East Nelson

The discussion about renewable energy is looking incredibly bleak.

Recent editorials in both the Wall St. Journal and the New York Times argue that wind and solar energy are simply not practical large-scale alternatives to fossil fuel energy, and ethanol subsides subsidies look like they might be the first thing to go when Congress gets serious about cutting spending. At the same time, others are arguing that natural gas mining is not as dangerous as we may think.

Where did all the optimism go? The slide started with the recession and hit a crisis along with the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Nuclear energy, the long-time poster child of seemingly endless renewable energy, is still reeling from the disaster on Japan’s coast.

The radiation leak at the Daiichi nuclear plant and the surrounding 20km-no-go zone shattered the fragile gains the nuclear power industry had made over the past two decades. The whole world watched the terrible complications near Okuma and Futaba, and isn’t keen to see it happen again. So for now, nuclear doesn’t seem like the panacea of renewable energy the industry had spent so long positioning it to be.

Where does that leave us?

At 22% of all electric power, Nuclear Energy generates more than the rest of renewables combined.

Wind energy? Recently, wind energy has been under fire for every reason from expense to health risks created by infrasound. Recent investments by companies such as Google have some turbines spinning in California, but others have been stopped in their tracks by an endangered species of turtles.

Robert Bryce argued in a recent article that converting to a system run by wind energy at its current efficiency level would require massive and prohibitive amounts of other natural resources, including steel and land. He’s not the only one either– some investors are becoming more vocal about inefficiency and states are finding it harder to jump for large subsides and contracts for new energy farms.

Bryce argues these costs often outweigh the benefits of large-scale renewable energy projects. His argument is convincing. Large scale wind energy would require more high-wind real estate than is available and more massive turbines than are practical.

So we arrive at solar energy, which has many of the same problems that wind energy does. It takes a lot of land and a lot of sun to generate a large amount of solar energy.

Costs are an issue as well, but the biggest problem is that solar energy only generates power during the day– peak energy usage is at dusk and night.

Geothermal electricity is limited by seismic activity to specific locations. A large-scale electricity program would be impractical except for in certain areas. Routing electricity through the grid means both large and invasive wiring structures along with electricity losses that increase with distance.

Ethanol is a subsidy driven market. A backlash has built against these subsidies, driven in part by the current budget woes Congress faces and in part because these subsidies are so plainly the results of interest groups. Adding ethanol makes gasoline more corrosive, more expensive and doesn’t increase gas mileage.

The senate has already voted overwhelmingly to cut ethanol subsidies, look for them to cut more.

Instead, more and more, the clean energy of the immediate future looks like it will be dominated by cleaner technology emerging from traditional fossil fuels such as gas, coal and oil.

It’s important not to see this recent focus on the negatives of renewables as a reason to throw in our solar dried towel when it comes to pursuing renewable energy. Instead, these arguments should be seen as a reality check– a revised version of the sometimes too-lofty goals that many set for renewable energy.

It’s unreasonable to think that the current means we have for producing wind, solar or geothermal energy could replace the burning of fossil fuels for energy.

But it’s not unreasonable to see combinations of the three seriously offsetting our use of fossil fuels in the very near future.

California, a state with both deserts for solar energy space and high wind speeds, has passed a bill requiring that 33% of their energy come from renewable sources by 2020. Their progress will be an important example for other states looking to shift some their own energy demand onto renewable programs.

Timeline of California's Renewables Portfolio Standard