This course is designed to introduce students to the issues of energy in the 21st century – including food and fuels – which are inseparably linked – and will discuss energy production and utilization from the biology, engineering, economics, climate science, and social science perspectives. This course will cover the current production and utilization of energy, as well as the consequences of this use, examining finite fossil energy reserves, how food and energy are linked, impacts on the environment and climate, and the social and economic impacts of our present energy and food production and use. After the introductory lectures, we will examine the emerging field of sustainable energy, fuel and food production, emphasizing the importance of developing energy efficient and sustainable methods of production, and how these new technologies can contribute to replacing the diminishing supplies of fossil fuels, and reduce the consequences of carbon dioxide release into the environment. This course will also cover the importance of creating a sustainable energy future for all societies including those of the developing world. Lectures will be prepared and delivered by leading UC San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography faculty and industry professionals across these areas of expertise.
Policy Impacts on Renewable Energy Industries, Part 1
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From the course by University of California San Diego
Our Energy Future
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From the lesson
Social Issues, Economics, and Politics
Examines how energy production and use affects the economy, our wellbeing, and our heath. It will also look at how energy impacts the poorest communities, the external costs of traditional energy, and how we can regulate energy and incentivize renewable energy. Additionally, this section identifies what a Life Cyle Assessment is and how it is used with renewable and non-renewable fuels. Lastly, it looks at the United States’ past and present energy policies, and the current state of international policy on climate change.
Meet the Instructors
Dr. Stephen MayfieldProfessor of Molecular Biology
University of California San Diego
[MUSIC]
Well welcome everybody, my name is Tim Zenk, and
I'm the senior vice president of corporate development at Sapphire Energy.
A algae to energy production company here in San Diego, California.
And I focus in on policy, policy development.
And all issues related to energy and renewable energy.
And I'm looking forward to talking to you about this important subject.
So why policy matters in energy is.
What you need to understand is that policy is ines, inextricably linked to energy.
So everything we consume on the energy side, whether they be electrons
from the electricity network to the hydrocarbons and
the liquids network is related to and directly related to policy and
policies that are developed both at the, at the local level in the case of
electricity and at the federal level in the case of hydrocarbons and and fuels.
So we use a lot of energy.
And energy is one of the most important economic engines that
this country utilizes.
To both grow its economy economically.
But also to develop new technologies and to remain competitive in the world.
And so every 13 seconds.
You see the slide up here, we use that much energy.
That's about 18 million barrels of crude oil a day.
And the equal number of electrons flow through our system as well.
Tat relate to how much energy is consumed on a daily basis on the electricity side.
One point here is that, there's a big difference between energy storage, and
production on the energy side, that's electrons.
We don't store energy very effectively on that side.
And and, on the liquid side of the house, which is hydrocarbon business
we store energy in the form of a liquid hydrocarbon, in the form of crude oil.
Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel are its are its derivatives.
So this country has spent a lot of time trying to
drive an agenda around policy and, and ,and energy.
And, as you can see we've had tremendous impact in the world whether it's the space
program in the early 60s and and, and also the development of, of,
of our commercial nuclear energy system as well as the development of the internet.
Billions of dollars have gone into these programs to keep us
economically competitive.
And they were done for both political and foreign policy reasons.
But at the, at the crux of it all we invested in these technologies.
And this new, in these new eras.
In order to drive our economy and order to maintain the lead both politically and in,
and in an industrial fashion.
So the United States has been involved in energy since its inception.
And in particularly the Navy has led the transition from fuels across many decades.
And so in the early days, the Navy led the transition between wind and
wood that powered its fleet to the use of, of hydrocarbons in the early '40s.
the, the in the teens of
the 1900's the Navy transitioned its fleet from coal to oil.
Was a major transition in the middle of a World War and the whole purpose behind
that transition was to maintain strategic superiority over the Germans.
You'd go faster and farther with less.
Energy required using a denser hydrocarbon called crude oil and
in the form of diesel.
And then, and then in addition to that, we transitioned in the, in the,
in the mid 50s to the use of, of permanent power systems, like like nuke on, on
the submarine system as well as very large platforms that need to remain in the sea.
For large periods of time or in fact indefinitely like, like aircraft carriers.
So these energy transitions actually led waves
throughout the decades in transitions in civilian power as,
as these technologies were integrated into their system.
So, our government, and our, and the policies surrounding it and
the, in fact, agencies like the United States Navy and
the Department of Defense, lead many of these transitions, which is
an important part of the policy policy progress that we we have to understand.
And then, the growth of alternative energy, especially that of wind and solar.
Has had tremendous policy support, whether that be thermal or
solar or any of the other renewable energy sources on the electron side of the house.
For many years we've had in place renewable renewable energy
standards both at the state level, but also at the federal level to incentivize
the development of these technologies that weren't quite commercial yet.
But it was felt once scaled could be commercial and
today we are seeing that these technologies are on the cusp of being
commercially competitive with coal, especially if you count the greenhouse gas
impediments associated with burning of coal to produce electricity.
But also we, we find that these technologies in
fact Deutsche Bank claims that next year solar PV will be commercially
competitive with coal and natural gas at the end of next year so
substantial policy assistance has resulted in a tremendous bow wave.
Of new technologies coming into the marketplace, solar, thermal,
etcetera wind to re-,
to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but
also produce renewable electricity on a sustainable basis.
So, the role of government is very clear, I think,
in the form of, of the role it has played.
Over the past several decades and in, in the ar,
area of renewable energy in particular.
And if you look at at this at the state level, which,
which by the way, all electric power is regulated at a, on a state by state level.
So one of the challenge, challenges in instituting renewable energy
systems throughout the United States has been.
Getting a system where state public utility commissions regulate on
an equal basis.
Power transmits between a number of regulatory jurisdictions whether
that be at the city, state or even local level smaller than that.
But, nonetheless the challenges and barriers to full capacity and
and renewable electricity has been the challenges of regulating.
Electricity and electrons amongst the various states.
So, one of the things that has been a success is some of the carbon initiatives
that many of the state governments as shown by this chart, have taken on.
The Western Climates Initiative led by Governor Schwarzenegger in the state of
California, put together one of the largest greenhouse gas markets, a cap and
trade system.
In the United States and
it's just now scaling up to include fuels in the process.
It had include the electron and electricity side of the house.
Now, it will include fue, fuels as of 2015.
And Washington and Oregon are looking at joining that system which would make it
the largest greenhouse gas system for accounting of ca and
capping emissions in the world.
British Columbia.
Up here to our friends to the north, in Canada,
already have a tax system, are part of the western climate initiative.
And, so you'll see those opportunities throughout the nation.
And, this is an example where states are really the laboratory of good policy.
Because, they can do things a much smaller scale with less risk.
And implements strategies and
policies and prove to the federal government that they can be done.
Another example is at the federal level.
The US government has implemented a very consistent and deep system of policies
that range from the renewal fuel standard which I'll dive into a little bit deeper.
Protection tax credits for renewable fuels which is in our tax code.
The clean air act which is proposing rules to reduce greenhouse gases.
It's formerly known as a new source rule, an existing source rule.
And also cafe standards which aren't on this slide but also the department of
defense again has lead the initiative the initiative of using renewables.
In our in our system.
There are significant challenges scaling up renewables,
especially on the liquid side.
The same tax, and incentive systems have not been
that were utilized in the wind and solar initiative I showed you earlier, have not.
Had the same effect and have not been in place in
a consistent manner like they have been for for electricity.
And so the the renewable fuel standard has struggled to
meet it's renewable volume obligations, obligations that are.
By the EPA to establish how many gallons need to go into the system.
And so the challenge has been, how do you permanentize make
permanent these incentives, both on the tax side, and on,
on these renewable volume obligation numbers, to allow.
New developing technology, or technology that's in development to commercialize
at a swifter pace, and that means, greet, getting more investors to the marketplace.
And allowing these investors to invest and
have security that these set of incentives remain in place.
You know the United States Navy looks at this in a really unique
way in that this is of the energy that is considered a force multiplier.
Those who have it win wars, or prevent wars, and
those who don't usually go to war.
And so you know the Navy has looked upon renewable energy in particular as
a force multiplier because if they can sustainably develop energy resources that
don't require them to be beholden from
a diplomatic standpoint or a national security standpoint to.
People that hold lots of energy resources in parts of the world.
Then they are free to to address major conflicts around the world or
for whatever they're.
And, and are not burdened by the encumbrances of various diplomatic
and political.
Circumstances that those particular countries that
hold energy resources may have so it's strategic advantage for
a country to develop renewable sources of energy and own our own energy destiny.
And then finally I think it's important to point out that other places in the world
are really focused in on energy and carbon and energy are directly related.
Carbon obviously is that major component of, of of the molecules that are in,
imple, in particular in the ,in the crude oil side of the business and
the hydrocarbon side of the business.
And the National Democratic Reform Commission in China which is the,
is the central planning agency of the Chinese government.
Have very much,
are very much focused on both accessing new sources of energy, looking for
new sources of renewables, investing in renewable fuels as well as electricity.
Some of the largest renewable electricity systems in the world are in,
in China these days.
And they continue to grow at a very swift pace both on the wind but
in particularly on the solar side.
They have lots of solar resources in the outer Mongolia region that
they're trying to capitalize on.
And the NDRC understands that in that one of the things that
holds their nation back economically, is the amount of carbon dioxide,
the largest producer of CO2 in the world.
Greenhouse gas that causes changes in our climate.
And that presents significant political as well as foreign policy channel,
challenges to the country.
And so they're investing and
have implemented policies to institute cap and trade systems.
Into, into their production systems forcing large
emitters of carbon dioxide to reduce their emissions and do it in a framework that's
very similar to that framework that was implemented in the state of California.
And not to leave the rest of the world out here.
The rest of the world has implemented a number of standards and
technologies and policies.
Throughout through through,
throughout the regions of the world mostly industrialized nations.
But many countries in the world are significantly changing the mix of
fuels used in their components.
The World Bank no longer fol will fund a coal fire power plant in
Africa for example.
The national development reform bank won't either and, and so those policy changes
are having significant impacts on what types of energy projects are going in
African and other parts of the world, Southeast Asia etcetera.
Where those organizations play a role.
But also incentives to reduce carbon emissions around the world
are taking place, even though the United States may be lagging behind in it,
in its policy initiatives around carbon carbon and carbon dioxide control.
So, really quickly concluding, Federal and State policy have an enormous effect.
On the economics and the sources of energy we use in the United States.
Major incumbent energy producers have a huge stake in the status quo and
will spend what it takes to protect its industry.
That's just the way it works in Washington and
so the, the renewable industry needs to focus.
It's policy objectives on making sure that they get their story out and
get it out well.
Even policies that might be tangential to a particular industry.
For example, Clean Air Act impacts 111d and
significantly impact an industry that consumes carbon dioxide.
Because the E.P.A is considering limiting the amount of
carbon dioxide that can be utilized in a system.
And finally a divided government can result in enormous opportunities and
compromises and so it's up to the President of the United States and
the Congress with this new opportunity and this new Congress to do some big deals and
really take care of the business at hand which is to help this country.
Transition to a lower carbon impacted country and
reduce its emissions and secure United States' economic and energy future.
And just to remind you in my last few seconds here of this presentation we need
a lot of energy, especially on the liquid side.
We don't know where it's all going to come from and
while things are really great here in the United States at this point in time,
in the future years we're going to need to increase supply dramatically.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to, to present to you today on renewable
energy and policy and politics in the United States as well as international.
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