Wind energy installations soared to 13.1 gigawatts [ http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-6356e.pdf ] (a 90 percent increase over 2011) and average long-term wind power prices fell to their lowest point since 2005, according to a new report by the Department of Energy (DOE).
The record amount of installed capacity not only made wind power the leading source of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2012, it also allowed the U.S. to narrowly overtake China as the global leader in capacity additions for the year (regaining the title it had lost in 2009). Though, as the table below shows, the U.S. still lags behind China in cumulative wind capacity.
Due in part to the increased deployment of wind power, average levelized prices for wind power purchase agreements (PPA) have fallen about 43 percent since 2009 — going from a high of nearly $70 per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2009 to around $40 per MWh in 2012. According to the report:
This level approaches previous lows set back in the 2000–2005 period, which is notable given that installed project costs have not returned to 2000–2005 levels and that wind projects increasingly have been sited in lower-quality wind resource areas. Clearly, turbine scaling has more than overcome these headwinds to drive PPA prices lower. PPA prices are generally lowest in the Interior region, highest in the West, and in the middle ground elsewhere.
The chart above shows nationwide and regional average PPA prices since 1996.
In addition to lower wind power prices, the report shows that while the U.S. remained a large importer of wind power equipment in 2012, the wind industry managed to significantly decrease the percentage of wind equipment imports used in wind power projects. By increasing the percentage of equipment sourced domestically, the wind industry is also giving a boost to domestic manufacturing.
Specifically, DOE’s analysis found that “focusing on selected trade categories, and when presented as a fraction of total equipment-related wind turbine costs, the overall import fraction is estimated to have declined considerably, from 75% in 2006–2007 to 28% in 2012.”
The DOE report also mentions state and federal policies and their role in the continued growth of the wind industry. State renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that mandate certain levels of renewable energy have been integral in wind energy deployment, but those policies will not be enough at their current levels. DOE points out that the percentage of wind power capacity in RPS states was 83 percent in 2012 and those states are only expected to add an average of 3-5 gigawatts of renewable energy per year between 2013 and 2020.
Federal incentives have had a significant impact on deployment as well. Extended in January 2013, the federal production tax credit (PTC) allows developers of wind projects that begin construction before the end of 2013 to take a 30 percent tax credit and is expected to help boost installations through the end of the year and into 2014. But without long-term policies that can help drive continued wind energy investment, the future for the wind industry is uncertain.
The fast-retreating Sheldon Glacier in Antarctica. A collapse of a polar ice sheet could result in a jump in sea level NASA, via Reuters
By JUSTIN GILLIS Published: August 12, 2013
Thirty-five years ago, a scientist named John H. Mercer issued a warning. By then it was already becoming clear that human emissions would warm the earth, and Dr. Mercer had begun thinking deeply about the consequences.
His paper, in the journal Nature, was titled “West Antarctic Ice Sheet and CO2 Greenhouse Effect: A Threat of Disaster.” In it, Dr. Mercer pointed out the unusual topography of the ice sheet [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v271/n5643/abs/271321a0.html ] sitting over the western part of Antarctica. Much of it is below sea level, in a sort of bowl, and he said that a climatic warming could cause the whole thing to degrade rapidly on a geologic time scale, leading to a possible rise in sea level of 16 feet.
While it is clear by now that we are in the early stages of what is likely to be a substantial rise in sea level, we still do not know if Dr. Mercer was right about a dangerous instability that could cause that rise to happen rapidly, in geologic time. We may be getting closer to figuring that out. An intriguing new paper comes from Michael J. O’Leary [ http://environmentagriculture.curtin.edu.au/people/academic.cfm/Mick.Oleary ] of Curtin University in Australia and five colleagues scattered around the world. Dr. O’Leary has spent more than a decade exploring the remote western coast of Australia, considered one of the best places in the world to study sea levels of the past.
The paper [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1890.html ], published July 28 in Nature Geoscience, focuses on a warm period in the earth’s history that preceded the most recent ice age. In that epoch, sometimes called the Eemian, the planetary temperature was similar to levels we may see in coming decades as a result of human emissions, so it is considered a possible indicator of things to come.
The interesting part is what happened after that. Dr. O’Leary’s group found what they consider to be compelling evidence that near the end of the Eemian, sea level jumped by another 17 feet or so, to settle at close to 30 feet above the modern level, before beginning to fall as the ice age set in.
In an interview, Dr. O’Leary told me he was confident that the 17-foot jump happened in less than a thousand years — how much less, he cannot be sure.
This finding is something of a vindication for one member of the team, a North Carolina field geologist, Paul J. Hearty [ http://uncw.edu/evs/documents/HeartyCV7_11.pdf ]. He had argued for decades that the rock record suggested a jump of this sort, but only recently have measurement and modeling techniques reached the level of precision needed to nail the case.
We have to see if their results withstand critical scrutiny. A sea-level scientist not involved in the work, Andrea Dutton [ http://web.geology.ufl.edu/a_dutton.html ] of the University of Florida, said the paper had failed to disclose enough detailed information about the field sites to allow her to judge the overall conclusion. But if the work does hold up, the implications are profound. The only possible explanation for such a large, rapid jump in sea level is the catastrophic collapse of a polar ice sheet, on either Greenland or Antarctica.
Dr. O’Leary is not prepared to say which; figuring that out is the group’s next project. But a 17-foot rise in less than a thousand years, a geologic instant, has to mean that one or both ice sheets contain some profound instability that can be set off by a warmer climate.
Another recent paper, by Anders Levermann [ http://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/anders ] of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and a half-dozen colleagues, implies that even if emissions were to stop tomorrow, we have probably locked in several feet of sea level rise over the long term.
Benjamin Strauss and his colleagues at Climate Central [ http://www.climatecentral.org/ ], an independent group of scientists and journalists in Princeton, that reports climate research, translated the Levermann results into graphical form [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-level-rise-locking-in-quickly-cities-threatened-16296 ], and showed the difference it could make if we launched an aggressive program to control emissions. By 2100, their calculations suggest, continuing on our current path would mean locking in a long-term sea level rise of 23 feet, but aggressive emission cuts could limit that to seven feet.
If you are the mayor of Miami or of a beach town in New Jersey, you may be asking yourself: Exactly how long is all this going to take to play out?
On that crucial point, alas, our science is still nearly blind. Scientists can look at the rocks and see indisputable evidence of jumps in sea level, and they can associate those with relatively modest increases in global temperature. But the nature of the evidence is such that it is hard to tell the difference between something that happened in a thousand years and something that happened in a hundred.
On the human time scale, of course, that is all the difference in the world. If sea level is going to rise by, say, 30 feet over several thousand years, that is quite a lot of time to adjust — to pull back from the beaches, to reinforce major cities, and to develop technologies to help us cope.
But if sea level is capable of rising several feet per century, as Dr. O’Leary’s paper would seem to imply and as many other scientists believe, then babies being born now could live to see the early stages of a global calamity.
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