Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the grocer. Typically, however, the utility customer is limited in the
amount of power that can be sold to the supplier; the most the customer
can do is break even. Credit can be carried from month to month, but
unused credit expires at the end of the year. The utility gets without cost
whatever is left over at the end of the twelve-month billing cycle.
Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) set minimum shares of total
electricity generation that must be met with renewable energy. Twenty
percent is a common target for a set date in states that have RPSs. The
dates are typically ten to twenty years from the time the RPS is estab-
lished. Under RPSs, a utility can meet its renewable energy obligation by
securing tradable renewable energy credits in three ways: producing
renewable energy itself, contracting for the long-term purchase of credits
or renewable power, or buying credits on the spot market. In theory,
competition to provide utilities with the requisite credits is supposed to
lower electricity rates.
Job Creation
A widely quoted report from the University of California concluded that
the nation can expect 86,370 new energy jobs if we continue with the
energy mix current in 2007. 57 But if 20 percent of our energy were to
come from renewable sources, 188,000 to 240,850 jobs could be created,
depending on the relative proportions of wind, solar, and biomass energy.
The American Council for an Energy-Effi cient Economy estimates that
1.1 million jobs could be created through investments in energy effi ciency
technology.
Another study concluded that solar photovoltaic creates fi fty-fi ve to
eighty times as many direct jobs as natural gas, and solar heating creates
two to eight times more direct jobs than conventional power plants do. 58
Investing in clean energy technologies would both reduce the nation's
trade defi cit and reestablish the United States as a leader in the largest
global industry today.
Fuel Cells: Splitting Water for Power
In his 1874 science fi ction tale The Mysterious Island , Jules Verne
predicted that “water will be the coal of the future.” Early in the
twenty-fi rst century, Verne's vision is starting to come true in the form
of a fuel cell—an electrochemical energy device that converts hydrogen
and oxygen into water, producing electricity. 59 It has no moving parts.
It is similar to batteries in its design but does not run down or need
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