PHOENIX - Each Sunday, ABC15.com debuts an Arizona issue - along with two opposing sides on the topic.
Don’t worry, you always have the opportunity to make comments at the bottom of the page. Yeah, your opinion matters, too.
This week we’re tackling the debate on what is the best hope for Arizona’s energy future.
Daniel Peter Aiello, president of Arizona Solar Center, Inc., says living with, and utilizing, the sun is a primary basis of the sustainable community and building movement. The use of solar energy reduces the carbon footprint and improves air quality.
Joseph Comfort, professor of physics at Arizona State University, says substantially expanding the roughly 20 percent of our energy that comes from nuclear, which makes up more than 70 percent of our emissions-free energy, remains the best bet to continue meeting our needs.
So, what’s the best hope for Arizona’s energy future?
Click “next page” to read the first of two positions, “Advanced industrialized societies, such as the US, are built on energy being readily available”.
“Advanced industrialized societies, such as the US, are built on energy being readily available”: By Joseph Comfort, professor of physics at Arizona State University In the US, electricity use over recent decades has grown several times faster than the population, and demand is expected to grow 28 percent by 2035. For developing nations this is and will remain even higher, as global energy demand will grow by 38 percent over the same span.
Every energy source has advantages and downfalls when it comes to the economic, construction, operations, environmental, safety, and political aspects. To maintain our world leadership, it is important that we join with every administration and Congress since the late 1990s and embrace a comprehensive energy solution, which includes clean, US nuclear energy.
The last of the 104 US operating licenses for nuclear generators was granted in 1997. If left to idle, by 2030 licenses for existing plants would start to expire, and all would be gone by about 2050.
Recently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has renewed the licenses for 64 generators, including the three units at Palo Verde, and is reviewing 14 more for an additional 20 years. In addition, there are applications for 28 new generators undergoing stringent review.
Why the turn-around?
Fossil fuels provide over 60 percent of the world's electricity. But they have huge disadvantages, the most obvious one being greenhouse gases (GHG). International agreements and national policies have set goals for overall reductions in GHG rather than incremental increases that correlate with increased energy production.
Nuclear generators emit no GHG. In addition, power companies are finding them to be economically viable. Construction costs are the biggest item, due in part to the safety-conscious regulatory environment in which nuclear operates, but their operation costs are the lowest of any clean energy or baseload power source.
The NRC's very conservative environment ensures that the US nuclear generators operate at the highest safety level. The record is enviable.
Following the events in Japan, the NRC, as well as operators of the nation’s nuclear energy facilities nationwide have all renewed their commitment to continue to improve safety at all of the domestic facilities. This is not the first time the country’s nuclear energy industry has taken such measures. After the terrorist events of Sept. 11, 2001, the industry thoroughly reviewed security risks and invested about $2 billion in security upgrades. The recent report following the situation in Japan clearly attests that our plants are designed for and can respond to situations exceeding the worst-case scenario.
The Department of Energy and industry, in cooperation with other countries, are working to develop even better reactor designs: more efficient; less costly; passive features for enhanced internal safety; more proliferation resistant; among others.
Waste processing and storage remain critical issues. Whether or not a deep repository, such as Yucca Mountain, will be used, other promising methods are being explored. France, for example, reprocesses spent fuel to make more fuel. The US currently does not allow it, but that could change. Transmutation to get rid of the worst isotopes may also be an option.
Continued efforts to develop alternative sources of energy must be pursued, but many are expensive and it is unlikely that they will fully meet all of the future global energy demands.
Substantially expanding the roughly 20 percent of our energy that comes from nuclear, which makes up more than 70 percent of our emissions-free energy, remains the best bet to continue meeting our needs.
Joseph Comfort is a Professor of Physics at Arizona State University and was a charter member of the DOE Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which supports the use of nuclear energy as part of a portfolio of clean energy sources.
Do you agree with this opinion? Add a comment below to sound off.
Click “next page” to read the second position, “What’s not to like about solar in Arizona?”
“What’s not to like about solar in Arizona?”: By Daniel Peter Aiello, president of
Arizona Solar Center, Inc. We all know the value of energy in meeting people's needs, and the variety of choices available, The question of "best" relies on the criteria used in making the choice. In the past, proclamations of "energy too cheap to meter" were replete in the language, but was a very narrow reference to costs (with substantial government financial support in the background).
Today there is more focus and interest in energy choices that allow people to meet needs individually and/or collectively, with a minimum of negative impact on the environment, resources and people.
Solar Energy for Arizona is one of those choices. Arizona has a rich and long history of living with the sun. Here are 6 areas of consideration and comparison.
AVAILABILITY
Solar energy is directly available to the individual and the community. It is a continuing distributed resource, available well into the future as long as the sun exists. It falls everywhere on everyone in such a supple that more energy from the sun falls on the average AZ house than it consumes.
ACCESSIBILITY
Solar energy is directly accessible with no need for drilling, extraction, environmental impact, transport and treatment/conversion of raw material. The technology is simple, direct, and useable by all,
SCALE-ABILITY
Solar energy can be use directly by the individual to meet all or part of their personal needs. It can also be used in large scale utility generation plants in centralized locations with connections with the existing power grid.
SAFETY
Solar Energy utilization does not have any resource, operation actions or byproducts which require high degrees of containment, intense security and continuous government oversight. There is no physical waste by-product to deal with, treat, sequester or requirement for high security oversight for public protection.
Solar is without the potential for man-made/environmental catastrophes as have occurred in other energy choice arenas like the Japanese nuclear plants; the Gulf oil platform incident; and water and air quality impacts.
COST
Costs for solar power generation equipment continue to decrease, while other forms of energy utilization continue to rise due to lessening resources which are more difficult to access, extraction, transport, processing, and distribution expenses, as well as structural and security expenses.
Solar has an additional benefit - The associative costs relative to solar buildings is, in fact, an energy consumption and cost reducer. For every dollar spent in the incorporation of passive solar (non-mechanical) strategies in building design and construction there is a commensurate $28-$34 reduction of costs in equipment and energy consumption costs - quite a return on investment in using solar energy.
SOCIAL CONTEXT
Solar energy is, as Dr. Mark Reader (ASU) once identified, the most democratic of energy choices.
A democracy is based on freedom of access and movement. Unlike other energy choices which require control of information, control of activity, security, and high levels of government oversight and control, solar knows no such boundaries, other than the normal oversights required in large scale power projects. Sunlight falls everywhere and on everyone. There is freedom of information and action in implementing solar.
Solar is part of the growing "clean" economy which now makes up 2.7 million jobs. Solar comprises one of the fastest growing segments. (Brookings Inst.).
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Solar is benign in that it does not have impacts commonly found in other energy resource choices that require extraction of materials from the earth and the oceans, and conversions whose processes impact air and water quality, thereby requiring mitigating actions, treatments, and mechanisms.
Solar energy choice also has a direct impact on the built environment. Living with, and utilizing, the sun is a primary basis of the sustainable community and building movement.
Community planning and building design utilizing local resources and environmental assets result in the reestablishment of local and regional identity and departure from the homogenous designs and practices of the past.
The use of solar energy reduces the carbon footprint and improves air quality.
Solar Energy - an abundant and constant resource; available everywhere to everyone; in a number of scales and applications; with minimal environmental impact. A safe, environmental and people) and reliable energy resource not requiring extreme government control and oversight; providing for energy independence and security; and strengthening the development of regionally and locally appropriate built environment.
Do you agree with this opinion? Add a comment below to sound off.
Copyright 2011 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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