A Climate Solution That Will Blow You Away
By Jacob Bushey
At the day’s first breath, before the sun has broken the horizon, the air is still. Most teenagers don’t know this, but I do, since my brother dragged me out of bed to capitalize on a morning of especially promising surf in Virginia Beach, which despite being coastal is notorious for less than stellar swells. The calm and quiet morning is primed for glassy conditions. I hear the cry of a distant gull with ringing clarity, waves fold over themselves like something out of a dream. As the first shades of tangerine and pink spread across the sky, I feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the sensation of a slight breeze as it rustles my hair. By midday this salty whisper of a wind will grow into a gale, and the waves will tumble over one another in a choppy pile of whitewater, but for now that’s the last thing on my mind.
When I’m out in the water, all I want is to enjoy the simple beauty of the day. The science behind the wind-driven waves doesn’t cross my mind, though I remember it well from my middle-school earth science class. Wind is powered by the sun’s uneven heating of the Earth’s surface. There are a variety of reasons this uneven heating occurs on a local scale. Water requires more solar radiation to heat up than land does, which is what makes it cooler throughout a hot summer’s day. There’s a very delicate balance at work here. As air in one location heats up, it becomes less dense and rises. Higher pressure and cooler air replaces the rising hot air, and this flow is what we experience as wind. Differential heating creates thermal gradients, thermal gradients create density gradients, density gradients create pressure gradients, and pressure gradients create wind. It’s this same dynamic equilibrium that drives all circulation in our atmosphere. From the powerful hurricanes that threaten the East Coast every year, to the lazy-sea breezes that offer reprieve from the midday heat, they are all caused in part by differential heating across the surface of the Earth. On a planetary scale, the tropics receive a much greater amount of solar radiation year-round than the poles, powering the Earth’s global circulation that redistributes this energy. Part of the beauty of wind is this perpetual, cyclical nature. Day after day it blows, a largely untapped source of free-flowing kinetic energy.
The history of humans harnessing this energy is long and inspiring. The earliest recorded windmills were built between 500 and 900 A.D. in Persia. In the Middle Ages the Dutch fostered the technology for pumping water and grinding grain, and by the late 1800s, inventors the world over were experimenting with capturing the valuable kinetic energy of wind and putting it to work (Hawken, 2017). Now, we find ourselves in a new age of wind energy, with the potential to power the complex, electrically intensive systems that drive our everyday life with help from this timeless force. Unlimited clean energy was once found only in science fiction. It is now our present-day reality. Early civilizations long ago grasped the power of wind, and in the past century scientists quantified that understanding, engineers continue to improve the efficiency with which it is harnessed, while economists and lawyers work to make it feasible and equitable. To put it simply, the technology of tomorrow is here today.
In an attempt to quantify the viability of strategies and technologies such as wind energy for enacting environmental change, an international team of researchers and scientists started Project Drawdown. Drawdown, the resulting New York Times bestseller, edited by Paul Hawken is the self-proclaimed “most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse climate change.” The book gets its name from so called “drawdown” solutions: social, environmental, and technological strategies that taken together can accomplish a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These have the potential to reverse the increase in atmospheric carbon that has been taking place since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Since then, civilization has simultaneously increased fossil fuel combustion, adding carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, and through deforestation, expanding agriculture and mining operations, and paving over grasslands and wetlands, reduced the ability of natural carbon sinks to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The hope of this book is that each of these strategies used together can cause the current level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to halt their rise and even begin their decline. Each solution is analyzed in great detail, and each topic is so global in scale, I was left wondering what action is being taken at the local level to promote these strategies. I decided to investigate further, focusing my efforts on a single strategy that I found especially intriguing. Over 100 of these “drawdown” strategies have been analyzed by the drawdown team of scientists and economists. These actions are divided into 7 sectors (electricity generation, food, women and girls, buildings and cities, land use, transport, and materials) and ranked according to the amount of carbon dioxide that they could remove from the atmosphere by 2050 if instituted on a realistic scale now. The beautiful thing about this book is that for every strategy analyzed, the technology already exists to put it into practice.
My curiosity was piqued by onshore wind energy, which ranks #2 on the list, with the ability to reduce the equivalent of 84.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. To put this in perspective, global carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels for 2019 were approximately 36.8 gigatons. Taking into account all human activities, such as agriculture and deforestation, the number was a record high 43.1 gigatons (Harvey and Gronewold, 2019). The estimated reduction is not based on the expectation of harnessing all wind energy everywhere. That would be unrealistic. This goal is achievable with a reasonable increase in onshore wind from providing 2.9% of world electricity use to 21.6% by 2050. As a testament to the extensive nature of the book, it goes into great detail about how wind can be harnessed by land or by sea. Off-shore wind energy ranks #22 in the list of drawdown solutions with the potential to reduce 15.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide. This projection is similar in scale, modeling a modest increase in offshore wind from 0.1% to 4% of world electricity production (Drawdown). I chose to focus my investigation on onshore wind due to its greater potential for successful energy production and significant carbon emissions reductions.
I began my investigation at the local level, focusing on renewable energy in Charlottesville. The logical place to start was with the Charlottesville Renewable Energy Alliance, referred to here as the REA. I spoke over the phone with Katie VanLangen, the Executive Director. The REA is a network of eight renewable energy companies, as well as other non-profit organizations that support the renewable energy industry in Charlottesville. These companies run the gamut from solar to wind to biofuels, and through the REA they coordinate goals and work to encourage city, state, and federal policies that support those goals. The organization is built upon three mission statements: to establish Charlottesville as the renewable energy hub of the Southeast, to advocate for the growth of the renewable energy economy, and to support the community’s transition to sustainable energy practices. To put it simply, they advocate for the growth of the renewable energy economy, and want to get policymakers and citizens onboard with the idea of economic growth in that sector.
To that end, they have already shown remarkable progress. In 2016, eight renewable energy companies in Charlottesville joined forces to start the REA, according to an article written by Apex Clean Energy, one of the eight (Strumlauf, n.d.). Now, there are almost a dozen such companies, with another half dozen in the process of setting up Charlottesville area offices. Additionally, the City of Charlottesville has adopted the goal of being carbon neutral by the year 2050. The REA works behind the scenes to make sure policymakers prioritize this goal and stick to their promises. At the time of our conversation, VanLangen says they had just sent a letter to Sally Hudson, the delegate from Virginia’s 57th district, where Charlottesville is found, writing in support of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. This piece of legislation addresses the source of energy supplied by our public utilities, and will require Dominion Energy to provide 100% carbon free power by 2045, and Appalachian Power to do so by 2050 (Governor Northam, 2020).
When it comes to results though, people don’t just want to hear about advocacy. They want data and statistics, an economically driven approach, as Drawdown can attest. Taken together, the member organizations of the REA have installed over 3,214 megawatts, abbreviated MW, of renewable energy, according to the REA’s website. According to VanLangen, that number is actually a bit outdated, and has increased considerably since the website’s publication as more and more projects have gone online. When I asked where that energy comes from and where it goes, she said it is actually quite diverse. This power is generated mostly by a combination of residential and utility scale wind and solar projects. Typically, the residential projects are rooftop solar installations, which offset the energy consumption of the house by supplying energy back to the grid. The utility scale projects are a combination of wind and solar installations developed to generate power for “the grid-at-large”, similar to a fossil fuel power plant feeding energy to power the state’s electrical system. Beyond the actual production of electricity, companies within the REA work on technologies that increase the efficiency of battery storage, a technology that is important for maintaining an integrated and resilient grid.
Towards the end of our conversation, I told VanLangen how interested I was to get in touch with one of the member companies of the REA specializing in wind energy. She graciously put me in touch with Madeleine Ray and Lia Norton of Apex Clean Energy, who answered some of my questions from the more technical side of the field. Apex is a national renewable energy company with its headquarters in Charlottesville. To date, they are responsible for originating over 2,867 MW of clean energy presently in operation, with 13 completed facilities and growing (Apex Clean Energy, 2020). They are in the process of beginning construction of potentially the first utility scale wind farm in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Rocky Forge Wind, which will be constructed in Botetourt County, just outside of Roanoke. Companies like Apex lease land and design projects to harvest wind energy, turning the land owners into “wind farmers”. Upon completion in 2021, the site will consist of up to 22 high capacity wind turbines, producing in total 75 MW, enough energy to power approximately 21,000 U.S. homes (Rocky Forge Wind, 2020). This energy will be purchased by the Commonwealth of Virginia to be incorporated into the state’s electrical system. Such a project will have many beneficiaries, including the company that will purchase the completed project, the citizens of Virginia who gain affordable clean energy, and the landowner who earns a lease payment and is paid for the harvested wind energy. Similar to energy companies leasing land or mineral rights, or land being leased for agriculture or forest products, this process puts money directly in the hands of local citizens and their communities.
One of the great takeaways of both my interview with VanLangen and with Norton is the economic viability of renewable energy. Renewables, especially wind energy, are common sense win-win practices that lead to a stronger and more resilient economy. Drawdown does a phenomenal job at synthesizing this information. Their team estimates that the net cost of producing the infrastructure necessary to make wind energy on the scale required to generate 21.6% of global electricity by 2050 would be approximately $1.23 trillion by 2050, but they also estimate there would be approximately $7.4 trillion in savings over that same time period. This bill seems high, and some may be doubtful that the investment is worthwhile, which is why Drawdown references investment banking fund Goldman Sachs, which claims that “wind provides the lowest cost source of new capacity” (Hawken, 2017). They also believe that the rapidly dropping price of wind energy production will lead to the phasing out of federal tax credits by 2023.
Compare this to the fossil fuel industry, which has benefited from decades of federal, state, and local tax credits and indirect subsidies, for example unlimited use of water for cooling at their plants. Compound this with mountainous health costs and environmental issues associated with fossil fuel pollution, and the value in converting to wind energy becomes clear. These points were echoed by Apex in my interview, when Norton stated it simply. “Wind energy projects are very capital intensive to build, but once they are in operation, they can generate revenue for decades at a very low cost.” Once a wind farm is online, it functions with very little maintenance, and is effectively a perpetual source of low-cost energy. The Rocky Forge Wind project in particular, will generate between $20 million to $25 million in tax revenue for the state and county, incentivizing it for not only consumers but elected officials and bureaucrats. There will be up to 250 jobs created during construction, and approximately 7 operations and maintenance positions in the long-term. This is why wind energy is what Drawdown calls a “no regrets” solution (Hawken, 2017). It not only comes with the obvious environmental benefits, but will also positively impact society and the economy at a variety of scales, from local to national and global. The economic benefits of the Rocky Forge Project are quite impressive, and all the while it will produce enough electrical energy to power the equivalent of approximately 20,000 average U.S. homes (EPA) and displace 65,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year, the equivalent annual carbon footprint of 1350 average U.S. households (Univ. of Michigan), or of taking 14,130 cars off the road for that same length of time (EPA, 2018). The magnitude of the impact of this lone wind farm is, to me, astounding. Imagine the effect when this impact is compounded many times over across our state, the nation, and the world.
All of the discussions I had on the economics and societal impacts of switching to renewable energy in Virginia would’ve been incomplete without mentioning the major power providers in the state. Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power are the two main utility companies that control the vast majority of electrical energy business in the Commonwealth. In order to gain a better understanding of the complexities of the power supply chain and the economic policies behind it, I interviewed David Stoner of Stoner Power Consulting. Stoner has four decades of industry experience, working for power companies, renewable energy providers, and now running his private consulting firm. The variety of his experiences have given him an in-depth understanding of the market. From our conversation, I learned that Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power are examples of Investor-Owned Utilities (IOU’s), investor owned entities that provide energy to consumers for-profit. Approximately 2 in 3 Americans get their power from an investor-owned utility (Stoner, 2020). In a market such as this, the utility companies own and operate the infrastructure required for generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity to consumers, effectively monopolizing the ability to supply power. In most parts of the state, the only option for buying energy is Dominion. This presents a challenge to renewable energy in the market, as it isn’t as simple as giving consumers the option to purchase renewable energy instead of energy from fossil fuels. The source of the electricity that heats your home and keeps the lights on is dependent entirely upon the choices the utility company makes. This makes it of paramount importance that renewable energy providers and organizations like the REA work closely with Dominion to make it possible to get renewable energy to consumers. Of even greater importance is voting for politicians who make the advancement of clean energy a key part of their agenda. They alone can adopt laws and appoint civil servants like energy regulators that will be supportive of the renewable energy industry, but voters have the power to ensure that they have the opportunity.
VanLangen emphasized that the priority for the REA is the advancement and proliferation of renewable energy technologies, independent of how consumers get that electricity. In Virginia, this reality is manifested by renewable energy producers selling the electricity they generate at their wind and solar facilities to Dominion. The same approach was touted by Apex, who will work closely with Dominion and the State to incorporate the energy they develop into the grid. The Rocky Forge Wind Project will be instrumental in getting Virginia to meet the goals set by Governor Ralph Northam of powering the state with 30% carbon-free electricity by 2030 and 100% by 2050 (Rocky Forge). The deal was made between several partners, facilitated by Dominion, using a “renewable power purchase mechanism”, and approved by the State Corporation Commission. This is the sort of interdepartmental community approach that the Cville REA promoted as being most effective, and it’s not hard to see why. Having this many players at the table and taking part in the conversation helps ensure the success of the project.
Working within this economic framework, companies like Apex and organizations like the REA advocate for government policies that incentivize the use of renewables by electrical utilities like Dominion. Requiring that a certain percentage of their energy be renewably sourced, like the Virginia Clean Power Act has done, that those sources be in state, or offering tax-credits for renewable energy, are examples of policies that can make this a reality. Even without these incentives, the falling price of renewables is making them seem more attractive to power providers all the time. Still, assets that companies already possess in the form of traditional fossil fuel burning power plants present a significant hurdle to making the transition to renewables. It is difficult to convince a company to abandon a coal-fired power plant, for example, if it is still generating electricity to pay for its own mortgage. As prices continue to fall, the costs saved by switching to renewables will continue to incentivize power companies to cut their stranded assets at fossil fuel burning sites. As those older, less efficient plants naturally degrade by aging, companies will continue to shift naturally away from fossil fuels as they realize that the new- build costs of onshore wind and solar are much lower in the first place, at $29-$56/MWh compared to $152-$206 for gas and $60-$143 for coal, according to estimates made in 2018 by investing firm Lazard. This change is already taking place nationwide. Utilities announced 27 coal plant closures in the year 2017, ending a decade in which nearly all power plants retired were fossil fuel burning. The national trend is mirrored in Virginia, and is only expected to continue, Stoner said, pointing to studies conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (U.S. EIA, 2018).
Even when the benefits far outweigh the costs, it is important to acknowledge and address potential limitations of any paradigm shifting strategy, and wind energy is no exception. Opponents of the widespread adoption of wind energy often point out that it is an unequally distributed energy source. Not every state has the geographical and meteorological conditions that are conducive to wind farms. Still, as early as 1991, the U.S. Department of Energy estimated that 20% of U.S. energy demand could be met using contemporary technology, and predicted that advancements in technology could lead to a tenfold increase in wind energy production potential. They suggested that the windiest areas of the country, like the Great Plains, had the potential to produce “more than three times the nation’s current electric consumption” (USDOE). Technology has risen to the challenge. Now, the windy energy potential of just Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas is high enough to meet electricity demand in the entire United States (Drawdown). This highlights the importance of building transmission infrastructure capable of moving wind energy from the places it’s generated to the places it will be used. Using the unequal distribution of wind resources as an argument against widespread adoption of wind power makes little sense when you consider the fact that fossil fuel resources have always been unevenly distributed across the country as well. We have always harvested resources and produced energy in one location and transported it to another. Why should this challenge be any greater for wind energy?
Even in states with an abundance of wind energy, wind is an intermittent energy source. Apex points out that all wind facilities are connected to a regional grid that consists of multiple generation plants involving a variety of technologies. Many of the other technologies outlined in Drawdown, hydrological power, geothermal, biomass, nuclear, and even supplemental fossil fuel powered plants that have been remodeled to make them more efficient, will be used in tandem with wind power across the comprehensive grid. For example, solar power production peaks at mid-day, making it an excellent complementary source. And when wind isn’t blowing at one location, it is likely to be covered by the wind generating power in another region of the grid. Economics dictates that at any given time, the power provider wants to be using the lowest cost power source available. When the wind is blowing, this will generally be wind energy. When it’s not, the grid can be supplemented by other sources. So, while it is true that wind will not always power the grid, the incorporation of utility scale wind projects will certainly lower overall energy costs. Improvements in transmission infrastructure are necessary to take the energy generated from the wind farms to consumers. Improvements in battery storage technology will increasingly allow energy generated during periods of peak production to be stored for periods of peak demand. Finally, using advanced computing technology to manage the grid, creating a “smart grid”, will be very important as well. A smart grid tracks times of peak demand, rerouting energy to the places it needs to go, and stopping excess energy from being generated and wasted during periods of low demand. This will absorb the costs associated with intermittency.
Some people, even with the very best environmental interests at heart, may have reservations about implementing renewables at the utility scale even after hearing about the positive economic impacts. Many wonder how the development of new infrastructure to support this new power source will impact the ecosystems where they will be constructed. Fortunately, advancements in our understanding of animal behavior are allowing scientists to situate turbines in locations that have the least impact on fauna, including winged critters like birds and bats. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service plays a key role as gatekeeper in this regard. Companies like Apex are quick to point out that impacts on birds and bats can easily be mitigated, if not eliminated, by proper siting.
Concerned citizens also wonder about the impacts that this construction may have on the communities and industries where they will be located, as they take up valuable land area. Responsible developers will engage in dialogue with citizens to make sure their concerns are addressed and their needs are met. Additionally, because the footprint of a wind farm includes only the towers themselves and not the span of the blades, they typically use no more than 1% of the land they sit on (Drawdown). This means sites can host crops and livestock as well, giving the land a dual use, which could be a financial boon for landowners. Still, “not in my backyard” sentiment persists. Advocates for wind energy are quick to dispel fears by pointing out that there are no documented health impacts from wind turbines, and proper siting can diminish the visual and auditory effects of the turbines. The visual impact of wind turbines is similar to that of cell towers, which can already be found dotting ridgelines while providing no environmental benefits. When compared to the damage wrought by strip malls and suburban sprawl, wind turbines have a mild effect on the visual landscape. In an event that a turbine is visible from someone’s property from its perch atop a beloved mountaintop ridge, it is true that this may not be an ideal view. But in our changing world, I think it’s important to consider why we value unadulterated nature, and what its fate may be if we fail to make the transition to renewable energy. Personally, I love the tranquility I find on a walk in the woods, the abundance of life, and its resilience. A warming climate puts all of these in jeopardy, and wind energy is a fantastic solution to the problem of a warming climate. For this reason, I think it’s worthwhile to consider redefining natural beauty to include the wind turbines on mountaintops. I would even say that they have a certain artistic beauty to them. Let them be a shining example of our covenant with nature, of how we have learned to live and prosper alongside it. It is also important to note that the proposed strategy does not include placing wind turbines in every meadow or on every mountaintop. That would be both unrealistic and excessive. Protected lands are still a priority, and it is possible to have both undisturbed natural areas and an abundance of wind power. Wind farms are built on private lands with the consent of the owner and to their benefit through a lease agreement. This is in stark contrast to oil and gas pipelines, which cut through protected and private land alike, often in the name of eminent domain and against the will of private landowners and communities.
Growing up with the wind in my hair and the song of the sea in my heart fostered the curiosity that inspired this project. Days spent at the beach, on the water, and in the forest instilled in me a great love and respect for all of creation. Climate change has affected me personally, as rising seas threaten to swallow the land I grew up on and the places I love. Anything we can do to mitigate, dare I say reverse the damage that we’ve caused, is to me worth every ounce of our collective effort. In the not so distant future, I hope to float in between sets of waves with my brother and look East towards the horizon, knowing that beyond my range of vision, beautiful white towers toil effortlessly to harvest energy at sea and bring it to shore. Imagining this spreads a broad smile across my face and makes my heart swell with pride. As I write this, preliminary action is already underway to make this a reality, as Dominion plans to build the largest offshore wind project in the nation and bring online more than 2600 MW of power. I couldn’t be more encouraged than to know that my city and state have made this a priority (Dominion). It is my sincere hope that we can all put our wholehearted support behind these powerful solutions, and in doing so build a better tomorrow, today.
