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PREPUBLICATION COPY
Subject to Further Editorial Correction
America’s Energy Future Panel on Electricity from Renewable Resources
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the
National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy
of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of
the panel responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for
appropriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by the Department of Energy under Grant Number DE-
FG02-07-ER-15923 and by BP America, Dow Chemical Company Foundation, Fred Kavli and
the Kavli Foundation, GE Energy, General Motors Corporation, Intel Corporation, and the W.M.
Keck Foundation. Support was also provided by the Presidents’ Circle Communications
Initiative of the National Academies and by the National Academy of Sciences through the
following endowed funds created to perpetually support the work of the National Research
Council: Thomas Lincoln Casey Fund, Arthur L. Day Fund, W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fund,
George and Cynthia Mitchell Endowment for Sustainability Science, and Frank Press Fund for
Dissemination and Outreach. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations
expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the organizations that provided support for the project.
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Copyright 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of
distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the
furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority
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encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers.
Dr. Charles M. Vest is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
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associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of
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of the National Research Council.
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PANEL ON ELECTRICITY FROM RENEWABLE RESOURCES
LAWRENCE T. PAPAY, NAE,1 Science Applications International Corporation (retired), Chair
ALLEN J. BARD, NAS,2 University of Texas, Austin, Vice Chair
RAKESH AGRAWAL, NAE, Purdue University
WILLIAM CHAMEIDES, NAS, Duke University
JANE H. DAVIDSON, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
J. MICHAEL DAVIS, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
KELLY FLETCHER, General Electric
CHARLES F. GAY, Applied Materials, Inc.
CHARLES H. GOODMAN, Southern Company Services, Inc. (retired)
SOSSINA M. HAILE, California Institute of Technology
NATHAN S. LEWIS, California Institute of Technology
KAREN L. PALMER, Resources for the Future, Inc.
JEFFREY M. PETERSON, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
KARL R. RABAGO, Austin Energy
CARL J. WEINBERG, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (retired)
KURT E. YEAGER, Galvin Electricity Initiative
America’s Energy Future Project Managers
PETER D. BLAIR, Executive Director, Division on Enginnering and Physical Sciences
JAMES ZUCCHETTO, Board on Energy and Environmental Systems
Staff
K. JOHN HOLMES, Study Director
KATHERINE BITTNER, Senior Project Assistant (until July 2008)
LANITA R. JONES, Senior Program Associate
AMY HEE KIM, Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow (until
November 2008)
DOROTHY MILLER, Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow
(until August 2008)
JASON ORTEGO, Senior Program Assistant
STEPHANIE WOLAHAN, Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow
(until April 2009)
E. JONATHAN YANGER, Senior Project Assistant
1
NAE, National Academy of Engineering.
2
NAS, National Academy of Sciences.
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Foreword
Energy, which has always played a critical role in our country’s national security,
economic prosperity, and environmental quality, has over the last two years been pushed to the
forefront of national attention as a result of several factors:
• World demand for energy has increased steadily, especially in developing nations.
China, for example, saw an extended period (prior to the current worldwide economic recession)
of double-digit annual increases in economic growth and energy consumption.
• Nearly 60 percent of the U.S. demand for oil is now met by depending on imports
supplied by foreign sources, up from 40 percent in 1990.
• The long-term reliability of traditional sources of energy, especially oil, remains
uncertain in the face of political instability and limitations on resources.
• Concerns are mounting about global climate change—a result, in large measure, of
the fossil-fuel combustion that currently provides most of the world’s energy.
• The volatility of energy prices has been unprecedented, climbing in 2008 to record
levels and then dropping precipitously—in only a matter of months in early 2009.
• Today, investments in the energy infrastructure and its needed technologies are
modest; many alternative energy sources are receiving insufficient attention; and the nation’s
energy supply and distribution systems are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and acts
of terrorism.
All of these factors are affected to a great degree by the policies of government, both here
and abroad, but even with the most enlightened policies the overall energy enterprise, like a
massive ship, will be slow to change course. Its complex mix of scientific, technical, economic,
social, and political elements means that the necessary transformational change in how we
generate, supply, distribute, and use energy will be an immense undertaking, requiring decades
to complete.
To stimulate and inform a constructive national dialogue about our energy future, the
National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering initiated in 2007 a
major study, “America’s Energy Future: Technology Opportunities, Risks, and Tradeoffs.” The
America’s Energy Future (AEF) project was initiated in anticipation of major legislative interest
in energy policy in the U.S. Congress, and as the effort proceeded, it was endorsed by Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman and former Ranking Member
Pete Domenici.
The AEF project evaluates current contributions and the likely future impacts, including
estimated costs, of existing and new energy technologies. It was planned to serve as a foundation
for subsequent policy studies, at the academies and elsewhere, that will focus on energy research
and development priorities, strategic energy technology development, and policy analysis.
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The AEF project has produced a series of five reports, including this report on electricity
from renewable resources, designed to inform key decisions as the nation begins this year a
comprehensive examination of energy policy issues. Numerous studies conducted by diverse
organizations have benefited the project, but many of those studies disagree about the potential
of specific technologies, particularly those involving alternative sources of energy such as
biomass, renewable resources for generation of electric power, advanced processes for
generation from coal, and nuclear power. A key objective of the AEF series of reports is thus to
help resolve conflicting analyses and to facilitate the charting of a new direction in the nation’s
energy enterprise.
The AEF project, outlined in Appendix A, included a study committee and three panels
that together have produced an extensive analysis of energy technology options for consideration
in an ongoing national dialogue. A milestone in the project was the March 2008 “National
Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future” at which principals of related recent studies
provided input to the AEF study committee and helped to inform the panels’ deliberations. A
report chronicling the event, The National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future:
Summary of a Meeting, was published in October 2008.
The AEF project was generously supported by the W.M. Keck Foundation, Fred Kavli
and the Kavli Foundation, Intel Corporation, Dow Chemical Company Foundation, General
Motors Corporation, GE Energy, BP America, U.S. Department of Energy, and our own
academies.
Ralph J. Cicerone, President Charles M. Vest, President
National Academy of Sciences National Academy of Engineering
Chair, National Research Council Vice Chair, National Research Council
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Preface
Shortly after the end of World War II, America’s electricity use rose rapidly with the
introduction of labor-saving appliances and tools in the home, the electrification of
manufacturing processes and assembly lines in factories, and the increased distribution of
refrigerated and frozen foods into markets. This unprecedented growth averaged almost 7
percent annually on a compound basis for two decades. Helping to fuel this growth was the
lower price of electricity made possible by economies of scale achieved as new plants were built.
With the close of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s, a series of events changed the face
of electric power economics and structure, and this process continues today. The 1970 National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) signaled that environmental considerations would be required for every decision
regarding expansion, construction, and operation of electric power systems and components. In
1973 the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ oil embargo on the United States
pointed out the vulnerability of the supply of transportation and boiler fuels. On the heels of the
embargo, the United States experienced sharp increases in the cost of electricity due to the
increased price of fuels. As the 1980s arrived, it became far more costly to construct large base-
load power plants—particularly nuclear plants—because of lengthy approval processes and,
post-Three Mile Island, reevaluation and redesign of nuclear safety systems.
The advent of deregulation due to legislation from 1978 onward meant that new project-
financed independent power generators would look for least-cost options, which usually meant
natural-gas-fired combined cycle power plants.
Based on a series of studies by the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy in the early 1970s, a few developers and utilities began to look into the possible use of
renewable sources of energy for electric power production. In 1978, with the passage of the
Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), small generation units and renewable resources
were given special attention. The introduction of incentives such as tax credits at the federal and
state level, as well as renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), spurred the development of
renewable technologies. Growth in the 1980s and early 1990s was spotty, but the succeeding
decade has seen a dramatic increase in renewable projects for electric power, particularly in wind
and solar.
Today, there is a nexus of concerns about the U.S. energy portfolio: concerns about the
environment, principally arising from climate change issues; concerns about energy security,
principally due to the large amounts of oil imported from volatile parts of the world; and
concerns about the economy, principally because of sharp increases in the price of oil, natural
gas, and basic construction commodities. Collectively, these concerns beg the question of
whether it is time for re-evaluating and redesigning our electric infrastructure to extend energy
efficiency to a much greater extent and use domestic, non-polluting economically attractive
energy sources. Thus, this provides the motivation for the continued, but growing interest in
renewable-based electric power.
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Such concerns, consequently, have led to greater interest in renewable electric power. As
part of the America’s Energy Future (AEF) project initiated by the National Academy of
Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering (Appendix A), the National Research
Council convened the Panel on Electricity from Renewable Resources (Appendix B) to examine
all the factors that must be considered if any renewable energy resource is to become a
significant contributor to meeting U.S. energy needs (see Box P-1 for the full statement of task).
Presented in this standalone report, the work of this independent panel will also serve as input to
the larger AEF study outlined in Appendix A.
This report of the panel considers resource bases, technologies, economics,
environmental impacts, and deployment issues and also presents selected deployment scenarios
and their impacts. The major focus is the relative near term, from the present to the year 2020.
The report also considers, in less detail, the mid-term between the years 2020 and 2035 and the
long term beyond 2035. The goal of the report is to determine if renewable electric power
technologies can make a significant (>20 percent) contribution to the total electric power needs
of the United States and on what basis. It examines cost and deployment issues in detail.
This report is the result of considerable time and effort contributed by the panel members.
Many issues needed a fair and honest discussion, and the panel members proved capable of the
task. The panel in turn appreciates the dedicated and committed staff of the National Research
Council, including K. John Holmes, study director and senior program officer with the Board on
Energy and Environmental Systems (BEES); Amy Hee Kim, Dorothy Miller, and Stephanie
Wolahan, all Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellows; James
Zucchetto, director of BEES; Jonathan Yanger and Jason Ortego, senior program assistants; and
Peter Blair, executive director of the Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences. Richard
Sweeney of Resources for the Future also contributed to the economic analysis in Chapter 4.
Lawrence T. Papay, Chair
Panel on Electricity from Renewable Resources
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BOX P-1 Task Statement for AEF Panel on Electricity from Renewables
This panel will examine the technical potential for electric power generation with
alternative sources such as wind, solar-photovoltaic, geothermal, solar-thermal,
hydroelectric, and other renewable resources. The panel will also consider the broader
energy applications of renewables, especially low-temperature solar applications that may
reduce electricity demands. The panel will evaluate technologies based on their estimated
times to initial commercial deployment and will provide the following information for
each:
• Initial deployment times < 10 years: costs, performance, and impacts
• 10 to 25 years: barriers, implications for costs, and R&D challenges/needs
• > 25 years: barriers and R&D challenges/needs, especially basic research
needs.
The primary focus of the study will be on the quantitative characterization of
technologies with initial deployment times < 10 years. The panel will focus on those
renewable resources that show the most promise for initial commercial development
within a decade leading to substantial impact on the U.S. energy system, as well as
consider the potential use of such technologies globally. In keeping with the charge to
the overall scope of the America's Energy Future Study Committee, the panel will not
recommend policy choices, but will assess the state of development of technologies.
In addition to a principal focus on renewable energy technologies for power generation,
the panel will address the challenges of incorporating such technologies into the power
grid, as well as the potential of improvements in the national electricity grid that could
enable better and more extensive use of wind, solar-thermal, solar photovoltaics, and
other renewable technologies.
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Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse
perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the Report
Review Committee of the National Research Council (NRC). The purpose of this independent
review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its
published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards
for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft
manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to
thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Douglas M. Chapin, MPR Associates,
Paul DeCotis, State of New York,
Sam Fleming, Consultant,
Clark Gellings, Electric Power Research Institute,
Roy Gordon, Harvard University,
Narain Hingorani, Consultant,
Richard Hirsch, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
Lester B. Lave, Carnegie Mellon University,
Timothy Mount, Cornell University,
Pedro Pizzaro, Southern California Edison,
Norman R. Scott, Cornell University,
Terrance Surles, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, and
Jefferson Tester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and
suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they
see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by
Elisabeth M. Drake, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robert A. Frosch, Harvard
University. Appointed by the NRC, they were responsible for making certain that an
independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional
procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final
content of this report rests entirely with the authoring panel and the institution.
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Contents
SUMMARY 1
1 INTRODUCTION 13
Background, 14
Current Status of Renewable Electricity Generation, 21
Reference Case Projection of Future Renewable Electricity Generation
in the United States, 26
Issues of Scale, 31
Approach and Scope of This Report, 31
References, 32
2 RESOURCE BASE 35
2007 Baseline Values, 35
Wind Power, 35
Solar Power. 37
Geothermal Power, 38
Hydropower, 40
Biopower, 42
Findings, 44
References, 44
3 RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES 47
Wind Power, 48
Solar Photovoltaic Power, 54
Concentrating Solar Power, 60
Geothermal Power, 64
Hydropower, 68
Biopower, 72
Enhancing Technologies for Electric System Operation, 77
Findings, 87
References, 88
4 ECONOMICS OF RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY 93
The Value of Renewables, 93
Costs and Economics of Renewable Electricity, 96
Policies and Practices That Affect the Economics of Renewable
Electricity Generation, 102
Estimates of Current Costs, 111
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Costs in 2020, 117
Analysis of 2020 Cost Projections, 119
Findings, 121
References, 123
Annex, 128
5 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY 133
GENERATION
Large-Scale Impacts from Life Cycle Assessment, 133
Local Environmental Impacts—Siting and Permitting, 147
Findings, 154
References, 155
Annex, 161
6 DEPLOYMENT OF RENEWABLE ELECTRIC ENERGY 167
Deployment Capacity Considerations, 168
Renewable Electricity Integration, 177
Renewable Energy Markets, 183
Deployment Risk and Related Issues, 188
Findings, 197
References, 198
7 SCENARIOS 203
Objectives for Scenarios, 203
Examples of High-Penetration Scenarios, 205
Scenarios Coupling Renewables to Energy Markets Through Carbon Policies, 217
Findings, 222
References, 225
APPENDIXES
A America’s Energy Future Project 231
B Panel Biographical Information 235
C Presentations to the Panel 241
D Description of State Renewable Portfolio Standards 243
E Attributes of Life Cycle Assessment 249
F Atmospheric Emissions from Fossil Fuel and Nuclear Electricity Generation 251
FIGURES
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