Renewables included in U.S. response to climate change
WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2004-07-07 (Refocus Weekly)
Renewable energy and energy efficiency are two principal technologies that deserve the greatest attention to address climate change, according to U.S. energy secretary Spencer Abraham.
“It is important that we make the most of the technologies that we have
available today for reducing (greenhouse gas) emissions,” he told a conference
on climate change. “That is why we are promoting energy efficiency and
renewable energy both now and for the future.”
His department has put “considerable thought and deliberation” into energy
technology priorities and, in addition to renewables and efficiency, hydrogen,
clean coal, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion constitute “the six pillars of
collaborative climate research” that deserve the greatest attention.
The U.S. government has determined that action is needed on climate-related
issues, but “very significant new technologies” are needed to transform the
production and consumption of energy if GHG emissions are to be reduced without
harming the economy, he explains. The U.S. Gross Domestic Product will grow at
3% to 4% a year, and the country “will unavoidably continue to generate
substantial GHG emissions despite pursuing greater energy efficiency and the use
of alternative fuels, so long as we use traditional or conventional
technological approaches.”
“The only possible path to offset these likely GHG increases is by developing
truly transformational technologies that will bring us into an entirely new
energy age,” he says, “because no nation is prepared to trade economic
growth, to mortgage its prosperity, for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”
Hydrogen is “one of the most attractive options to meet both our energy and
environmental goals” because it can be produced from a number of sources,
including renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear.
The second pillar is clean coal, followed by “new generation nuclear” and
then fusion. Renewables and energy efficiency are “the final pillars of our
plan,” and he notes that the effective cost of renewable technology has been
reduced by a factor of 10 or more over the past 20 years, with wind power
becoming competitive in some areas of the country with natural gas “and we are
determined to bring down the cost of wind, solar, biomass and geothermal even
more.”
“It bears mentioning that the United States is the leading producer and
consumer of renewable energy today,” he says, with 116 gigawatts of installed
renewable energy capacity in 2001. “This is greater than the amount of
renewable energy generation capacity in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy
and the United Kingdom combined.”
Each of the six technologies holds greats promise and, together and over the
long term, I believe they have the potential to overcome our climate change
concerns altogether,” he says. “I am confident that if we do not flag in our
commitment, we will find even more potential, discover even greater
possibilities for creating a safer, cleaner, better world for future generations
… a world in which greenhouse gas emissions will be as quaint and distant a
memory as the urban horse hazards of a century ago.”
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