Perspectives

It's Not Easy Being Green

East Bay Green Corridor Partnership ignores nuclear power

By Jessica Mintz and Deaglan Halligan
From the February 2008 Print Edition

"In December, the mayors of Berkeley, Richmond and Emeryville met with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory director Steve Chu to kick off the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership with an ambitious goal of establishing the East Bay as a world-leading center of green business and industry, a self-proclaimed Green Corridor and Silicon Valley of the green economy. More concretely, the East Bay cities and UC Berkeley are collectively vying for federal funds to pay for greencollar jobs that directly contribute to green technology and the environment.

The mayor of Richmond envisions incentives for green businesses, manufacturing, renewable energy, and environmental justice, while Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates pictures a regional job training program at high schools and even at UC Berkeley. Were going to catch that green wave, and everybodys going to be on that boat, Bates proclaimed. Its a saccharine metaphor that begs us to properly evaluate the value of green energy and its appropriate place in a realistic energy portfolio.

First, its enlightening to decode the buzzword cocktail-party conversation that is the lingo of the East Bay suits into more utilitarian terms. By green energy, we actually mean renewable energy that is, energy from sources that are not depleted in the sense that fossil fuels are depleted. Such sources are either derived from continuously available natural resources (such as solar, wind, and tidal power), or can be renewed rapidly (such as biofuels).

Its worth noting that there is a virtually perfect renewable energy source on the horizon fusion energy that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers calls a virtually inexhaustible, environmentally attractive and economical power source. Yet fusion power has been in the works for 50 years and its still too far off for pressing energy problems. Knowing that the perfect green, renewable energy source is still a ways off, lets consider the merits of the more immediate options.

Renewable energy is definitely an avenue worth exploring in light of the current indisputable energy crisis, and it makes people feel so warm and fuzzy. However, dont be too quick to judge it by its trendy cover. Renewable energy has important limitations (like any technology) that are glossed over by green rhetoric. Solar energy costs several times more than traditional coal power per kilowatt hour even after 30-percent investment tax credits under current laws. Solar panels that are built with semiconductor technology also contain toxic materials that make disposal an environmental problem. Both solar and wind power share the fundamental drawback of intermittent availability. Wind power is much cheaper than solar power partially because the materials used are far less technologically sophisticated, but wind power is far more intermittent than solar power, and also far more dependent on location. Also, unlike solar panels, windmills dont have a lot of room to be technologically improved.

Renewable energy may be environmentally friendly, but it seems far less realistic for large-scale use when analyzed more closely. All forms of renewable energy seem to suffer from the same persistent, unavoidable problems. Tidal and geothermal resources are often hard to come by and difficult and expensive to exploit. To make matters worse, power generators for these energy sources are very expensive and have low power outputs compared to traditional sources. Biofuels are becoming more popular in the United States and are certainly one of the more attractive renewable energies (particularly for motor vehicles) because they require little change in current combustion machinery and hence smaller investment than other renewable sources. However, there is still a lot of research needed to make the technology efficient and scalable.

Considering both the benefits and limitations of green energy, its important to realize that there is an alternative environmentally friendly power option whose major weakness is simply its lack of politically correct catch phrases nuclear power. Electricite de France derives threequarters of its electricity from nuclear power plants, with the remainder primarily hydroelectric or thermal. Also, nuclear power now supplies 20 percent of Britains electricity, with that number likely to grow soon along with the number of plants under the new energy policy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown realizes that nuclear power has all the right attributes it produces a negligible amount carbon dioxide, the technology is extremely safe and reliable from decades of research, and uranium fuel can be obtained from stable, democratic countries like Australia or Canada.

China is choosing nuclear power as a solution to its environmental woes, which are far more serious than our own. Nuclear power has mostly suffered from a large perceived risk among the misinformed public the IEEE, however, calls the risks involved with nuclear power acceptable and manageable. Better, nuclear power has a lower cost per kilowatt hour than expensive renewable sources like solar power, with most costs being associated with initial capital investment.

While its clear that renewable energy sources will benefit from further research and development, in application they probably have too many limitations to satisfy the bulk of electricity demand. Nevertheless, renewable sources are gaining an important place in the energy portfolio that is not necessarily under the governments wing. Currently, GE is partnering with SunPower, a Silicon Valleybased manufacturer of high-efficiency solar panels, to install large-scale solar systems on corporate buildings across California totaling 8MW. This represents a successful collaboration between private companies to secure a practical place for solar power in the energy portfolio with more tangible goals than a government-subsidized Green Corridor. However, one must realize that the potential for nuclear power to provide environmentally safe baseload electricity is almost certainly greater. If any subsidies are to be given for green collar jobs, then the first recipient should be the nuclear industry.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting the Patriot