ENERGY SUSTAINABILITY
Our Energy and Climate Future: This is the “Great Debate” for the concern of Sustainability. Global warming due to human activity is occurring as “Greenhouse Gases” (GHG) are emitted into the atmosphere, largely from use of coal and oil. Gases include Carbon Dioxide (CO2), methane and others but are usually measured in terms of CO2 equivalent. Consumption of the finite petroleum resource is increasing, resulting in more GHG and a rapid depletion of this non-renewable energy resource upon which all developed nations depend.
Security and Sustainability: “There are … major reasons why dependence on petroleum and its products for the lion’s share of the world’s transportation fuel creates special angers in our time.” ("High Cost of Crude - The New Currency of Foreign Policy" U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, by R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-95, November 16, 2005.) “The United States has just over 4% of the world’s population and uses roughly 25% of the world’s oil production. This statistic in itself is misleading, because the United States produces roughly 20% to 25% of the gross world product. Nonetheless, that statistic does underscore our potential vulnerability in an era that we may no longer be able to produce additional conventional crude oil worldwide.” (Statement Of James Schlesinger before The Committee On Foreign Relations United States Senate, 16 November 2005.)
Courtesy of the Sierra Club
Our society now faces a fundamental challenge greater than any in history. Dependence on fossil fuels is causing global warming, the depletion of energy resources, and severe damage to human health and the environment. The impacts of burning fossil fuels threaten the security of our nation, the survival of species, and the Earth’s very capacity to sustain life.
Converging events, including rising energy prices, increasingly powerful hurricanes and melting glaciers have raised growing concerns, and our national fossil fuel addiction leaves us dependent on imports from unstable regions of the world.
Responding to these changes before they overwhelm us is often described as requiring sacrifice and hardship. Instead, the Sierra Club believes the most effective response will rely on determination, forward thinking, and hard but rewarding work to achieve a stable global climate and a sustainable energy system. The Sierra Club’s strategy reduces all forms of pollution, not just greenhouse gases, and promotes species protection, environmental justice and security.
Guided by the conservation ethic, the Sierra Club has crafted this comprehensive Energy Resources Policy to promote a positive vision of a sustainable energy future. The Sierra Club’s clean energy strategy will wean us from oil, coal and other fossil fuels, eliminate energy waste, work in harmony with natural systems, and define the technologies and smart energy solutions that will meet our nation’s energy needs.
As these changes unfold, other important benefits will follow. For example, bringing home and work closer together through better land-use planning will not only save energy, but also build a greater sense of community and allow us more time to enjoy it.
The path to a sustainable energy future starts by promoting energy conservation, tapping the enormous resource of energy efficiency, directly reducing dependence on non-renewable fuels and maximizing the benefits of renewable energy. At the same time, energy efficiency and renewable energy will be the engine of new economic growth, saving money and creating jobs. The result will be lasting improvements for our economy and our environment, more livable communities, more productive manufacturing, less wasteful use of materials, and less pressure on the natural systems of the Earth that sustain us.
Increased conservation, energy efficiency and use of renewable resources will not happen through new laws and policy alone. While those are necessary, there also must be a fundamental shift in awareness, attitudes and values that connects directly to experience, learning and thoughtful consideration of a better way to live on our planet.
Transition to a Clean Energy Future
The Sierra Club envisions that within this century the world energy system will use almost no fossil fuels, and will instead rely on the efficient use of abundant renewable energy from the sun, the wind, water, biomass, and the Earth’s own heat. To achieve this, the nations of the world must immediately and decisively shift to building a clean energy future.
The way forward will involve a transition period during which new and improved technologies are developed, old systems are replaced, and society moves toward a more sustainable form. While there will be breakthroughs in technologies, policies and public attitudes, change must primarily come through incremental progress, because it takes time to replace existing infrastructure and practices.
Only a broad portfolio of options can achieve these ambitious objectives. The Sierra Club supports moving quickly to make major reductions in CO2 emissions and build the momentum for much broader improvements. It may prove impossible to cut CO2 much faster than a few percent per year, because doing so depends on many factors: the rate at which buildings and equipment can be upgraded or replaced, efficiency measures and renewable technologies can be developed and brought to market, and a shift from waste and overuse to conservation can occur.
To accomplish this energy transition, the United States and the international community must take the following actions:
- Seek to change individual behaviors and attitudes about energy consumption.
- Adopt public and private policies that support reductions in energy usage.
- Invest in research and development of new technology.
- Emphasize efficiency as the most plentiful and cost-effective energy resource.
- Choose existing energy options that will reduce, and eventually eliminate, the use of fossil fuels and other sources of greenhouse gases, while recognizing that all energy use has adverse environmental consequences.
- Ensure the equitable availability and affordability of critical resources for all people, now and in the future.
- Remove subsidies, incentives and tax benefits for resources that create pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Promote change in energy use and production in deference to the need for healthy ecosystems, protecting human health, and providing for environmental justice.
Success also requires progress on a long list of concerns outside the scope of this Energy Resources Policy. These issues are addressed in existing and forthcoming Sierra Club policies. They include moving toward sustainable land use and agricultural practices, considering energy and carbon taxes and incentives, reducing ecosystem impacts from energy and fertilizer pollution, addressing a host of equity and environmental justice issues, and much more. In particular, because population relates to energy use and carrying capacity, every effort must be made to foster the social and economic changes that reduce population growth throughout the world and achieve a sustainable level.
Innovation
Innovation in technology and methods of energy use is a key to achieving a sustainable energy future. Human ingenuity, imagination and strategic investment in research and development of new technologies will usher in a new energy era. However, experience shows that support for innovation must be tempered with thorough review of new practices and technologies which often have unanticipated consequences.
The Sierra Club prefers the following energy supply options. Combined with conservation and efficiency measures, these resources have the greatest potential to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, contribute to a stronger economy, and reduce environmental damage and harm to human health. Our society should seek maximum reliance on these technologies.
It is especially important to provide support for renewable energy resources through the use of renewable portfolio standards, advanced renewable tariffs, public benefit funding, tax-based incentives, and other policy tools at the local, state and national level.
However, the Sierra Club recognizes that all energy resources have adverse impacts, since each one requires materials, manufacturing and construction, and most require land for facilities. Resource siting and deployment must always take into account the specific conditions of each location and minimize the damage to natural systems, flora and fauna, wild places and nearby communities.
Sierra Club entities may support or remain neutral on projects employing these resources. They may oppose sites or projects that would cause significant environmental harm or projects where the public can’t get adequate information for a full assessment and review. Decisions to oppose a specific facility listed as a preferred resource must be justified with a detailed description of the significant environmental harm. When the Sierra Club opposes a particular project in the preferred category, it should always make clear that opposition is based on the location or other project-specific characteristics, and that the Sierra Club generally supports reliance on these energy resources.
Wind power is widely available and the industry has matured rapidly in the last decade. While output from individual wind turbines varies based on daily and seasonal weather, at the regional scale wind power is a clean, consistent, reliable and safe energy resource. The Sierra Club strongly supports direct use of wind energy.
Wind energy systems may have noticeable visual impacts and can disturb sensitive or endangered plants and wildlife. Existing wind energy systems with significant impacts on avian and bat populations should be modified to mitigate those impacts; if modifications prove to be ineffective, turbines should be curtailed or dismantled. Locations with lesser impacts should be sought for new projects. Offshore sites may have access to a superior wind resource, but may disturb coastal and marine environments. In general, the environmental impacts of wind energy systems should be reduced through careful technology choice, siting, reliable pre-construction monitoring, and operations. The Sierra Club supports further research, both general and site-specific, and development of new technologies, to minimize and mitigate impacts of wind energy systems. (The Sierra Club’s Wind Siting Advisory contains further guidance.)
Small scale photovoltaic (PV) electric power and solar domestic water heating systems are already used widely. On-site solar can provide substantial residential and commercial energy even in high latitudes and cloudy climates, and reduces transmission and land use requirements. Active and passive solar design and siting can be used to provide heating and cooling in residential and commercial buildings and can play a key role in industrial processes.
There are several types of utility-scale solar electric generation including photovoltaic, high-temperature concentrating solar trough and tower systems, and low-temperature solar thermal. Solar energy is well matched to daily and seasonal energy demand. As costs continue to drop, solar generation will become a prominent national energy resource.
Efficient CHP systems produce both electricity and steam or other useful heating or cooling services, providing the most value and least pollution from a fuel source. Use of the waste heat from industrial processes decreases on-site energy requirements for grid power and may provide off-site supply. In conjunction with smart development of city and town centers, district energy systems can provide both electricity and usable heat. Note: Sierra Club support for CHP does not change our opposition to new coal-fired power plants.
Low-temperature geothermal energy uses the Earth’s own heat for building and district heating and cooling, and can be provide an effective residential and neighborhood energy supply.
Resources in this category should play a role in a clean energy future, but they have larger potential environmental costs than resources in the preferred category. Sierra Club entities may support or remain neutral on projects employing these technologies. Sierra Club entities always may oppose an inappropriate site or project. Since the resources in this category are less desirable technologies, criteria may be more restrictive than for preferred resources. However, when the Sierra Club opposes a particular project, it should always be made clear that opposition is based on the location or other project specific inadequacies, and that the Sierra Club generally supports further reliance on these energy resources.
Small-scale hydroelectric projects can produce power from water stored behind a dam for regulated flow, use the natural streamflow without an impoundment ("run of river"), or divert the flow through a pipe or canal. Microhydro is generally considered to be up to 100 kilowatts of capacity, and small hydro is up to 10 megawatts.
While significant numbers of sites could be developed for small-scale hydro, each site must be considered for its local and cumulative effects on water quantity and quality, minimum streamflow, habitat, and fish passage. All installations must provide full mitigation for any detrimental effects. Some stream segments should not be developed at all in order to preserve the benefits of free-flowing rivers. The Sierra Club opposes installations in stream segments proposed for listing as federal or state Wild and Scenic Rivers or in roadless areas.
The Sierra Club generally does not support small-scale hydro development requiring new dams and impoundments. Retrofit of existing dams that are unlikely to be removed may be appropriate provided river impacts are minimized and both upstream and downstream fish passage addressed. Run-of-river and channel diversion projects must minimize river impacts and provide fish screening, and minimum streamflows must be maintained in the natural channel.
The ocean energy resource is very large, widely available and renewable, but the available technologies for capturing the energy are still in development and their environmental impacts are not well characterized, but could potentially affect marine and coastal resources. Careful development with tight controls over siting and operation will be necessary for commercial-scale facilities.
Geothermal energy is a resource with almost no greenhouse gas emissions. For conventional hydrothermal (steam or hot water) resources, modern re-injection designs nearly eliminate toxic emissions, particularly hydrogen sulfide, and sustain the resource for far longer. Since geothermal resources are often associated with significant surface features such as geysers, volcanoes and hot springs, and tend to be in sensitive areas, siting criteria are crucially important. The potential for geothermal energy from hot dry rock resources is much larger than hydrothermal resources, but the technology to extract energy from these resources has not developed beyond the pilot stage.
Biodiesel is diesel fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fat. The available recyclable quantity of waste animal and vegetable oil is approximately 2% of U.S. diesel consumption. Even a low fraction of biodiesel mixed with petroleum based diesel fuel produces lower emissions and other environmental benefits. Using this waste for fuel appears to be a benign and cost-effective form of recycling. Sierra Club supports the development of biodiesel fuel resources in order to allow the industry to mature and clearly demonstrate sustainability.
The Sierra Club encourages development of cellulosic ethanol from sustainable feedstocks because it promises significant advantages over corn ethanol production, including higher energy return, lower cultivation inputs, and soil conservation benefits. Switchgrass is one of many potential feedstocks. Cellulosic ethanol production mixing ethanol feedstocks with conventional agricultural produce should be explored. However, production of some cellulosic ethanol feedstocks may pose unacceptable environmental impacts, and the Sierra Club may oppose specific feedstocks.
A Note on Biofuels
Oil and gasoline have been the predominant transportation fuels for many decades, but a more diverse mix is starting to emerge as a result of depletion of cheap fossil fuels.
Biofuels comprise the major renewable alternative for transportation fuel, but there is no single way to characterize them. There are many feedstocks for biofuels, including agricultural and forest products and residues, as well as recycled materials such as cooking oil. Biofuels are produced with a wide variety of production methods.
Numerous criteria must be considered for each type of biofuel, including the source of the raw materials, the associated land, air and water impacts of large-scale extraction and use, the ecosystem pressures of using exotic or invasive plant species, the effects of non-sustainable cultivation including chemical fertilizers and pest control, and the elements of the fuel manufacturing process, including the energy inputs.
The net energy benefit of all biofuels is highly variable, and the potential for competition between farming for food and for energy products must also be considered. Whether a specific type of biofuel is truly sustainable depends on many factors, but most biofuel types are not sufficiently mature to provide a clear assessment.
There are drawbacks to many biofuel categories, including the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels, soil depletion, potential risks from genetically modified crops, encouragement of poor forestry and land use practices, low net energy balance, subsidies that outweigh rational energy choices, and competition with the use of agricultural land to grow food.
As with agriculture in general, for biofuels the Sierra Club supports the use of reduced or no chemical inputs, crop rotation to enhance yield, good soil conservation practices, operating processing plants with renewable energy where possible, and local distribution of fuel supplies. Refining some biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, requires large quantities of fossil fuels, primarily natural gas, diesel and coal. Sustainably produced biomass is a preferred energy resource in biofuel production in order to create a closed-loop fuel cycle.
The Sierra Club supports the import of biofuels only when a certification process is established internationally to eliminate the conversion of endangered rainforests, native grasslands and other endangered ecosystems to biofuel crops.
