Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post wrote,

“We Americans want it all: endless and secure energy supplies; low prices; no pollution; less global warming; no new power plants (or oil and gas drilling, either) near people or pristine places. This is a wonderful wish list, whose only shortcoming is the minor inconvenience of massive inconsistency.”

It has recently been noted that 50% of the American public lives within 50 miles of a coastline. In the last few years, we have been reminded by nature how susceptible coastal development is to the furies of nature. The tsunami in Southeast Asia in December 2004 and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in September 2005 show that the coastal regions represent a terribly vulnerable locale for development—nevertheless coastal development continues and probably will not be reversed.

Despite the danger this type of development represents, it is nevertheless a fact of life that people have and do want to live near the sea, and will need the goods and services of life.

Electrical power is one of the most fundamental of these needs. Like money, electrical power is infinitely fungible and transformable into a variety of capabilities and services. Electricity can drive pumps, process steel, light streets, propel trains, electrolyze water, drive computational processes, breakdown waste, condition air, and energize communications. Electricity and machinery transform the physical weakness of man into a powerhouse of capability. Reliable, abundant electricity is absolutely necessary for life in the developed world and desired tremendously by the developing world.

Although useful and flexible in so many ways, electricity still has many drawbacks. It is difficult and expensive to store electricity—thus most electricity is used as it is created. For the most part, electrical generators “follow the load,” turning fossil-fuel energy into electrical energy in response to demand. This level of electrical responsiveness puts such generation forms as solar and wind energy at a disadvantage, for they cannot adjust their generating capacity in response to demand. Only electrical generation that consumes a resource (such as coal, oil, gas, fissile nuclides, or water at a higher gravitational potential) can follow the load as requirements demand. Solid-core nuclear generation in principle can follow a load, but the operating characteristics of these reactors make such operation undesirable. Instead, where available, solid-core reactors provide the “baseload” and the load is followed by gas turbines that are more “dispatchable” to the immediate need.

Solar and wind power do not follow the load at all—they produce all the power they can, as much of the time as they can. An economy based largely on these resources would depend heavily on large amounts of responsive energy storage to “smooth the peaks” and stabilize the generation and distribution of electricity. Due to their small contribution to today’s power generation requirements, these technologies have not been required to carry the baseload in any of their markets, instead relying on more dispatchable power to stabilize their electrical variability. Imagining a world powered by wind and solar will require significant advancements in energy storage and electrical conditioning and distribution.

Another disadvantage of electricity is in its transmission. To reduce resistive losses in transmission systems, electricity is “stepped up” to very high voltage before being transferred great distances—nevertheless, a significant fraction of total electrical power is lost in distribution due to electrical resistance. In principle, the development of superconductive power transmission cables would eliminate these losses, but current superconducting technology is not capable of operation without heavy and expensive refrigeration systems. Interstate power transmission systems are considered unattractive eyesores that reduce property values. The only other alternative is to locate power generation near to the demand. Examination of the areas of greater population density in the United States, and around the world, show that a large fraction of this is coastal.

Apart from the susceptibility to weather-related damage, coastal regions offer a tremendous advantage—the presence of cold water. As a thermal sink, large bodies of water are ideal; they have essentially unlimited thermal inertia and any temperature gradients are dissipated rapidly. Indeed, we find most large-scale, traditional thermal power generation facilities near large bodies of water or rivers.

Coastal regions near large cities (with significant electrical demand) tend to be very expensive, since they tend to be populated by individuals who have paid a premium for the experience of coastal life. The presence of a large power plant, of any form or fashion, is almost universally unwelcome. Consider for a moment the case of the Cape Wind Project.

Cape Cod in Massachusetts is home to two of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the US. Mercury emissions from these plants have contaminated the waters around Cape Cod for decades and befouled the air. In 2001, Cape Wind Associates put forward a plan to build 130 wind turbines in a 24-square-mile region off the coast in Nantucket Sound. The wind turbines would be located in shallow waters some 4-5 miles offshore, where the strength and availability of winds are ideal for power generation. The 420 megawatts of power generated by the wind turbines would supply roughly 75% of the energy consumed by Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. The offshore location of the wind turbines and “green” energy they would produce would seem to be a natural fit with the political and environmental inclinations of the area.

But that was not the case. Almost immediately, a wealthy group of citizens who owned beach-front homes formed a group called the “Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound” to oppose the construction of the offshore wind farm. With their political connections, they were able to gain audience with Congressional representatives, even those not from Massachusetts, and push for political legislation that would delay or dissuade the construction of the wind farm. Despite his public support for “renewable” forms of energy, Senator Edward Kennedy came out against Cape Wind. Governor Mitt Romney also opposes the facility. Senator John Warner of Virginia, whose two daughters own homes in the area, asked the Army Corps of Engineers to derail the project. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, on the floor of the Senate, called wind-powered turbines “a giant public nuisance”. He also has water front property in Nantucket.

State Sen. Rob O’Leary represents the Cape Cod region. O’Leary says he support wind power in principle, just not at that location.

“The problem is that they’re going to be visible. And they’re going to be visible at night and they’re going to be visible during the day and they’re going to be lit up. It’s a big problem. Nantucket Sound is a unique place. It’s a preci
ous resource. I think this project is just too big and it’s in the wrong place.”

Whether or not the Cape Wind project ultimately goes forward, it is illustrative of the basic aversion of coastal dwellers to the presence of significant industrial development in their area. They do not want it, they do not want to see it, they do not want to hear it, no matter how virtuous or benign its mechanism of generation. Wind power has a specific disadvantage of requiring such immense structures and large areas of land, but at least it has the advantage of semi-continuous operation. Solar power would also require immense areas and would only be available for a fraction of the day.

The ideal form of power would be inexpensive, unlimited, and essentially invisible. It would have no emissions, no effects, and its power would somehow reach its destination without transmission cables. Furthermore, it would not require expensive materials or complicated procedures in its construction, which should be very easy and quick.

As Samuelson correctly notes, our desires suffer from massive inconsistency. But how close can we get to that ideal? How many of those effects can be achieved by a power source? That will be the subject of a future post, but many of you will probably already guess where I’m going with this…