” for gas, and drive through the construction of enormously expensive new nuclear plants, with all the unanswered questions of safety, water resource use and contamination, and persistent waste disposal dilemmas those options present.

In these two tales of potential power production, we have two energy and environmental futures laid out for our choices. Which path will we choose to pursue?

Education & Resources: Impact the 2014 Elections

As the old year winds down, NCLCV is winding up for its 2014 campaign to impact who will be making environmental policy decisions for North Carolina in our General Assembly.

NCLCV Executive Director Carrie Clark says, “The 2013 North Carolina legislative session was without question one of the worst for the environment in history, characterized by reckless decisions with serious and long term implications for public health, our state’s natural landscape, and North Carolina’s economy. Since 1999, NC League of Conservation Voters had awarded a combined total of 48 zero scores on our annual scorecard. This year’s scorecard revealed a record 82 legislators with a score of zero, nearly half the entire General Assembly.”

We can only change that next year if we have the resources to help make a positive difference for pro-environment candidates in tightly contested legislative races. To help make that possible, this is the time for a year-end contribution to NCLCV’s work.

Between now and our next bulletin, Happy New Year!

That’s our report for this week.