Counterpoint — Practicing Planner — Fall 2013

Addressing Climate Change:How Much Voluntary Individual Environmental Virtue Is Necessary?by Edward J. Jepson, Jr., AICP

In his article in this issue of Practicing Planner, Robert Ernst concludes that it is unlikely that "voluntaryindividual environmental virtue" will reduce CO2 emissions enough to prevent impending climate change. This being the case, he states his doubt that "potentially catastrophic" effects on the world economy and civilization can or will be avoided.

His article is meticulously documented, and his argument that only a small percentage of Americans would "voluntarily change their lifestyles to produce less CO2" is well-written and persuasive. However, I wouldargue that CO2 emission-free renewable energy technologies have gotten to the point now where significant — perhaps sufficient — progress can be made without the need for such voluntary change.

This new reality is made clear in a 2012 report published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S.Renewable Energy Technical Potentials: A GIS-Based Analysis (www.nrel.gov/gis/re_potential.html ). According to this report, the United States has the technical potential to produce 212 terawatts (TW) using renewable energy technologies. This is an enormous amount of energy production, equaling more than 180 times the total amount of electricity produced in the United States in 2011 (about 1.1 TW or 1,153 gigawatts or GW).

Among the technologies, utility-scale photovoltaics have the most productive potential, estimated at over 150 TW, followed by large solar arrays (~38 TW) and land-based wind power (~11 TW). The other technologies evaluated are rooftop photovoltaics (~0.6 TW), offshore wind power (~4 TW), biopower/biomass (~0.06 TW), hydrothermal (~0.4 TW), geothermal (~4 TW) and hydropower (~0.6 TW). It can be seen that all but one of these technologies has a productive potential at least equal to nearly half of current U.S. electrical production.

Of particular interest to planners, the report also estimates the amount of land that would be required by wind and solar technologies, as well as the production potential of each state. By reviewing the report, a planner in, say Indiana, would be able to see that his or her state has the potential to produce all of its electrical power requirements (about 10 GW) and that this level of production would require no more than 5 percent of its totalland area (190 to 1,800 square miles using large-scale photovoltaic and wind power technologies, respectively).

Of course, the productive potential of these technologies varies considerably among the states, as well as among communities in each state. Still, even Connecticut, with about nearly half as many people as Indiana living on less than 15 percent of Indiana's land area could meet its energy requirements with as little as 2 percent of its land.

So, to a large extent, the renewable energy challenge can be seen as a land-use challenge, namely, assembling enough land to build adequate production capacity. Clearly, this is a challenge that would best be met at the state or regional level, where land assembly could be coordinated and allocated most efficiently among communities and residents. For example, while a city in Indiana of 10,000 people could meet its electricity requirements with a 400-acre utility-scale photovoltaic project, it would need nearly 4,000 acres for a wind farm, which is more than 6 square miles of wind turbines. For a city of 100,000, multiply those figures by 10, and the importance of regional or state-level coordination becomes obvious.

In addition to different land requirements, all of these technologies vary in terms of their cost. While it may be technically possible to produce electricity using wind and solar energy, few people in a state or community are

likely to be inclined to spend more for it, certainly not significantly more. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (www.eia.gov/), the cost difference between renewable energy projects and comparable conventional projects such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear is narrowing. For example, the electricity produced by a wind energy farm is less expensive than all fossil fuel systems except conventional and advanced combined cycle natural gas systems. And, electricity generated by a utility-scale photovoltaic system costs only about 17 percent more than electricity generated by advanced coal plant systems and requires only about one-tenth as much land as a comparable wind energy project.

Of course, a major problem is the presence of more than 1,000 existing coal plants, each of which represents a sizeable investment that is difficult to simply abandon and replace with wind or solar projects. However, the average age of these plants is about 45 years, and more than 60 percent were built before 1964 (www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coal_plant_retirements). This fact, of course, presents us with an excellent opportunity to build solar and wind projects on a scale large enough to significantly impact CO2 emissions.

All of which suggests that solving the problem of CO2 emissions is neither necessarily dependent upon everyone or even most people developing "voluntary environmental virtue" or, absent that, the United States being "transformed into the type of command and control political-economic system in existence during World War II" as suggested by Ernst (2013).

Rather, communities can and should take actions now to begin to build their local renewable energy production using existing technologies.1 While they may not become energy self-sufficient, they will become more self-reliant (and therefore more resilient), and the world will become more sustainable. In addition, the involvement of more and more communities in applying these technologies will contribute to their advancement and improvement, as well as help clarify the advantages of regional collaboration andintegration.

Since many people think the renewable energy technologies are still essentially experimental, too costly and — for these reasons and others — certainly not ready for full-scale deployment, planners can make an enormous contribution by first educating themselves and then others on the very real and present potential. The aforementioned report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has the kind of information that can transform local thinking. In addition, there are many highly credible and credentialed organizations that canhelp planners become better advocates and remedy any deficiency of "engagement with climate change networks" (Ernst 2013). Some noteworthy organizations are "350" (http://350.org/), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch), Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) (www.icleiusa.org/climate_and_energy), the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (http://c40.org/), and Climate Action Plans (www.climateactionplans.com/).

Once the decision is made to develop local renewable energy capacity, two Department of Energy websitesbecome noteworthy. The Wind Powering America website (www.windpoweringamerica.gov/) is a source of technical assistance and provides maps that can be used to determine a community's wind power potential, lists wind working groups and identifies energy policies and programs that have been enacted at state and local levels. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (www.nrel.gov/) has a decided "action research" approach, helping local governments develop and deploy commercially available energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. An affiliation with the NREL will position a community to unite with universities, research institutions, and industry leaders to "leverage complementary capabilities and resources in advancing the understanding of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies."

In conclusion, I suppose this is not a negative counterpoint to Ernst (2013). His portrayal of the complexity of solving the problem of CO2 emissions is spot on. However, rather than having a 50 percent reduction by 2050 as our goal (as Ernst suggests), perhaps we should focus on the near term, say, the next five years. In the view of many scientists, global CO2 levels need to be at or below 350 parts per million (ppm) to avoid seriousclimate change impacts. We are currently at 400 ppm (Bump 2013). This means that, for the United States to do its part, every community should have a goal of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 12 percent in the next few years and having in place a strategy for continued, accelerated reduction in the years that follow.

It is clearly with a sense of urgency that planners need to address CO2 emissions in their communities, even though — as Ernst correctly points out — we continue to be plagued by a surfeit of cultural and institutional barriers. CO2 levels are dangerously high and must be reduced now. But this challenge should also be faced

with a sense of optimism. Because, unlike just a few years ago, renewable energy technologies are now ready for local deployment at scales that can make a difference. Such deployment can serve as the foundation for a national transformation.

Edward J. Jepson, Jr., received his master's degree in regional planning from Pennsylvania State University and his doctorate in urban and regional planning from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. During his career, he has worked as the executive director of two development organizations, a planning consultant, and a member of the planning faculty at the University of Tennessee and other academic institutions.

NOTES

1. Climate action plans were noted by Tang et al. (2010) to be limited in terms of action approaches, as cited by Ernst (2013).

REFERENCES

Bump, Philip. 2013. "So Much for 350: The Atmosphere's Carbon Dioxide Tops 400." The Atlantic Wire,accessed August 1, 2013. Available at www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/04/atmosphere-carbon-dioxide-tops-400-parts-per-million/64692/.

Ernst, Robert T. 2013. "Voluntary Individual Pro-Environmental Behavior and Climate Change." Practicing Planner 11, no. 3.

Tang, Zhenghong, Samuel D. Brody, Courtney E. Quinn, Liang Chang, and Ting Wei. 2010. "Moving from Agenda to Action: Evaluating Local Climate Change Action Plans." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 53, no. 1: 41-62.

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