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Today�s giant coal and nuclear power plants are failing to provide the
high-quality, reliable electricity needed to power the new digital
economy, according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute, a
Washington, DC-based research organization.
Power interruptions due to the vulnerability of central power plants
and transmission lines cost the United States as much as $80 billion
annually.
�We�re beginning the 21st century with a power system that
cannot take our economy where it needs to go,� said Seth Dunn, author of
Micropower:
The Next Electrical Era. �The kind of highly reliable power needed
for today�s economy can only be based on a new generation of micropower
devices now coming on the market. These allow homes and businesses to
produce their own electricity, with far less pollution.�
The new micropower technologies, which include fuel cells,
microturbines, and solar roofing, are as small as one-millionth the scale
of today�s coal or nuclear plants�and produce little if any of the air
pollution of their larger cousins. Already, the multi-billion-dollar
potential of the market for micropower has sent investors scrambling to
buy into some of the new companies, sending their share prices soaring
earlier this year.
One group of micropower technologies generates electricity by
combustion. Reciprocating engines, traditionally fueled by diesel oil and
once used largely for backup power, are increasingly fueled by natural gas
and run throughout much of the day. Microturbines, advanced gas turbines
derived from aerospace jet engines, are just starting to be mass-produced,
shipped by the hundreds, and installed in drugstores, restaurants, and
other U.S. commercial buildings. Stirling engines, which can run on wood
chips and even solar heat, are becoming popular in European
homes.
Other micropower systems rely on processes that do not involve
combustion. Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that combine hydrogen
and oxygen to produce electricity and water. Several hundred fuel cells
are already operating worldwide, and will become commercially available
for homes in the next one to two years.
Solar cells, or photovoltaics (PV), which use sunlight falling on
semiconductor chips to produce electric current, have already entered the
residential and commercial building market in nations such as Japan and
Germany, and for off-grid use in developing nations. Wind power, the most
cost-competitive renewable energy technology, is poised for rapid
expansion in rural plains and offshore regions. Small geothermal,
microhydro, and biomass systems also hold important roles in the emerging
decentralized electricity system.
These small-scale generators have numerous advantages over large-scale
power plants. Located close to where they are used, small-scale units can
save electricity consumers millions of dollars by avoiding costly new
investments in central power plants and distribution systems.
Micropower can also save homeowners and businesses millions of dollars
by lowering the threat of power outages and subsequent lost productivity.
An electricity grid with many small generators is inherently more stable
than a grid served by only a few large plants. Banks, hospitals,
restaurants, and post offices have been among the early adopters of
micropower systems as a way to reduce their vulnerability to power
interruptions. The First National Bank of Omaha, in Omaha, Nebraska, for
example, responded to a costly computer system crash in 1997 by hooking
its processing center up to two fuel cells that provide 99.9999%
reliability.
Use of more efficient combustion-based micropower systems, relying
primarily on natural gas, will substantially lower emissions of
particulates, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and heavy metals. These
reductions would range from 50 to 100 percent, depending on the technology
and pollutant.
The use of wind, solar power, and fuel cells fueled by hydrogen can
also help reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, one third of which come
from electricity generation. In the United States, widespread adoption of
micropower could cut U.S. power plant carbon dioxide emissions in half. In
developing nations, small-scale power could lower carbon emissions by 42
percent relative to large-scale systems.
Micropower will allow developing countries to leapfrog to power sources
that are cheaper and cleaner than building more coal or nuclear plants and
extending existing transmission lines. Many of these countries lose the
equivalent of 20 to 50 percent of their total power generated through
leaks in their transmission and distribution systems. In rural regions,
where 1.8 billion people still lack access to electrical services,
small-scale systems are already economically superior to the extension of
transmission lines�and environmentally preferable to continued reliance on
kerosene lanterns and diesel generators. To date, solar PV systems have
been installed in more than half a million homes.
Despite micropower�s potential benefits, current market rules in most
countries favor the incumbent centralized model. Many electric utilities,
moreover, perceive micropower systems as an economic threat, and are
blocking their deployment by charging onerous connection fees and by
paying low prices for power fed into the grid. Failure to reform these
rules and practices could result in the construction of another generation
of marginally improved large-scale power plants of questionable long-term
economic and environmental value.
The extent to which current power markets favor short-sighted solutions
is highlighted in the rush to construct some 100,000 megawatts of
�merchant plants� worldwide. These large gas-fired power plants, marketed
as the answer to power shortages, are designed to make money by selling
power in newly deregulated electricity markets when demand and prices are
high. But they have raised serious concerns among investors for their
financial riskiness, and among grass-roots groups for their negative
ecological impacts�as many are located in rural or pristine areas.
The risk of locking in outdated central power plants is even greater in
the developing world. Over the next 20 years, some $1.7 trillion of
capital investment in new power capacity is projected to take place in
developing countries. �These nations have a golden opportunity to get the
rules right the first time, and set up markets that support power systems
suitable for the 21st century and not the 20th,�
concludes Dunn. | 