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ALTERNATIVE
ENERGY
MEETS MAIN
STREET

BY KARL GROSSMAN

ONCE SEEN AS A COSTLY BOONDOGGLE, RENEWABLES ARE NOW THE POWER SOURCE OF CHOICE FOR MORE AND MORE INDIVIDUALS AND PUBLIC UTILITIES.

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LIKE HUNDREDS of other commuters, software consultant David Darby drives every workday morning to the Alewife subway station near Boston. But before he hops on the train, he plugs his car into the station's solar panels, which will recharge the vehicle during the day. Darby's Solectria Force sedan is part of the small but growing fleet of electric vehicles on the nation's roads. He commutes about 250 miles a week in the car. "I'm also off to the grocery store, dropping the kids off at daycare, picking up things around town - doing all kinds of errands," he says, totaling about 15,000 miles a year. This is his third electric car since 1995, and he loves it. "It's pretty snappy," says Darby.

In Maine, William and Deborah Lord are in their fourth year of living in a solar home that generates its own electricity and heats the couple's hot water. During the winter, the roof's solar panels make the house an island of warmth and self-sufficiency amid the snow and cold of Maine. "We really couldn't be happier," William Lord says. "The house is a living, functioning part of the environment. And we haven't had to skimp on appliances or sacrifice comfort. We hope that others will see the validity of this approach to building."

STEVEN STRONG FOUNDER OF SOLAR DESIGN ASSOCIATES HARVARD,MA Electrical and mechanical engineer Steven Strong is the founder of Solar Design Associates and the author of The Solar Electric House (Sustainability Press, 1993). Strong, who designed William and Deborah Lord's house in Maine, became interested in solar energy in the 1970s, when he worked as a consultant for the Alaskan pipeline. "I realized that going to the ends of the earth to extract the last drop of fossil fuel was not the answer to our long-term energy needs," he says, "What's exciting about solar,"says Strong, "is that with available systems, you can power your residence with sunlight that falls on your home pretty much in any area of the country."

For many people, it may come as a surprise to learn how far society has come in producing and delivering clean, safe renewable energy. The idea of sustainable energy sometimes seems like a relic of the 1970s. The oil shortages of those years prompted vigorous research into solar, wind and other energy sources, but the early sustainable technologies were expensive and impractical for large-scale use. And with the price of oil relatively low in recent years, the concept of alternative energy fell out of the popular consciousness. But development has continued at an impressive pace - the technologies of the 1970s are as primitive as the horse and buggy compared with what's here today.

Utilities across the United States now generate electric power from wind and sunlight, and it's estimated that more than 100,000 households have unplugged from public utilities or are close to energy independence. Carmakers including General Motors and Toyota are marketing electric vehicles. And scientists are working on ways to extract hydrogen fuel from water, to turn waste products into energy and to tap the power of the ocean's waves and tides.

WIND POWER ARRIVES
THE BIGGEST renewable energy success story is wind power. Wind energy costs about 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to an average of 6 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity from conventional sources such as nuclear- and coal-powered plants. in the United States, wind-power capacity has jumped 50 percent in the last 18 months. Just the states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas together have enough wind capacity to provide electricity for the whole country, according to the environmental group Worldwatch.

The upper Midwest - called America's wind Saudi Arabia - is already embracing wind power.

In Lake Benton, Minnesota, "the average wind speed is 18 miles per hour, with gusts to 50," says mayor Marhn Thompson. "Almost every day, it blows." Lake Benton has turned what had been a bother into a boon, erecting more than two hundred enormous wind turbines that convert the gales into low-priced electricity for the whole state.

The city's 750-kilowatt turbines, nearly 10 stories tall, have 80-foot blades that utilize a new "variable-pitch" technology. "The blades can be angled to operate for maximum productivity," says Kenneth Hach of Enron Wind, which makes the turbines. This innovation allows the windmills to catch more energy, according to Karen Conover, president of the American Wind Energy Association.

Experts say that advances in technology have been the keys to wind power's success. "Modern wind turbines are high-tech devices with aerodynamic blade designs, made of lightweight composite materials and electronic drives and controls," says Christopher Flavin, vice president for research at Worldwatch. "Larger turbines, more efficient manufacturing and careful siting of wind machines have all brought wind-power costs down precipitously."

But it's not just large machines that have benefited from these technological advances. According to Michael Bergey of Bergey Windpower in Oklahoma, even smaller wind turbines, like Bergey's 1,500-watt model for powering individual homes or farms, have become a viable option for many families. Southwest Wind Power in Flagstaff, Arizona, applies the new designs and other improvements to even smaller turbines. Their wind kits sell briskly to people in nonindustrialized nations around the world. "We have to remember that two billion people on this planet don't have electricity at all," says Southwest's Andy Cruz.

HERE COMES THE SUN
SOLAR ELECTRICAL power is not as practical as wind.yet. But the cost of using photovoltaic cells to turn sunlight into electricity has fallen by 80 percent since 1980 - it now costs about 16 cents per kilowatt hour. Solar cells now power satellites, highway signs, homes and commercial buildings.

One key to viable solar electricity could be a recent advance called "thin film" photovoltaic technology. Instead of conventional panels of solar cells, the film consists of a semiconducting compound - only one micron thick - that is sprayed on the materials to be used on a building's surfaces. it uses one thirtieth to one hundredth of the material that solar photovoltaic panels have needed until now.

Manhattan solar architect Gregory Kiss designs both residences and commercial buildings with thin-film photovoltaic cells. He says that they are "the route to solar electricity that will be cheaper than conventional power." The resulting structures can become energy self-sufficient or "even an energy exporter." says Kiss. His firm has used the concept on the headquarters of British Petroleum's Solar Division in California and an office tower in Times Square in New York City.

Atlantis Energy of California and United Solar Systems of Michigan have gone another route: creating building materials, such as roof shingles, that are wired for photovoltaic energy production. Atlantis Energy's Sunslates, for example, are designed to draw electricity from the sun. Frazer Dougherty and Poppy Johnson installed Sunslates on their home in Greenport, New York. The devices look like regular shingles and shed rain like regular shingles do, but they also generate plenty of electricity. "I go out on a moderately sunny day and the electric meter is going backwards," says Dougherty. NewYork State's "net metering law" statute requires utilities to buy back electricity produced by customers like Dougherty and Johnson - the excess power generated by the Sunslates is thus saving them money. According to a spokesman for United Solar Systems, it can cost as little as $20,000 to install a solar-panel roof that will supply enough power for an entire household. That compares favorably to $5,000 to $10,000 for a regular asphalt-shingled roof.

CASEY COATES DANSON FOUNDER/PRESIDENT OF GLOBAL POSSIBILITIES SANTA MONICA, CA Casey Coates Danson is the founder and president of Global Possibilities, which holds conferences and helps universities teach students about building with renewable energy technologies. Danson says that public awareness is central to implementing the now technologies. "These new technologies must be implemented if the earth is to avoid the catastrophe of global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels," she says. "People need to be convinced that climate change is real and that the built environment is the most direct route to mitigating climate change. Buildings use up to 40 percent of the energy in this country and create a quarter to a third of the carbon-dioxide emissions."

Mass production of solar panels will be a key to dramatically reducing costs. To encourage production, the Clinton administration in 1997 announced a "Million Solar Roofs Initiative," which directs the Energy Department to lead an effort to place a million solar energy systems on US. buildings and homes by the year 2010.

Solar hot-water systems have long been competitive with conventional systems in terms of operating costs, and the "payback" time for a solar system has been declining. A $2,000 system brings immediate savings on your utility bills, but it takes six to ten years before you've recouped Your $2,000 investment, according to Gary Minnick of Go Solar, a Riverhead, NewYork, firm that installs solar hot-water heaters.

William and Deborah Lord's house in Maine relies completely on a solar hot-water system. On the frigid winter day I spoke to him, William Lord said that the water temperature in the two five-hundred-gallon storage tanks had reached 150 degrees. "It takes care of all our hot-water needs and produces radiant heat through the floor," he says. Thermostats control the heat in each room, and in summer the thermostats stop the water from flowing through the floor.

COMMUTERS PLUG IN
ELECTRIC CARS, once known mainly for their sluggish performance and short range, have become strong performers. One leader in this field is Solectria of Wilmington, Massachusetts, which has made hundreds of electric vehicles for individuals, companies and government agencies. Its electric vans are used for mail delivery in Boston and New York City They're "clean, quiet and practical," says Mark Simon, alternative-fuels manager for New York City's Department of Transportation.

The passenger cars like the one David Darby drives cost about $30,000. They are powered by batteries that are about the size of a conventional car battery, but each car has between 12 and 15 batteries.

General Motors has also joined the effort. Its electric car, the EVi, costs $33,995 and is now in a limited commercial release. Powered by a lead-acid battery pack and a 137-horsepower engine, the two-seat EVi runs about 80 miles before it needs recharging. Its performance has won raves from the automotive press and hundreds of EVi owners.

JAMES WORDEN CEO, SOLECTRIA CORP. WILMINGTON, MA James Worden began building electric cars at the age of 12, and by the tenth grade he was commuting to high school in Arlington, Massachusetts, in an electric car that got its energy from the solar cells on the root. At MIT, Worden majored in mechanical engineering and met his future wife and business partner, electrical engineer Anita Rajan, who is now president of the company, The couple spend most of their time designing and building electric cars.

Toyota has had a hybrid electric-gasoline consumer car on the market in Japan since 1997. The vehicle, called the Prius, produces up to go percent less carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrous oxide in its emissions than conventional cars. It has been selling surprisingly well and is expected to be available in the United States next year.

NEW POWER SOURCES
THE SPRINGBOARD for many of the most exciting advances in the near future will probably be the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Set up in Golden, Colorado, by the Department of Energy during the Carter administration, it now has four hundred scientists researching solar, wind and emerging technologies. And their work is impressive: The scientists at NREL developed the variable-pitch technology used in Minnesota's wind turbines.

Many of the researchers are especially enthusiastic about the potential for hydrogen energy "Hydrogen is an everlasting fuel," says John Turner, one of the lab's hydrogen specialists. Its only emission is water, which can be recycled to make more hydrogen. The lab is working on a new photovoltaic device that more efficiently uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

"We're now at the dawn of the Hydrogen Age," says Dr. T. Nejat Vezirogiu, president of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy, echoing the sentiments of the NREL group. The Department of Energy hopes to replace two to four "quads" of conventional energy with hydrogen by the year 2010 (a quad is the amount of energy consumed by one million households).

Hydrogen is the key for fuel cells, which "have the potential to change the way we look at electricity," says Bob Rose of the US. Fuel Cell Council of Washington, D.C. Fuel cells are devices that convert a fuel, such as hydrogen, into electricity - they're somewhat like batteries that can be endlessly renewed. "Instead of depending on the grid [the public utility] for power, you can make your own and use the grid as a backup," says Rose.

New technologies are also being developed to make "biofuels" from soybeans and other agricultural products as well as farm and animal waste. Ethanol, a biofuel made from corn (or other biomass), is currently the most widely used - it's added to 9 percent of US. gasoline because it improves vehicles' performance and lowers air pollution. NREL researchers are trying to make biofuels more cost-competitive - for example, by genetically engineering microorganisms that more efficiently convert corn to ethanol.

SCOTT SKLAR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION ARLINGTON,VA Scott Sklar has pushed for solar energy as the executive director of the Solar Energy Industries Association and head of the Solar Lobby, which was founded on Earth Day in 1970. He says that renewable technologies are poised for a commercial breakthrough. "Re-newables," he says, "are where computers were in the 1970s." What's needed, he believes, are further economies of scale and broadened distribution.

Geothermal energy uses the enormous heat trapped inside the Earth, some of which remains from the formation of the planet. Most efforts so far have concentrated on using the water in underground reservoirs, which can be drilled for steam to drive turbines. Geothermal power plants in the United States produce electricity at 5 to 7.5 cents per kilo-watt hour.

The Earth's vast reserves of dry hot rock deposits are another potential source of geothermal energy, and scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have worked to tap it.
They've devised a scheme that shoots water down a pipe a couple of miles into the ground. The rock at that depth, which can be as hot as 250 degrees Celsius, superheats the water, which rises through another pipe and turns a turbine to make electricity. The technology is viable today, but it has yet to be applied commercially.

Promising energy schemes that are still in the experimental stage include wave-power technology and tidal energy wave power involves concentrating and harnessing the energy that is spread out among the ocean's waves, while tidal power aims to exploit the rise and fall of the ocean's tides. Most of the research on these technologies is underway in Europe.

GREENING OF THE GRID
MOST UTILITIES in the United States, hooked into conventional power sources of coal, nuclear and oil, have been slow to take advantage of the renewable energy windfall - with marked exceptions, such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (see "A Utility Makes the Switch," on the following page). Currently, renewable energy makes up 8 percent of the total used in the United States. However, that appears likely to change. The recent deregulation of utilities in the United States requires that consumers be given the right to choose the source of their electricity and the method by which it is generated.

"Renewables," said noted energy analyst Amory Lovins, "are more than ready." Lovins, author of Soft Energy Paths (Ballinger, 1977), was speaking at his warm and cozy Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, "in a building that's 99 percent heated by the sun and also powered by solar cells," he says. Lovins has pointed out that new approaches to energy have already helped the United States save about two trillion dollars in energy costs over the past two decades. He says that people should now "wring many times more work out of each unit of energy and get better services by substituting brains for energy and using technologies that are more efficient. We should get our energy from sources that don't use anything up, don't give anything off, can't be cut off - in short, renewable sources - many of which are competitive or rapidly becoming so."

A 1999 poll found that 62 percent of the public favored renewable energy over conventional sources.

The biggest obstacles to widespread use of renewables now are not technological but political. As Scott Denman, executive director of the Safe Energy Communication Council of Washington, D.C., points out, the dramatic breakthroughs of recent years are "still below the radar screen for most policymakers."Yet "a shift to renewable energy technologies is happening," says Denman. "It's what people want." He cites a 1999 national opinion survey commissioned by the Sustainable Energy Coalition that found that given a choice for electricity, 62 percent of those polled would pick renewable energy (compared to 6 percent for nuclear power and 5 for coal). "It's time for our public officials and utility leaders to respond affirmatively to public demand and to understand that renewable energy is here now."

A Utility Makes the Switch The U.S. utility that's leading the shift to renewable energy has the rather unpoetic acronym of SMUD, which stands for Sacramento Municipal Utility District.The fifth largest public utility in the nation, SMUD relies on a wide mix of renewables, particularly solar and wind power. Created in 1947, SMUD hasn't always been so exemplary. It once drew most of its power from a nuclear plant called Rancho Seco. But the plant "had a history of operating problems and cost overruns," according to Donald Osborn, manager of SMUD's Photovoltaic and Distributed Technologies Division. "There was an ongoing battle in the community as to whether or not to keep it operating." Finally, in a series of public votes in 1989, area residents voted to close the plant. SMUD's board of directors arranged for the shutdown and decommissioning of Rancho Seco, and the utility moved heavily into renewables.The shuttered nuclear plant, surrounded by a sea of new solar panels, has become a striking visual metaphor for the nuclear power controversy. Since the start of its renewables program, SMUD has been committed to energy diversity. "if we learned anything from our nuclear experience, it's that diversity is a strength," says Osborn. "It's a fundamental truth In ecology and in energy policy.There isn't going to be any single answer to our energy problems in the near future. We need a Mix of options." SMUD has quite a mix. Its three types of photovoltaic panels together make up the largest utility-distributed photovoltaic system in the world. It also uses wind turbines and hydropower and will soon have a landfill-gas generator system, which extracts methane gas from the county landfill. And in Davis, California, SMUD has begun installing charging stations for electric vehicles.

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