Right idea, wrong fuel

Tag : Fuel Oil Gas

If you watch cable TV, chances are you've seen an ad promoting T.Boone Pickens' plan for reducing the vast sums we're spending onimported oil.
Hearts quickened in the Democratic Party because Mr. Pickens saysin the ad: "this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of."That's what Democrats say when they block drilling off our coastsand in Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. But the budding romancecooled when Mr. Pickens made it clear he supports lifting thosedrilling bans.
Mr. Pickens' plan has two key elements. The first is to build amassive series of wind farms on the Great Plains. The second is toconvert most motor vehicles in the U.S. to run on compressednatural gas.
Mr. Pickens is putting his money where his mouth is. He's investing$2 billion into developing the largest wind farm in America, nearPampa in the Texas Panhandle.
The Energy Department estimated in a study released in May thatthere are 18,000 square miles of good wind sites in the UnitedStates. If 142,060 towers of 1.5 megawatts were placed on thosesites, they could produce 20 percent of the electricity we need,DOE said. With a $1.2 trillion crash program, we could produce thatmuch electricity from wind in 10 years, Mr. Pickens asserts.
But to get to the 20 percent figure, DOE assumed we'd use lesselectricity than we actually do, said science writer EricRosenbloom. And DOE assumed all the wind turbines would be runningat rated capacity. Studies in Europe indicate wind turbines thererun, on average, at less than 20 percent of rated capacity. This ismostly because the wind isn't always blowing. And the buildup ofdead bugs can cut maximum power generated by a wind turbine by upto 50 percent.
We get less than 1 percent of our electricity from wind. Since itmay take 5 times as many wind turbines to produce the electricityDOE projects, the idea we could get 20 percent of our energy fromwind in a decade is fanciful, no matter how many taxpayer dollarsare thrown at it.
The 18,000 square miles of good wind sites is roughly equivalent toNew Hampshire and Vermont combined. Much of that land is farmland.To withdraw it from agriculture could send food prices soaring.
And wind energy is expensive. The Energy Information Administrationestimates that in 2016 it will cost 8.1 cents per kilowatt-hour toproduce electricity from wind, when you combine capitalconstruction costs with operating costs. That's 21 percent morethan what it would cost to generate electricity from a new nuclearplant, 37 percent more than from a new plant that burns pulverizedcoal.
Mr. Pickens is on sounder ground on the second part of his plan.Burning natural gas produces significantly fewer pollutants thangasoline. In most places, compressed natural gas can be purchasedfor less than $2 a gallon. And while we import nearly 70 percent ofthe oil we use, 98 percent of our natural gas comes from the UnitedStates.
Compressed natural gas is safer than gasoline. Cars and truckspowered by natural gas don't have the range or horsepower limits ofelectric and hybrid-electric vehicles, though natural gas poweredvehicles have a little less of both than those powered by gasoline.
Someday we may have a battery for electric cars that producessatisfactory range and horsepower, and someday the cost of hydrogenfuel cell vehicles might not be astronomical (the five hydrogencars Honda has leased to the City of Los Angeles cost $1.6 millioneach), but that someday isn't going to be any day soon. In themeantime, as Mr. Pickens says, we need a bridge.
Honda sells a natural-gas powered version of its Civic for about$25,000; a hybrid-electric version for about $23,000. The gasolinepowered Civic sedan sells for about $15,000. A $5,000 tax credit,coupled with savings on fuel, could make these alternative vehiclesattractive to most car buyers.
A massive shift to natural gas powered vehicles would send demandfor natural gas - and consequently its price - soaring. But thiscould be offset if Congress would permit us to develop theresources offshore and in Alaska, and if other fuels could besubstituted for the 22 percent of our electricity that is generatedby burning natural gas.
Mr. Pickens has the right idea, but the wrong fuel. A tenfoldincrease in wind power would meet only about 7 percent of ourelectricity needs. But nuclear power could both supply risingdemand for electricity, and substitute for natural gas in itsproduction.
Jack Kelly, a syndicated columnist, is a former Marine and GreenBeret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force inthe Reagan administration. He is national security writer for thePittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette.