* Power Matters

* Utilities look to wind, sun, tides for energy

Flip on a light, turn on a computer, punch on the television remote, and you’re probably contributing to climate change.

Unless you participate in an all-green power program, many of the electrons lighting up your life come from nonrenewable sources. And the generation of that electricity releases carbon dioxide into the air.

Some states, such as Washington, Oregon and California, have set stringent goals to reduce greenhouse gases. And many utility companies are now searching for renewable energy sources.

In some ways, utility companies serving Washington are already steps ahead of other states. Washington’s reliance on hydroelectric power offsets coal-fired electrical generation plants as a power source.

As a result, electrical generation produces just 16 percent of the state’s greenhouse gases, according to the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development. On a national level, electric production accounts for 34 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions, according to the University of Washington’s Center for Climate Strategies.

Utilities have begun to turn to electricity generated from the wind, sun, tides and even the heat under the Earth. But some worry that existing alternatives won’t meet the public’s growing demands for power.

Because of growth, Puget Sound Energy, the largest provider of electricity to Skagit and Island counties and one of the state’s largest utilities, must develop enough electricity sources over the next 20 years to power two Seattle-sized cities. The utility plans to invest $2 billion in acquiring new power sources, including traditional coal-fired generation and renewables, over the next five years.

“Perhaps the biggest challenge we face is how do we meet the rising demands of our customers and meet the need for reducing carbon emissions,” said Roger Garratt, PSE director of resource acquisition.

The pressure of customer demands to power large homes and the plugged-in world and population growth combined with public and legislative pressures to cut greenhouse gas emissions have put pressure on utility companies, experts say.

“Climate change has gotten on the radar more than anyone ever anticipated,” said Stacey Waterman-Hoey, energy policy analyst for Community, Trade and Economic Development.

Just before Christmas, a company that wanted to build a second coal-fired electrical generation plant in southwestern Washington changed it plans and has proposed a natural gas plant instead, said Waterman-Hoey, the lead author of a report on trends in greenhouse emissions.

Going green

When it comes to electricity, going green is not as simple as plugging solar panels or wind turbines into a transmission line.

Many of the emerging technologies are not yet cost efficient enough for utilities to invest. To help, Congress passed an energy bill this month that puts $50 million into research for technologies to harness power from wave, wind, tidal and river currents.

In Washington, a 2006 voter initiative requires utilities to draw 15 percent of their total power from renewable sources by 2020. That’s a short time frame considering it can take 10 to 15 years for an emerging technology to reach cost effectiveness.

Both solar and wind power are problematic. Both are intermittent power sources, and with solar, it’s difficult and expensive to store the excess power generated, Waterman-Hoey said.

“There’s no guarantee you’re going to get power when you need it,” she said.

Per kilowatt, large-scale solar power plants are more expensive than coal-fired, mainly because of the costs of building a large array of solar panels, according to industry experts.

Another problem for utility officials is finding a site that is both near a main transmission line and enough land for hundreds of wind towers or solar panels.

PSE just finished building a 2,408-panel solar installation at its 9,000-acre Wild Horse Wind Facility near Ellensburg. The $4 million solar test facility can generate 450 kilowatts.

The use of solar panels on individual homes is widespread in Japan and Germany, where each country’s government subsidizes installation. In the United States, some utilities, including PSE, give homeowners credit on electricity if they give the company their unused solar power.

Choosing a successful alternative is a factor, and so is cost.

“It comes down to the matter of if you guess wrong, you have the potential to write off millions or billions of dollars,” PSE’s Garratt said.

That’s why power companies don’t jump to invest in experimental means to generate power. And it’s why the U.S. Department of Energy projects little growth in utilities’ reliance on nonhydroelectric renewable energy.

A search for alternatives

Even so, companies such as Puget Sound Energy and Snohomish Public Utility District are pursuing alternative energy sources.

Many utilities are looking at methane-producing manure composters, such as one planned for Fir Island, as well as traditional gas-fired power plants.

Burning methane, called natural gas, to generate electricity produces half the carbon dioxide that coal does. But it’s not a solution either. While it’s somewhat better for the environment, natural gas is neither carbon neutral nor renewable.

Still, state and federal projections indicate that some utilities, including PSE, see natural gas as preferable to coal, and they plan to obtain more power from gas-fired power plants. PSE gets 17 percent of its power from natural-gas-fired plants and plans to expand that to 57 percent by 2025.

Projections that the Washington Climate Advisory Team released in early December indicate that the tons of carbon produced by gas-electrical generation consumption will more than double from 2005 to 2020 if nothing is done.

Still, the total amount of carbon dioxide from gas-generated power used in Washington is a quarter of the total of energy-related emissions, according to the state climate team.

The state’s sole coal-fire electrical power plant, TransAlta Centralia Generation, produces about 10 percent of the state’s greenhouse gases and is Washington’s largest single emitter, according to the state Department of Ecology. But the real culprit is the power purchased from coal power plants in Montana and Wyoming.

In the search for alternatives, some utilities buy power from smaller companies that are pursuing solar and geothermal power generation at the same time that they buy electricity produced with natural gas.

The Snohomish utility hopes to find it cost effective to sink turbines into swift-running, deep-water channels of Puget Sound, including four sites in both Island and Skagit counties’ backyards.

The utility district, which buys power from the Bonneville Power Administration, has obtained federal permits to conduct three-year studies at seven sites, including Guemes Channel, San Juan Channel and Spieden Channel, which is also in the San Juan Islands.

The Snohomish utility is also investigating the tidal currents in Admiralty Inlet, where the Sound’s greatest volume of water passes through, seeking the most effective locations for its turbines.

The world’s first large-scale prototype of tidal turbine was installed in August in northeastern Ireland. Officials with the Snohomish utility, as well as Tacoma Power and companies in Oregon, are watching that project closely.

“A lot of folks suggest tidal is where wind was 10 years ago,” Collar said.

Meanwhile, there’s hope in the waves, as well.

The Federal Energy Commission on Dec. 20 granted the first license to Finavera Renewables Ocean Energy of Canada for a hydrokinetic energy project. Finavera will use the waves of Makah Bay near the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula to generate electricity.

Unlike tidal turbines, which are under water and driven by currents, hydrokinetic turbines float near the ocean surface on anchored buoys and are driven by the wave action. Another “wave park” has been proposed off the Northern California coast.

Green gold rush

A wind plant or geothermal site needs to be located near a transmission line.

That’s why the Olympic Peninsula isn’t an economically viable site, even though the Pacific Coast offers the constant wind speeds needed for off-shore wind towers.

“One of the things that’s different about renewable resources is they have to be located where the resource exists,” PSE’s Garratt said.

Suitable sites for tidal and wind power are getting gobbled up quickly. The gold rush is on, and prospectors are coming from the East.

With a goal of powering 225,000 homes, an energy developer in New York proposed a giant wind farm along the Columbia River in Oregon.

With the rising demand for sites to install wind turbines, the cost to lease land and buy materials for the towers has risen rapidly, Garratt said.

“It’s very much a seller’s market at the moment,” he said.

The alternative power sources don’t come without controversy. Some environmental groups and the prospective neighbors of wind farms criticize the turbine towers because they can kill birds and disrupt bird migration routes. Some just find the towers ugly.

Tidal energy brings its own concerns.

Oregon fishermen seeking to protect their income source are fighting proposals to sink tidal turbines off the Pacific Coast. And the benefit of renewable power from hydroelectric dams is being weighed against the cost to health of the threatened wild chinook salmon and the salmon-eating endangered orcas.

Not enough

Ultimately, renewable power sources and consumer conservation won’t mean major gains for utilities seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Even with a shift to natural gas, national and state energy officials say they expect power companies to continue to rely on coal for at least the next 10 or 15 years.

The growing awareness of climate change has created some strange bedfellows and stranger enemies.

Drought-stricken Montana ranchers have allied with environmentalists to stall the building of new coal-fired power plants in that state. Texas farmers and ranchers are chasing the windfall from lucrative leases to utility companies seeking to install wind towers. Google’s philanthropic arm announced it will invest in renewable energy technologies to reduce the world’s dependence on coal.

But there are no plans to scrap the coal-fired power plant.

Electric Power Research Institute, which researches power generation for its member companies, including PSE and Snohomish PUD, proposed both improving coal-fire plant efficiency and developing better techniques to capture carbon dioxide.

Both approaches cut greenhouse gas emissions, and researchers say they want to make economical carbon capture technology available to utilities by 2020.

Even with that, Washington’s goal of reducing emissions to 1990s levels is challenging, especially when considering the projected demand for electricity, Garratt said.

A huge problem is the demand for power in a plugged-in world, large homes and growth of the customer base, utility executives say.

“We’ve been seeing bigger homes, air conditioning is becoming standard now with new construction, there’s more computers and three or four TVs,” said Roger Thompson, a PSE spokesman.

The pressure to reduce greenhouse gases will collide with the state’s growing need for power, rising costs, limits on building additional large-scale hydroelectric dams and population’s bias against nuclear power, Waterman-Hoey said.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions may lie with consumers, not just through traditional conservation methods such as turning down the heat, but also in the choices they make in the size of their homes and other purchases, she said. Those ideas are just part of the solution that will take a combination of different approaches to reduce greenhouse gases.

“I think climate change is going to trump, and we’re just going to realize that we can’t just burn fuel like this and survive on this planet,” she said.

* Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .

ELECTRIC FACTS

* The U.S. is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and one-third of those emissions come from electricity generation.

* Electricity is generated by using running water, wind, tidal currents to spin turbines and steam, which was heated by burning coal or gas. Burning gas and coal produces carbon dioxide.

* Producing power generated 5,945 million metric tons of greenhouse gases nationally in 2005, and emissions are expected to rise to 7,950 million metric tons by 2030.

* Nationally, power customers consumed 3,821 billion kilowatt hours in 2005. The 2030 projection is for 5,478 billion kilowatt hours.

* The average Western Washington home burns 13,000 kilowatts annually, compared with the national average of 12,000 kilowatts.

* Puget Sound Energy serves 60,000 and 35,000 customers in Skagit County and Whidbey Island respectively. Snohomish Public Utility District serves 13,000 customers in Stanwood and on Camano Island.

* By 2020, Washington utilities are required to draw 15 percent of their total power from renewable sources.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy’s Annual Energy Outlook 2007, Puget Sound Energy, Washington Climate Advisory Team, Snohomish Public Utility District and Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Palo Alto, Calif.

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