Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table
Fraction of electricity generated and emissions
from various fuels
.
Percentage of
electricity
Emission
(Gt of CO
)
Fuel
Coal
%
.
Gas
%
.
Nuclear
plus
big
%
hydro
Renewables
%
Rounding errors account for the difference from
%.
emission-free electricity, nuclear and big hydro, from the
proposed standard.
Electricity costs at the power plant for the renewables
were shown in
Figure
. What is behind the RPS idea
is to force the installation of renewable energy sources on
a scale suf
.
ciently large to begin to achieve the economies
that go with large-scale production of the equipment.
Wind power systems have come down in cost, but for
the past few years costs have been
at even as the amount
of wind energy installed goes up. While wind does get
subsidies in the form of tax credits, it is within sight of
grid parity if an emission charge was added to coal and
natural gas production of electricity. This is not true for
solar electricity, and I think it unlikely that photovoltaic
will approach grid parity without the introduction of
some new kind of solar cell.
A greenhouse gas reduction standard (GRS) is more
appropriate to reduce emissions. Under GRS, if carbon
capture and storage was shown tomorrow to be workable
and effective, it would qualify, but with an RPS a good
way to reduce emissions while still using fossil fuels would
