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 oday's giant coal and nuclear power plants are failing
to provide the high-quality, reliable electricity needed to power
the new digital economy, according to a new report from the Worldwatch
Institute, a Washington, DC-based research organization. Power
interruptions due to the vulnerability of central power plants
and transmission lines cost the United States as much as $80
billion annually.
 "We're
beginning the 21st century with a power system that cannot take
our economy where it needs to go," said Seth Dunn, author
of Micropower: The Next Electrical Era. "The kind
of highly reliable power needed for today's economy can only
be based on a new generation of micropower devices now coming
on the market. These allow homes and businesses to produce their
own electricity, with far less pollution."
The new micropower
technologies, which include fuel cells, microturbines, and solar
roofing, are as small as one-millionth the scale of today's coal
or nuclear plants-and produce little if any of the air pollution
of their larger cousins. Already, the multi-billion-dollar potential
of the market for micropower has sent investors scrambling to
buy into some of the new companies, sending their share prices
soaring earlier this year.
One group
of micropower technologies generates electricity by combustion.
Reciprocating engines, traditionally fueled by diesel oil and
once used largely for backup power, are increasingly fueled by
natural gas and run throughout much of the day. Microturbines,
advanced gas turbines derived from aerospace jet engines, are
just starting to be mass-produced, shipped by the hundreds, and
installed in drugstores, restaurants, and other US commercial
buildings. Stirling engines, which can run on wood chips and
even solar heat, are becoming popular in European homes.
Other micropower
systems rely on processes that do not involve combustion. Fuel
cells are electrochemical devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen
to produce electricity and water. Several hundred fuel cells
are already operating worldwide, and will become commercially
available for homes in the next one to two years.
Solar cells,
or photovoltaics (PV), which use sunlight falling on semiconductor
chips to produce electric current, have already entered the residential
and commercial building market in nations such as Japan and Germany,
and for off-grid use in developing nations. Wind power, the most
cost-competitive renewable energy technology, is poised for rapid
expansion in rural plains and offshore regions. Small geothermal,
microhydro, and biomass systems also hold important roles in
the emerging decentralized electricity system.
These small-scale
generators have numerous advantages over large-scale power plants.
Located close to where they are used, small-scale units can save
electricity consumers millions of dollars by avoiding costly
new investments in central power plants and distribution systems.
Micropower
can also save homeowners and businesses millions of dollars by
lowering the threat of power outages and subsequent lost productivity.
An electricity grid with many small generators is inherently
more stable than a grid served by only a few large plants. Banks,
hospitals, restaurants, and post offices have been among the
early adopters of micropower systems as a way to reduce their
vulnerability to power interruptions. The First National Bank
of Omaha, in Omaha, Nebraska, for example, responded to a costly
computer system crash in 1997 by hooking its processing center
up to two fuel cells that provide 99.9999% reliability.
Use of more
efficient combustion-based micropower systems, relying primarily
on natural gas, will substantially lower emissions of particulates,
sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and heavy metals. These reductions
would range from 50 to 100 percent, depending on the technology
and pollutant.
The use of
wind, solar power, and fuel cells fueled by hydrogen can also
help reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, one third of which
come from electricity generation. In the United States, widespread
adoption of micropower could cut US power plant carbon dioxide
emissions in half. In developing nations, small-scale power could
lower carbon emissions by 42 percent relative to large-scale
systems.
Micropower
will allow developing countries to leapfrog to power sources
that are cheaper and cleaner than building more coal or nuclear
plants and extending existing transmission lines. Many of these
countries lose the equivalent of 20 to 50 percent of their total
power generated through leaks in their transmission and distribution
systems. In rural regions, where 1.8 billion people still lack
access to electrical services, small-scale systems are already
economically superior to the extension of transmission lines-and
environmentally preferable to continued reliance on kerosene
lanterns and diesel generators. To date, solar PV systems have
been installed in more than half a million homes.
Despite micropower's
potential benefits, current market rules in most countries favor
the incumbent centralized model. Many electric utilities, moreover,
perceive micropower systems as an economic threat, and are blocking
their deployment by charging onerous connection fees and by paying
low prices for power fed into the grid. Failure to reform these
rules and practices could result in the construction of another
generation of marginally improved large-scale power plants of
questionable long-term economic and environmental value.
The extent
to which current power markets favor shortsighted solutions is
highlighted in the rush to construct some 100,000 megawatts of
"merchant plants" worldwide. These large gas-fired
power plants, marketed as the answer to power shortages, are
designed to make money by selling power in newly deregulated
electricity markets when demand and prices are high. But they
have raised serious concerns among investors for their financial
riskiness, and among grass-roots groups for their negative ecological
impacts - as many are located in rural or pristine areas.
The risk of
locking in outdated central power plants is even greater in the
developing world. Over the next 20 years, some $1.7 trillion
of capital investment in new power capacity is projected to take
place in developing countries. "These nations have a golden
opportunity to get the rules right the first time, and set up
markets that support power systems suitable for the 21st century
and not the 20th," concludes Dunn. 
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worldwatch.org; website www.worldwatch.org.