[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 132 (Thursday, September 17, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9545-S9547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ENERGY SPRAWL AND THE GREEN ECONOMY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar 
recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, 
Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah with solar 
collectors to generate electricity. He is also talking about generating 
20 percent of our electricity from wind. This would require building 
about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size 
of West Virginia, not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage 
transmission lines.
  Is the Federal Government showing any concern about this massive 
intrusion into the natural landscape? Not at

[[Page S9546]]

all. I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of 
saving the environment.
  The House of Representatives has passed climate legislation that 
started out as an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. It has morphed 
into an engine for raising revenues by selling carbon dioxide emission 
allowances and promoting renewable energy.
  The bill requires electric utilities to get 20 percent of their power 
mostly from wind and solar by 2020. These renewable energy sources are 
receiving huge subsidies all to supposedly create jobs and hurry us 
down the road to an America running on wind and sunshine, as described 
in President Obama's inaugural address.
  Yet all this assumes renewable energy is a free lunch, a benign so-
called sustainable way of running the country with minimal impact on 
the environment. That assumption experienced a rude awakening on August 
26 when the Nature Conservancy published a paper entitled ``Energy 
Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat 
for the United States of America.''
  The report by this venerable environmental organization posed a 
simple question: How much land is required for the different energy 
sources that power the country? The answers deserve far greater public 
attention.
  By far, nuclear energy is the least land intensive. It requires only 
1 square mile for one reactor, that is to produce 1 million megawatt 
hours per year, enough electricity for about 90,000 homes. Geothermal 
energy, which taps the natural heat of the Earth, requires 3 square 
miles. The most landscape consuming are the biofuels ethanol and 
biodiesel, which require up to 500 square miles to produce the same 
amount of energy. Coal, on the other hand, requires 4 square miles, 
mainly for mining and extraction. Solar thermal heating, a fluid with 
large arrays of mirrors and using it to power a turbine takes 6 square 
miles. Natural gas needs 8 and petroleum needs 18. Wind farms require 
over 30 square miles.
  This sprawl has been missing from our energy discussions. In my home 
State of Tennessee, we just celebrated the 75th anniversary of the 
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, America's most visited national 
park. Yet there are serious proposals by energy developers to cover 
mountains all along the Appalachian chain from Georgia through the 
foothills of the Smoky Mountains through the Blue Ridge Mountains of 
Virginia, all the way up to the White Mountains of New Hampshire with 
50-story wind turbines because the wind blows strongest across 
mountaintops. I can tell from the Presiding Officer's smile that she is 
thinking of the strong winds on the White Mountains which are among the 
strongest in the entire United States of America.
  Let's put this into perspective. We could line 300 miles of 
mountaintops from Chattanooga, TN, to Bristol, VA, with wind turbines 
and still only produce one-quarter of the electricity we get from one 
reactor on 1 square mile at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar 
nuclear plant.
  The 1,000-square mile solar project proposed by Mr. Salazar would 
generate on a continuous basis 35,000 megawatts of electricity. You 
could get the same output from 30 new nuclear reactors that would fit 
comfortably on existing nuclear sites. And this does not count the 
thousands of miles of transmission lines that will be needed to carry 
the newly generated solar power through and to population centers.
  There is one more consideration. Solar collectors must be washed down 
once a month or they collect too much dirt to be effective. They also 
need to be cooled by water. Where amid the desert and the scrubland 
will we find all that water? No wonder the Wildlife Conservancy and 
other environmentalists are already opposing solar projects on some 
western lands.
  Renewable energy is not a free lunch. It is an unprecedented assault 
on the American landscape. Before we find ourselves engulfed in energy 
sprawl, it is imperative we take a closer look at the advantages of 
nuclear power.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record a summary of the Nature Conservancy paper entitled ``Energy 
Sprawl or Energy Efficiency,'' which was published on August 26.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                Abstract

       Concern over climate change has led the U.S. to consider a 
     cap-and-trade system to regulate emissions. Here we 
     illustrate the land-use impact to U.S. habitat types of new 
     energy development resulting from different U.S. energy 
     policies. We estimated the total new land area needed by 2030 
     to produce energy, under current law and under various cap-
     and-trade policies, and then partitioned the area impacted 
     among habitat types with geospatial data on the feasibility 
     of production. The land-use intensity of different energy 
     production techniques varies over three orders of magnitude, 
     from 1.9-2.8 km\2\/ TW hr/yr for nuclear power to 788-1000 
     km\2\/TW hr/yr for biodiesel from soy. In all scenarios, 
     temperate deciduous forests and temperate grasslands will be 
     most impacted by future energy development, although the 
     magnitude of impact by wind, biomass, and coal to different 
     habitat types is policy-specific. Regardless of the existence 
     or structure of a cap-and-trade bill, at least 206,000 km\2\ 
     will be impacted without substantial increases in energy 
     efficiency, which saves at least 7.6 km\2\ per TW hr of 
     electricity conserved annually and 27.5 km\2\ per TW hr of 
     liquid fuels conserved annually. Climate policy that reduces 
     carbon dioxide emissions may increase the areal impact of 
     energy, although the magnitude of this potential side effect 
     may be substantially mitigated by increases in energy 
     efficiency. The possibility of widespread energy sprawl 
     increases the need for energy conservation, appropriate 
     siting, sustainable production practices, and compensatory 
     mitigation offsets.

                              Introduction

       Climate change is now acknowledged as a potential threat to 
     biodiversity and human well-being, and many countries are 
     seeking to reduce their emissions by shifting from fossil 
     fuels to other energy sources. One potential side effect with 
     this switch is the increase in area required by some 
     renewable energy production techniques. Energy production 
     techniques vary in the spatial extent in which production 
     activities occur, which we refer to as their energy sprawl, 
     defined as the product of the total quantity of energy 
     produced annually (e.g., TW lu-/yr) and the land-use 
     intensity of production (e.g. km\2\ of habitat per TW hr/yr). 
     While many studies have quantified the likely effect of 
     climate change on the Earth's biodiversity due to climate-
     driven habitat loss, concluding that a large proportion of 
     species could be driven extinct, relatively few studies have 
     evaluated the habitat impact of future energy sprawl. It is 
     important to understand the potential habitat effects of 
     energy sprawl, especially in reference to the loss of 
     specific habitat types, since habitats vary markedly in the 
     species and ecosystem processes they support.
       Within the United States, the world's largest cumulative 
     polluter of greenhouse gases, concern over climate change has 
     led to the consideration of a cap-and-trade system to 
     regulate emissions, such as the previously proposed 
     Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) and the Low 
     Carbon Economy Act (S. 1766). Major points of contention in 
     structuring a cap-and-trade system are the feasibility and 
     desirability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at coal 
     plants, the creation of new nuclear plants, and whether to 
     allow international offset programs that permit U.S. 
     companies to meet obligations abroad. The rules of a cap-and-
     trade system, as well as technological advances in energy 
     production and changes in the price of fossil fuels, will 
     affect how the U.S. generates energy. In this study we take 
     scenarios of a cap-and-trade system's effect on United States 
     energy production and evaluate each scenario's impact on 
     habitat due to energy sprawl. Our scenarios are based on the 
     Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast of energy 
     production in 2030 under current law (the ``Reference 
     Scenario''), including the renewable fuel standard of the 
     Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, and under three 
     cap-and-trade scenarios: the ``Core Cap-and-Trade Scenario'', 
     where the full Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Act is 
     implemented; the ``Few Options Scenario'', where 
     international offsets are not allowed and where new nuclear 
     production and coal production with CCS are not possible; and 
     the ``CCS Scenario'', where Congress enacts the Low Carbon 
     Economy Act, a cap-and-trade system more favorable to coal 
     with CCS.
       Under each scenario, we first estimate the total new land 
     area in the U.S. needed to produce energy for each production 
     technique as a function of the amount of energy needed and 
     the land-use intensity of production. We examine the effect 
     of U.S. climate policy on future energy sprawl using energy 
     scenarios based on proposed legislation, building on a body 
     of literature on this topic. Note that our analysis focuses 
     only on U.S. land-use implications, ignoring other, 
     potentially significant international land-use implications 
     of U.S. climate policy. Second, we use available information 
     on where new energy production facilities would be located to 
     partition this area among major habitat types. We calculate 
     the new area directly impacted by energy development within 
     each major habitat type, but do not attempt to predict where 
     within each major habitat

[[Page S9547]]

     type energy development will take place, nor possible 
     indirect effects on land-use regionally or globally due to 
     altered land markets. Our analysis provides a broad overview 
     of what change in the energy sector will mean for area 
     impacted in different natural habitat types, recognizing that 
     such a broad analysis will inevitably have to simplify parts 
     of a complex world.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________