The Energy Information Administration (EIA) released their Annual Energy Outlook buy buspar without a prescription overnight delivery (AEO2009) this purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod week and their numbers are a lot better than last year when purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod the climate is concerned. It’s exciting to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod see the progress. But reference scenarios still have emissions growing throughout the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod period, so we have plenty of work to do. For now, let’s look at the numbers they present…
Primary Energy Use
Primary energy consumption is forecast to rise .5% per year, slower than a .7% rate predicted last year Buspar purchase online (translating into a 5.4% lower level by 2030). Electricity demand is expected to increase 1% per year, slower than 2008′s 1.1% prediction buy Crestor without. Increased efficiency and purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod a demand response to higher expected oil prices drive this lower energy use. Lower energy demand growth is purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod good news for the climate in general, but now let’s dig deeper into the carbon composition of the numbers.
Renewables Rise
Renewables currently (in 2008) provide ~7.5% of US primary energy (March EIA Monthly Energy Review, p. 136). Most renewable energy comes from purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod hydropower and biomass, with growing shares from wind, geothermal, and purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod solar. While hydropower is expected to grow at a slow rate so that purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod its market share remains ~2.5% of total primary energy, the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod EIA projects non-hydro renewables to triple, increasing renewables’ total share to almost 15%. The largest renewable growth comes from wind power and biofuels.
Shifts in US Electricity
As I wrote about last week buy Premarin cod next day delivery, the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod share of electricity generated from coal continues to drop in the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod EIA projection. But it falls slower than the climate needs it purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod to — going from today’s ~48.5% to 47% in 2030, still an increase in coal consumption of 19% (p. 71). The ~25% increase in electricity demand requires 259 GW of new electrical capacity (p. 45), which is provided for primarily by natural gas (~137 GW or 53%), then renewables at 22% (~57 GW), coal at 18% (~47 GW), and nuclear plants at 5% (~13 GW). Approximately 30 GW of capacity are retired by 2030 (p. 72), mostly older coal and nuclear plants.
Wind & Solar Remain Small
In the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod reference case, the EIA expect wind and solar to remain mice compared to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod the elephants of fossil fuels. Wind grows to 44 GW (p. 48) or 2.5% of US electricity, only 75% higher than the ~25 GW at the end of 2008. It would take only 2 1/2 years at 2008′s 8+ GW growth rate for purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod 44 GW to be reached. Seems to me they are purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod short-changing wind power.
Solar is purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod dismissed even further into the margins. Growth is expected to make solar less than purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod half the size of wind today by 2030 (p. 140), rather than purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod its potential greater than 100 GW in my opinion. Their models have purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod probably not incorporated the 30+% solar modules price drop currently taking place since last summer. It’s clear that purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod the industry will have to prove themselves to EIA officials in coming months that purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod they can emerge profitable in 2010 despite module prices below $2.50 per watt.
Flat Oil Consumption
In a purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod big shift from previous projections, US oil demand is now predicted to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod stay flat through 2030. The 1 million barrels per day (Mbd) increase in liquid consumption is purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod provided by biofuels and some Coal-To-Liquid (CTL). Demand stays flat amidst a purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod growing economy because of a rising oil price that gets back into the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod triple digits by the early 2010s and arrives at a real price of $130 per barrel by 2030. Their high oil price scenario approaches $200 per barrel by 2030 and seems more reasonable to me.
They project that US oil production increases above today’s higher levels through 2030 due to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod a higher price making previously uneconomic deep-water projects profitable. While the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod increase in production thus far in 2009 is impressive, I am purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod skeptical such a production plateau can be maintained going forward. After all, 2009 (if indeed production continues above 2008 levels) will only be the third year out of the last 24 that US oil production increased.
Climate Implications
This rise of clean energy allows greenhouse gas emissions to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod grow at a slower rate than overall energy consumption, a mere .3% per year (p. 5) compared to .65% per year growth projected last year. By 2030, the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod carbon intensity of US GDP falls 39% and per capita emissions fall 14% (p. 84). While this is an improvement from last year’s projection, it purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod clearly shows that our country must enact a federal climate bill or purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod emissions will continue to increase.
Climate Concern Scenario
The reference case does not include early 2009 Green Stimulus Bill implications, such as the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod Production Tax Credit (PTC) extension. So, renewable electricity is purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod expected to grow faster than their reference case, but they predict increased growth from purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod a PTC to be less than 20% by 2030 (p. 48).
And the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod reference case does not include the passage of a federal cap-and-trade climate bill. For those projections, the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod EIA generated the scenario LW110. In LW110, more new low-carbon electrical capacity is purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod added to replace the retirement of ~100 GW of old coal plants. The low-carbon sources include 65 GW more renewables than purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod in the reference scenario, 93 GW more Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) coal, and 33 GW more nuclear power (p. 185). As a purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod result, emissions from electricity generation fall more than 50% from today’s level by 2030 (p. 53). Overall US carbon dioxide emissions from purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod energy fall a more mild 23% by 2030 (p. 52).
By internalizing the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod cost of climate change, the price of electricity rises ~20% from an expected plateau ~10.5 cents to a 2030 price of ~12.5 cents per kWh (p. 52). But we as consumers can still have lower our electrical bills by increasing our efficiency more than ~20%.
Bottom Line:
EIA projections in AEO2009 are purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod much more climate-friendly than last year. But the reference scenario leaves a purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod great deal of work for us to do. Federal climate legislation in the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod near term is crucial if our country is to be a purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod responsible member of the global community. While the wind industry will contribute significantly to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod the solution, solar has a long way to go to earn the purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod respect of the EIA as a major player in the next two decades.
I hope you enjoyed these bits from their 230-page report. I’ll be purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod writing more using insight from this report in the weeks ahead as we all work hard to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod accelerate the Sustainable Energy Transition!
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Write letters to purchase Doxycycline without prescription pay cod Sen. Feinstein D CA, and ask her not to obstruct large solar project development in Southern California deserts. That would give us a chance at beating the EIA projections. Concern for the desert ecosystem is a good thing, but it’s likely to be a worse threat to it’s health if we don’t slow the warming.