Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and renewables. The totals for
are
EIA projections. The shaded areas show the emission-free
contribution required to match
,
, and
in
or
,or
to be at
.
I said earlier that there were no silver bullets to slay
the climate monster. You hear all the time how this
or that technology is all that is needed to solve our
problem if the government would only require it.
Usually the ones advocating that kind of approach have
done little real work on analyzing the effects of their
recommended silver bullet. There is one exception: a
comprehensive report done by the California Council
on Science and Technology (CCST) at the request of
the California Public Utilities Commission, Energy
Commission, and Air Resources Board.
The challenge
was how to reach California
%of
in
'
s
goal of emissions
% renewables
(wind, solar, geothermal, ocean systems, and small
hydro) in the mix.
CCST set up a series of working groups on various
technologies and a core group that would put it all
together. They made assumptions that some regarded as
too aggressive:
%belowthatof
with at least
% decrease in energy per square foot in
buildings, all light vehicles run on electricity, all heavy
vehicles run on biofuels,
% effective carbon capture
and storage, etc. The conclusion was that the goal could
not be met with renewables alone. Smoothing out the
fluctuations in the output of wind and solar required too
much emission from gas-
red power plants even with
% effective CCS.
http://www.ccst.us/publications/
/
energy.php.
