The existing U.S. energy system has been determined by a confluence of technological breakthroughs, operational and infrastructural developments, growing demand from shifting populations, national and international crises, and political pressures. There is no reason to believe that our energy system in thirty years will be driven by anything different.

Realistically, addressing sufficiently any one of the many energy-related challenges we face will require a portfolio approach. Absent some unforeseen development, none of the technologies or policies du jour – clean coal, natural gas, renewables, electric vehicles, cap and trade, nuclear, biomass, energy efficiency, offshore drilling, etc. – are likely to get us to an optimal energy future alone. To get there we’ll likely need a systems-based portfolio approach to energy, relying on diverse fuel types and technologies with supply and operational redundancies for added security. To get to a systems-based portfolio approach, we’ll need to think differently about energy.

A couple of thoughts on this.

First, American thought- and opinion-leaders could do a much better job of speaking with the public about energy’s role in our national wellbeing, and the many benefits, tradeoffs, and costs that are associated with it. A more informed and engaged electorate can begin to articulate national goals and priorities, and apply the political pressure necessary to move our nation forward.

Second, energy stakeholders must do a much better job of speaking to one another as partners in our national future rather than opponents in a given Congressional cycle. A portfolio approach to energy will require shared goals, innovative solutions, and recognition of and respect for regional, sectoral, political, and technological differences.

Third, any shift in the way we produce, distribute, and use energy will require innovation. Technological and operational innovation will be important, but innovative thinking will be just as crucial. We’ll need to move away from the silos, talking points, and echo chambers that so often typify our energy discourse. As an example, we recently co-hosted with the Congressional R&D Caucus a panel discussion on energy innovation (transcript available on OurEnergyPolicy.org). The event featured Nathan S. Lewis, a research chemist and Director of a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, David Kreutzer, an energy and climate expert from the Heritage Foundation, and Mark Muro from Brookings, whose specialty is metropolitan and innovation policy. While the discussion and Q&A that followed didn’t produce any silver bullets, this sort of respectful ‘meeting of the minds’ of diverse and, frequently, opposed perspectives is valuable as we work to identify solutions that will remain salable along energy’s long time horizon.

It is difficult to predict what American energy will look like in thirty years. However, it is clear – absent some major breakthrough or crisis – that business as usual will most likely to lead to more business as usual.

In light of recent rising gas prices and costs increasing at places other than the pump – such as the grocery store, retail shops and the post office – it is clear that America’s addiction to foreign oil is not a problem that is going away on its own anytime soon.

Not only does the U.S. currently import more than 50 percent of its oil, but approximately 95 percent of those imports are used for transportation fuel. Petroleum, even if drilled in the U.S., also does not have the potential to be cost effective in the long run. In 2010, we spent nearly $200 billion on oil imports – and oil prices currently continue to climb to more than $100 a barrel. For every one cent increase in gas prices, $4 million is drained from Americans’ pockets.

While the U.S. can't drill its way out of the global oil market, we CAN have an impact doing all that we can to grow our way out. The solution for powering America now and in the future is to shift the nation's main energy source from fossil fuels to cleaner resources, and one of the most effective ways to accomplish this is to produce and utilize more domestic ethanol. By investing in biofuels, we can have a dramatic impact on national security, our economy and our environment footprint. Our success means we can wean ourselves off foreign oil, employ our citizens in home grown businesses in rural regions of the country and significantly reduce our green house gas emissions.

The good news is the ethanol is already having an impact in the U.S. by replacing liquid transportation fuels today. For example, ten percent of our gasoline is now corn based ethanol (E10), and we can get up to 15 percent with the recent EPA approvals. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, in 2010 the American ethanol industry produced more than 13 billion gallons of biofuels from ethanol, replacing the gasoline refined from 445 million barrels of imported oil – more oil than the U.S. imported from Saudi Arabia last year. By reducing these imports, American ethanol saved the nation $34 billion and helped support more than 400,000 non-exportable green jobs.

Many of these jobs involve pioneering the production of cellulosic ethanol by using biomass materials such as wood chips, switchgrass and corn stover (leaves and stalks). Cellulosic ethanol, as an advanced liquid biofuel, has made tremendous advances in the past few years and is on track for commercial deployment and cost competitiveness. The biorefineries we invest in today will pay dividends as we work to ease reliance on petroleum in a more energy secure future.

We must build upon this success. To make biofuels happen in a significant way, the government must enable market choices for consumers – and that includes requiring higher ethanol blended fueling pumps at fueling stations and requiring auto manufacturers to make all cars flex-fuel capable.

Ultimately, we have sufficient amounts of corn and biomass to replace 100 percent of our liquid petroleum based transportation fuels with home grown ethanol. We just need the collective will to make it happen. And let’s not forget that Brazil has already become “energy independent” for their transportation fuels by providing consumers the choice to fill up with ethanol at the fueling station. It can be done – and we can get there with home grown biofuels before the next 30 years.

We can be confident that we will see a transition to a clean energy future in the coming decades. Certainly, there are powerful economic interests that work every day to keep the world dependent on fossil fuels. They want us to believe that decades from now, we’ll continue to rely on energy sources that hurt our national security, pollute our environment and alter our global climate.

But the reality is that a clean energy future is not only possible, but inevitable. It’s a fact that 2010 was tied for the hottest year on record, and that extreme weather and the accompanying damage is escalating here and across the globe. It’s a fact that we must immediately reduce global warming pollution or risk dangerous consequences for our planet.

It is a fact that the world’s demand for energy is increasing, and that oil prices are volatile and unpredictable. Just this week, scores of investment banks and the U.S. government forecasted that average oil prices will soon exceed 2008 levels, driving up the price of gasoline even more. Clean energy is the one solution to all of these challenges. And it’s also a fact that our global competitors are not standing still. Clean energy is one of the world’s fastest growing industries, projected to be the third largest industrial sector in the world by 2020.

We have an abundance of clean, renewable energy resources in America — enough to meet our energy needs many times over. Studies show that over the next three decades, a shift to renewable energy is very much achievable. However, this will require aggressive action from all levels of government and the engagement of all citizens. As we make this transition, there will be a role for relatively low-carbon fossil fuels, such as natural gas; but the priority must be the truly renewable energy that does not warm our climate, pollute the environment or expose us to volatile oil and gasoline prices.

We are seeing promising signs of change. More than half of the states now have standards that require utilities to produce energy from clean, renewable sources. We can see the positive impact in states like Ohio, where a renewable standard adopted in 2008 has led to the rapid growth of clean energy development. Just this week, Purdue University announced its plans to build a wind farm in Indiana that could power up to 25,000 homes, as part of an “energy park” to help educate students about renewables. Wind power capacity has more than quadrupled since 2005, and it is now price-competitive with coal in some parts of the United States. Automobile companies are producing the next generation of vehicles that will reduce our reliance on oil.

Market dynamics are already moving the U.S. to produce more power from renewable sources. In the coming decades, we must rely more and more on America’s clean energy resources to power our country. The question is not whether we will make the transition to clean, renewable energy, but how quickly we will complete the transition. We must now decide how competitive we will be in the global race toward a clean energy economy.

According to the IPCC, we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 -35% by 2020 and 80 to 95% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. That is the prescription for protecting the oceans and other ecosystems that we depend on. It’s a tall order, it requires some planning and some changes in how we use energy. In the European Union, projections show it can be done. In the United States, we still have no plan.

Based on Oceana’s analysis, we could cut our oil consumption in half by 2030. This is based largely on a low-end conservative estimate by the Energy Information Agency (EIA), which assumes that there are no new policies to drive the shift to renewable energy, such as pricing carbon or new incentive programs. However, looking at predictions of how new policies would affect this, NREL and others suggest that we could make even more progress.

Clearly, such policies are desperately needed. They make the difference between achieving energy independence in 2030, or before. But in their worst case scenario, we could alleviate more than 50% of our oil by 2030, and even more by 2035.

Our current uses of oil, for transportation, commercial and residential heating, and power generation, would shift to alternative energy sources. The increasing fleet of plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles will shift to the grid while remaining conventional vehicles will rely on second-generation biofuels. The homes and businesses that shift from oil heat to much more efficient electric heat, will also be on the grid, except for those that switch to distributed energy sources. And the grid will be powered increasingly by clean energy. We have the capacity to build up clean energy sufficiently to address the additional needs.

This is good news for the fishermen: Enough change could be made by 2020 to alleviate the need for the 1.6 million barrels of oil we get daily from the Gulf of Mexico, saving the fishermen and residents of Gulf states from another life-threatening spill. But the even better news, based on the predictions of national laboratories and businesses, is that after 2020, these shifts begin to happen at a much faster rate.

The demand for the 1.6 million gallons per day we get from the Persian Gulf will not take another 10 years to replace. This could be done by 2023. By 2030, we could also replace 80% of the other non-Persian-Gulf oil imports.

Now the bad news: 2030 is not soon enough and we need to do more than just stop using oil. We also need to stop using coal. The European Union has a plan to alleviate 80% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and 25% by 2020. They can see the path forward to that end. We too need to find that path.

Applying policies such as pricing carbon, incentivizing clean energy and ending subsidies to rich oil companies could put us on a much faster trajectory. And don’t forget, the clean energy industry generates three times more jobs than the fossil fuel industry for every dollar invested, so it will pay us back in spades.

Overall, the prognosis is good. We can make major changes, and we can largely transition to clean energy and create thousands of good jobs between now and 2035. If we’re smart we can even get there sooner.

The Administration and some members of U.S. Congress envision a future in which we obtain most, if not all, of our energy from clean and renewable sources, particularly wind and solar. Between rising oil prices, the uncertainty of the weather, and compelling concerns about the health and environmental effects of fossil fuels, the goal of a totally clean and renewable energy future is indeed a noble one.

This goal, however, is simply unrealistic. Yes, over the next 30 years, it is important to consider clean and renewable sources of energy like wind and solar when developing national energy policy. But, it is equally important to consider and utilize all sources of energy, including coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, hydropower, and nuclear power.

We currently obtain about 50 percent of our energy from coal, and about 80 percent from coal, oil, and natural gas. We obtain the remaining 20 percent from nuclear power and renewable sources, primarily biomass, as well as wind, solar, and hydropower. Together, these sources make up a versatile portfolio that allows every area of our country to utilize the sources that make the most sense for them in terms of cost and reliability. Sunny California, for example, can (and does) rely heavily on solar power, but coal-dependent Missouri and Ohio, to name two, would find it extremely difficult to obtain any solar or wind power in a reliable and cost-effective way.

To put it simply, we cannot rely on just one or two sources to power the entire country, especially not renewable yet intermittent sources like wind and solar, which have already caused cost and reliability issues in states that rely on them. Texas, for example, theoretically has the capacity to generate more wind power than any other state. Yet, last summer, on a day when record-breaking heat caused record-breaking energy usage, Texas was only able to utilize 13 percent of its already installed wind-generation capacity because the wind did not blow when needed.

It is important that lawmakers recognize this fact over the next 30 years, but more importantly, now. President Obama has called for a renewable energy standard of 80 percent by 2035, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun to implement standards and new regulations that will amount to a trainwreck for the traditional energy industries, if not the entire economy.

Given the current, market-based make-up of our nation’s energy portfolio, an aggressive renewable energy standard would cause severe economic hardship at a time when the economy continues to struggle. Last year, the Heritage Foundation found that in addition to losing about 1 million jobs, a 22.5 percent renewable energy standard by 2025 would also “cause household electricity prices to jump 36 percent, and industry prices would rise by 60 percent by 2035.” In short, mandating the use of certain types of energy sources would cause additional harm to the economy—and would likely only contribute to the very energy problems we’re trying to solve.

The effect of the EPA regulations could be even worse—particularly the coming Utility MACT rules that would impose strict regulations on normal power plant operations and new thresholds for pollutants already regulated by the EPA, with the goal of shutting down the coal plants that provide 50 percent of our nation’s energy. According to a study last year by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the EPA rules will reduce generating capacity by 46 to 76 gigawatts, or about 7 percent of current generation, primarily from coal plants. These rules will not only impact energy reliability, but, as Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works noted in a September 2010 report, the EPA’s regulations will threaten almost 800,000 jobs and, as he said on the Senate floor, “make consumers pay more for electricity, shut down the local factory, and give Chinese firms a decisive advantage over America’s manufacturers, which are struggling to meet the agency’s bureaucratic mandates.”

How will we power America over the next 30 years? Well, we won’t power America by mandating unreliable, unrealistic sources of energy for the entire country, nor will we power America by shutting down the very power plants that provide the most affordable and reliable power. Indeed, it is important to address health and environmental concerns, but it is equally important to address cost and reliability concerns. The best way to do this is to allow states, and perhaps individual power companies, to choose the best sources of power and methods with which to provide that power, and in doing so, celebrate the diversity of energy sources that are available on American soil. I am confident that our market will help to bring about the well balanced solution that we all hope will not only ensure a lower carbon future, but also one where we continue to have reliable and low cost energy no matter what part of the country one lives in.

Though we may be concerned about the rising price of gasoline today, our real challenge is preparing now for an energy future that reduces our reliance on foreign energy and invests in long-term, environmentally friendly options. President Obama, in his State of the Union address in January, pinpointed this challenge with his call for breakthroughs and innovations that will enable the United States to shift the bulk of its electricity supply to clean-energy sources, with an added goal of having one million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015.

Our energy strategy should include a combination of efficiency, conservation and new production sources. As our world continues to electrify at a rapid pace –both at a personal level and in industry – enhancing energy efficiency programs at the residential, commercial and industrial level will significantly reduce our electricity usage and the scale of new resource development.

However, we also must continue to develop new electricity sources and expand a high-tech grid that is the highway for a portfolio of fuels and diversified technologies. We will continue to develop low-cost natural gas resources and renewable energy sources, though the latter will be limited by the lack of storage and transmission capacity and cost constraints.

Nuclear energy can help the nation rise to the challenge, and advanced reactor designs have a growing appeal around the globe. We are building four reactors here in America. China alone has 27 reactors under construction today, Russia has 11, and India another six.

Beyond the industry’s ability to successfully build new nuclear plants is the vital need to do so. The Energy Information Administration determined that by 2035, the U.S. will need at least 24 percent more electricity -- the equivalent of more than 250 large coal or nuclear power plants. By 2050, all but a handful of the existing nuclear power plants will be retired for decommissioning after 60 years of operation. To retain their low-carbon value (70 percent of electricity in the U.S. made by low-carbon sources is from nuclear energy) they must be replaced with new nuclear plants. And if our nation wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, all clean sources of electricity, including nuclear energy, must be expanded to replace carbon-emitting power plants and reduce our use of oil.

In the decades ahead, traditional large nuclear power plants will be built as the industry develops small reactor technology. The idea of compact reactors—those with a generating capacity of 45 to 350 megawatts—is gaining acceptance among energy and industrial users and within the Department of Defense for secure energy supply. Small-scale reactors can complement large nuclear plant projects by expanding potential markets in the United States and abroad for carbon-free energy production. Small reactors can be manufactured in North America to meet growing domestic and export demand—creating high-tech U.S. jobs and improving our global competitiveness.

President Obama, when he announced a federal loan guarantee for the new nuclear project in Georgia last year, said, “To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” Federal government forecasts conclude that the U.S. would need approximately 70 new nuclear reactors just by 2030. EPA’s forecast to 2050 under the Kerry-Lieberman bill was as high as 180 reactors in one scenario. All mainstream analyses of climate change by independent organizations have concluded that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will require a portfolio of technologies, that nuclear energy must be part of the portfolio and that a major expansion of nuclear energy over the next few decades is essential.

In my recently published book, Lights Out: Ten Myths About and Real Solutions To Our Energy Crisis, I outlined a strategy for America’s power sector that could help us address our energy security and environmental challenges. I believe that with a focused effort and an aggressive federal commitment to devising constructive energy policy, we could dramatically revamp the composition of our power markets between now and 2030.

I call my plan the 30—30—30 by 2030 strategy. It calls for us to produce 30% of our power from nuclear and 30% from natural gas and clean coal by the target date. It also calls for us to generate another 30% from a combination of renewable energy and reductions in demand as a result of energy efficiency improvements during this timeframe.

To get there I recommend we take such actions as:

1) Extending Investment Tax and Production Tax Credits in gradually phased out forms for renewable energy for ten years. This action will eliminate the incredible uncertainties that currently impede investment in renewables (because these credits need to be regularly extended and Congress has not acted in a timely fashion) and as a result have undermined the maturation of these industries. I suggest that much of the cost of such credits be offset with reductions in other energy subsidies and supports.

2) Investing federal dollars – alongside private sector investments – to build new nuclear plants, with the US owning a stake in new nuclear facilities equivalent to the size of its investment. The problem with nuclear energy is the reluctance of private capital to take the enormous political risks associated with financing new plants. However, if the US were a substantial or equal partner, private dollars would flow and the plants would be built. Once operational, there is little doubt that the government’s interest in these plants will be attractive and the taxpayers will realize their initial investment – and a profit – when the government’s share is sold.

3) Encouraging state governments and utility commissions to support and encourage utilities to invest in the installation of a modern, intelligent, electricity grid. Smart grid technology can dramatically improve energy efficiency, but the states have to provide roadmaps and support to their utilities to bring about a transition to new systems.

4) Expediting the process for permitting offshore wind energy farms. Offshore wind can play a big part in our future energy mix, but we have to follow the lead of countries like the UK and get it built. Unfortunately, current regulatory barriers have established a timetable for the permitting of offshore wind facilities that is far too long to allow the companies in this new industry to secure financing. A sensible but shorter approach consistent with environmental safety is essential.

5) Providing the support necessary to allow for the production of the vast quantities of shale gas that the US possesses. Recent news stories have raised a cloud of suspicion about shale gas and the fracking technologies that help us produce it. It is not hard to imagine this entire industry forced to stand down while politicians jockey for position on the legitimacy and safety of these new technologies. That cannot be allowed to happen. Without shale reserves the US will find itself unable to meet the growing demand for natural gas, which will diminish the potential role gas can play in our power mix, and drive the price back up to the double-digit levels we faced just a few short years ago.

I believe that this plan can be accomplished, and that we can reconfigure our energy mix in the way it proposes, by 2030. If we get that far in 20 years there is no doubt in my mind that by 2040 we can make even more progress in terms of energy efficiency gains and increasing the role of nuclear power, clean coal and renewables in the power generation sector.

As we make those changes we can accommodate the larger level of demand that will be required to meet the challenge of electric vehicles and the broader use of natural gas for industrial and transportation purposes – both in terms of natural gas vehicles (for large fleets) and as part of a “gas-to-liquids” effort, which would allow us to utilize liquids derived from natural gas to power conventional vehicles without requiring a massive change in our transportation fuel infrastructure.

These goals can be met, but policy makers will have to depart from the traditional practice of postponing tough decisions on energy matters. For too long we have been content to pass energy challenges to the next generation of political decision makers. But, we are running out of time. As the clock ticks down, our choices narrow and our opportunity to surmount the hurdles we confront diminishes. We need to act on energy now.

Using EIA "no policy" scenarios to support "no policy"...is a tautology (putting it kindly). Fortunately EIA is keeping its American Power Act scenarios current (Richard Newell showed a chart of this at the recent ARPA-E Summit).

"Just Look at the Numbers" (see the blog post below) might be better said as "just look at the business as usual scenarios and then review policy scenarios to see if risk-adjusted damages exceed policy costs".

It takes a village? Yes, to neutralize the political power of incumbents. But it also takes a calculator.

In 1980, fossil fuels accounted for about 89% of America’s energy consumption. Wind and solar supplied virtually none. In 2009, fossil fuels delivered 83% of America’s energy. Wind and solar provided 0.9%. The Energy Information Agency forecasts that in 2035, fossil fuels will represent 78% of consumption. Wind and solar will represent 1.5%.

Thirty years from now, the American economy will still be dependent on the most affordable, efficient fuel sources available – oil, coal, and natural gas. Given present energy technologies, we should expect to see these energy sources to continue to dominate the American energy portfolio.

Where will we get our energy in 30 years? Begin with a simple fact. Coal and oil are getting more expensive. Supplies are constrained.

Natural gas is going down in price, up in supply – within limits.

Wind, solar, efficiency and performance are almost unlimited in supply, dropping in price.

Long term, where do you bet?

Before turmoil hit Libya, with the US and Europe mired in recession, oil was back to $100 barrel. Leave aside peak oil. Can we go from 88 mbd of oil a day to 100 mbd, and get the price back to $80/bl? No way. And what’s the price to pump 110 mbd? If we are north of $100/bl and climbing, oil is in trouble as the great engine of our transportation system. The world simply won’t pay that much to get to work and ship groceries.

Coal's situation is not much better. Powder River Basin coal in the US was up 50% in the last year. Australian coal was up 100% -- BEFORE the spike produced by the floods. China, with the world's third largest coal reserves, now concedes that its coal will only last 20 years. India -- with the world's 4th most abundant reserves -- cannot make firm coal commitments to new power plants after this year. Once shallow coal is exhausted, mining coal means moving more and more rock, and shipping it more and more miles, using more and more diesel. As oil goes up in price, so will coal

Natural gas is starkly different. Unconventional shale gas technology has increased supply, and knocked the bottom off the US price. This shale technology is now being exported; natural gas for the next twenty years is almost certain to be more abundant, and cheaper, relative to both oil and coal.

Now look at the competition. We have far more solar energy to harvest than we can use. Wind can easily meet more of our electricity needs than we are likely to tap. Advanced biofuels are limited by the availability of land, but can still scale dramatically above today's levels. Performance and efficiency are essentially unlimited in their potential -- net zero buildings which generate all the energy they use on site constitute, in effect, an infinite supply of efficiency.

What about price?

Wind, photovoltaics, concentrated solar, battery/storage, and advanced biofuels -- all are falling, falling rapidly, falling consistently. Wind is now bidding in at $0.068/kwh -- already equal to coal, and competitive with gas. The efficiency of wind turbines has been increasing at 3% a year for fifteen years – that alone will cut the cost of wind in half by 2020, the same period in which coal and oil will more than double.

Since 1990, photovoltaic solar prices have dropped by 2/3 -- and the trend continues. This year Southern California Edison received bids for a whopping 2.5 gigawatts of photovoltaic solar power priced below the cost of natural gas. Advanced windows cost 25% of what they did four years ago.

This is why Deutsche Bank recently called coal "a dead man walking."

Oil's fate is more complex. We need different technologies to replace oil in each of its end uses – cars, trucks, planes, ships. We need mode shifts, from trucks to trains, cars to mass transit. Some changes are easier than others. But as oil is goes up from $100/bl to $120, and then on to $150, its competitors get more attractive. The fuel costs of trucks which run on natural gas is only 25% of those powered by gasoline or diesel. Lithium ion batteries, the key technology in electrifying our auto fleet, have come down in price by 90%. Analysts expect at least another halving in the next five years.

We’re going to take our cars off the pump and plug them into the grid. Expensive oil means, inexorably, making transportation more efficient, and then shifting it off oil, and onto electricity, natural gas, advanced biofuels.

So supply, demand and price alone guarantee that 30 years from now coal and oil will no longer be the backbone of our energy system. How fast this transition happens depends on whether we stop cooking the energy sector books. Coal and oil enjoy phenomenal direct subsidies – tens of billions of dollars a year – but even larger hidden payoffs, in the form of health and environmental costs they get to keep off their books and pass on to others. Estimates of the health costs of US coal alone range from $100-500 billion. The portion of our defense budget dedicated to keeping oil flowing is at least $100 billion a year. (In peacetime.) Our $500 billion oil imports bill is an enormous drag on our economy. I haven’t even mentioned water pollution, the costs of destabilizing the climate, or the damage to workers, communities and the environment where coal and oil are produced. Oil and coal cost – and they kill.

For a fraction of these hidden costs we could accelerate our transition from coal and oil to the clean and cheaper energy sources of the future – but of course they will not go gently into that good night. If you want to know what message they would like you to believe, just turn on your television set.

But commercials, even slick ones, are not reality. Coal and oil are the past, not the future.

(These comments were submitted by Scott Thomasson, Economic and Domestic Policy Director at the Progressive Policy Institute.)

Asking what our energy mix will be three decades from now is exactly the right question to reframe the debate about our national energy policies—or lack thereof. Most of our discussions would be a lot more productive if advocates for different approaches laid out a clear vision of what our future mix of fuel sources would look like in 30 years, so voters and policy wonks alike will be able to better understand and compare competing proposals. We should start with simple but achievable targets, such as the “Balanced Energy Portfolio” that sets a 2040 goal of using one-third renewables, one-third nuclear, and one-third fossil fuels to generate the country’s electricity and avoiding increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

Too often our recent battles over energy legislation have focused on specific mechanisms for shaping our energy future, without making a clear case for what that future should actually look like. Trying to sell cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, or renewable energy standards isn’t going to work unless we can judge these abstract ideas against easily understood energy targets. That’s why President Obama was right to reduce his new energy agenda to a simple goal: producing 80 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources by 2035.

The elegance of the President’s clean energy messaging is made possible by his nearly total avoidance of mechanistic details about how he wants the country to reach this goal. Secretary Chu has offered an overview of a very broad Clean Energy Standard that would include a system of mandates satisfied with tradable credits for renewables, nuclear, natural gas, and clean coal technologies. But the administration has not laid out a full proposal for how those credits would be allocated or traded, because there is no sense in making a case for implementation until President Obama can convince a critical mass of the public that his goal is worth pursuing.

The President’s Clean Energy Standard is important in another respect, because it is a form of energy resource planning, a realm of energy policy that has historically been handled by the states. It’s an anachronistic and unfortunate result of our federal system that the most important decisions about the types of energy resources we will build are made on a purely piecemeal basis by state regulators and local utilities, with no coherent plan or coordination at the federal level. Part of the political appeal of carbon-pricing models is that they offer an indirect method to influence resource planning decisions without totally upending the current patchwork of state and regional decision making. But there is no reason that the federal government should not take a more active role by adopting national goals and working with states and utilities to implement strategies for meeting them.

If we are going to have a national debate about resource planning, we will need to be more specific and forthright in setting goals than the administrations broad 80 percent standard. In a recent paper released by the Progressive Policy Institute, Jim Conca and Judith Wright offer a realistic Balanced Energy Portfolio with a 30-year target energy mix of one-third renewables, one-third nuclear, and one-third fossil-fuel generation. Their target would be an ambitious departure from our current mix of 69 percent fossil fuels, 20 percent nuclear, and 11 percent renewable energy. But it is a realistic, pragmatic first step to restart a national conversation about determining our own energy future, and it provides clear goals to evaluate policy proposals.

The best hope for finding common ground in this debate is to build consensus around long-term targets for how we as a nation produce and consume energy. Once we get some agreement on the big-picture goals, we can then work on reverse-engineering specific policy proposals to achieve those goals and argue over which approach is best.

Our energy future will be a function of whether we:

a) Price carbon: for it's known damages and fat-tailed risk...through a national tax or cap...and let competitive markets shape an efficient energy system

b) Muddle through: by picking a few clean technology winners, continue subsidizing politically powerful incumbent energy providers, and talk about "innovation" without mentioning carbon or climate

Thinking we can "win the future" (and make clean energy cheaper than gas or coal) without a national price on carbon is highly problematic. This is my equation for our current muddle through path:

Climate Denial + Physics Denial = Cleantech Delusion

Price carbon...perhaps with an upstream carbon tax...and use the proceeds to keep personal and corporate income tax rates low.

What will America’s energy mix look like thirty years from now? Thirty years is a long time, except that it isn’t. Energy is a big, inertial, capital-intensive system, and change comes slowly – even when government policy gets very serious, or technology and markets achieve step changes. For example, it took policy-driven nuclear power and the market-driven combined cycle gas turbine 30 years each to achieve 20% of US electricity supply.

In this context, then, there are three broad energy path types one can imagine.

The first path, and arguably the most likely, is the status quo, only more so: slow attrition of about a third of the coal fleet due to environmental pressure (though only about 10% reduction in coal generation, due to the low capacity factor of the most vulnerable units); lots of inexpensive shale gas, perhaps doubling the gas share of electricity to 40%; some additional wind; very mild penetration of vehicle electrification and more biofuels; and perhaps aggressive policy-driven efficiency moderating electric demand by about 10% from business as usual, as has happened in our most aggressive state, California. This is a bad outcome for climate change – it would imply a steady increase in US CO2, including probably lots of net climate damage from biofuels – in a world that has probably already surpassed 2 degrees of warming due to CO2 already in the atmosphere.

The second path, one that is least likely in this age of fiscal austerity and land use constraints, is force-fed step changes for climate and economic development reasons: massive expansion of current generation versions of wind, solar, and large nuclear plants, for example, and rapid retirement of most existing coal plants and their replacement with natural gas. This would be expensive and, but for the nuclear contribution, only moderately better for climate due to the lower capacity factor of current generation renewables and the still-high carbon content of natural gas.

A third path, hard but not unimaginable, is one of sustained innovation to create better options. Serious public dollars and private investment capital would be husbanded not just to research and development but also to deployment and cost reduction of numerous “first of kind” demonstration and refinement of feasible technologies we already know about. These include underground coal gasification (or UGC, which the Chinese call “coal without mining”) that converts coal to gas underground in the coal seam and pipes it to the surface to be burned while allowing the resulting CO2 to be piped back underground at lower cost; compressed air energy storage systems to allow for “dispatchable” renewables; ultra-high efficiency natural gas power systems with carbon capture, some using solid oxide fuel cells which separate oxygen supply chemically from the fuel supply ; several flavors of carbon capture and storage; small modular nuclear reactors; and advanced nuclear fuel cycle reactors with much better safety, waste and security features (thorium, subcritical neutron-assisted, travelling wave). And, as a hedge on climate change, accelerated work on air capture and sequestration of CO2.

A steady ratchet on CO2 emissions from new and existing fossil power plants through technology-forcing performance standards would also help nudge things along. Rather than just competing with China, our energy companies would ally with Chinese companies to speed up innovation (just one Chinese company, CNOOC, has an alternative energy development program roughly equal to the entire US DOE energy research budget). True, most of these innovation efforts will never deliver cheap-enough clean energy; failure comes with innovation. But the ones that do succeed could make possible a financially sustainable path to a low carbon and secure energy future.

All three paths are hard in their own way: the first, hard on the environment; the second, hard on the public purse; and the third, just hard to get our minds wrapped around in the paradoxical world we live in of breathless advocacy for instant fixes, and deadlocked inertia in practice. All that being said, despite current pessimism on climate policy, CATF believes the third path just might be achievable.

Thirty years from now, America will run on a wide variety of power sources including oil and natural gas, as well as power generated from the sun and the wind, and nuclear power. It is possible that some type of alternative power such as biodiesel will ascend more rapidly than is currently forecast. It is also possible that the leading sources of alternative power including wind and solar power will encounter setbacks. For these reasons, it is difficult to predict precisely the amount of power that will be derived from different sources. What is clear is that if we want to build and sustain a vibrant economy and support a growing population, we will need to tap all of the power sources we have at our disposal.

The U.S. energy sector is, in a word, massive. Efforts to increase production of energy from alternative sources are helping the U.S. diversity its power base, but these efforts, under the best-case scenarios, will take time. How much time? Consider that as recently as 2008, wind power, one of the fastest-growing sources of alternative energy, accounted for just 1.5% of global energy consumption. There is much we can do to encourage the adoption of alternative energy, but once we understand the massive size of our energy needs we also understand that we cannot just shift course overnight. Even as we diversify, our economy will continue to run largely on fossil fuels for decades to come.

This is a simple reality that is important to understand if the U.S. is to reduce its dependence on foreign fuel. We can only reduce oil imports if we increase production of oil and gas domestically. Developing alternative energy is a critical piece of a strong national energy policy, but it is not sufficient. Consumer Energy Alliance recognizes that it is essential to tap a diverse source of domestic power supplies in order to have a secure energy future, and each year we host an Energy Day to help remind consumers of the role energy plays in our everyday lives. Energy Day 2011 kicks off October 15 in Houston with a festival featuring a variety of demonstrations and displays of our nation’s vast energy reserves and the state of the art technology for tapping those supplies.

The United States and the rest of the world are undergoing a dramatic transformation of the body politic not seen since the late 18^th century when democratic revolutions fundamentally changed the shape of Britain, France, North America and, thus, human history. The problem, as any historian knows, is that these positive changes took a long time to take hold (arguably only bearing fruit in the Middle East today) and were accompanied by dizzying human violence (again, see present Middle East).

There is no doubt that renewable energy forms (ie, solar, wind and geothermal) will be more predominant in thirty years. The jobs, the hope for true independence, and the ugly realities of climate change all demand this result on some level. It is, indeed, the only logical developmental course for our species to follow. The question is whether we will allow fossil fuel industries (ie, coal, oil, gas) to continue their free ride in the meantime. This is not an academic economic question because, from a scientific viewpoint, whether humans and the natural world exist on a planet even remotely like what we’ve experienced over the past ten millennia depends squarely upon how much carbon we can keep in the ground and ocean floor. Not many elected leaders look at the issue this way. Of course, not many elected leaders are truly independent from the financial power of the fossil fuel industries.

So can our modern day Napoleons lay off “the truffles and the allure of Russia”? There are reasons to be pessimistic. But there is moral mandate to strive for success.

To answer the question of where we will be in 30 years, it is instructive to look at where we were 30 years ago and what has happened in the intervening decades. Since 1980, total energy consumption has increased about 22%--it would have been somewhat higher without the recession. Like today, fossil energy provided nearly 80% of our energy use. Over this period of time, petroleum consumption has increased about 12% while production has been halved and imports have increased over 50%. Thirty years ago, we had just witnessed turmoil in the Middle East with the overthrow of the Shah and the US was committed to using the Synthetic Fuels Corporation to help achieve energy independence.

This is clearly an example of the more things change the more they have stayed the same! The biggest changes over this period are the facts that the world did not run out of oil or gas. Indeed, we now have enough natural gas to meet our needs for a century.

Looking out to 2035, the Energy Information Administration’s Outlook does not reflect dramatic change, although renewables contribution to electricity generate is expected to grow from 9% to 17%. Other than that, fossil energy remains our dominant source of energy. Why is that? Three major reasons are the energy content of fossil energy, economics, and the slow pace of technology.

Fossil energy is abundant and affordable, even at today’s high prices for oil and liquid fuels. Although it has been national policy to reduce oil imports, the government has steadfastly refused to produce our own or impose a hefty tax to raise fuel prices to European levels. Fluidized bed combustion and combined cycle power are ways to reduce pollution from coal burning but they are much more expensive ways of producing energy. Nuclear power’s promise remains underachieved. Thirty years ago, it was because of Three Mile Island; today it is economics and politics.

EIA projects that oil use has essentially peaked, growth over the next three decades is expected to be slight. This is the result of demographics and advances in both transportation and biofuels technology. While hybrids are still not cost-effective except at higher gasoline prices and battery costs are excessive for electrics, progress is being made. By 2030, hybrids could represent a substantial percentage of new vehicle sales. The future for electrics is less clear because of both battery costs and infrastructure. If battery costs can achieve the two-thirds reduction that the National Academy of Sciences believes necessary, the infrastructure changes will follow as a result of market forces.

Looking ahead, our biggest challenge will be power generation that is both cleaner and commercially competitive. Perhaps clean coal technology will become a reality by then instead of a dream that is not cost-effective. Progress in small nuclear power generation may make distributed nuclear power a reality. Three things are certain. First, more electrical power will come from natural gas and that will result in a reduction in CO2 emissions. Second, the dream of abundant power from wind and solar will remain a dream until costs are reduced, the challenge of intermittency is over come, and these alternatives are cited where they make sense. Third, environmental quality will be better just as today’s environment is better than the one we had in 1981.

Perhaps, there will be a breakthrough in some unknown area that will be a game changer. There are always unknown unknowns that can have big impacts when they become known. One thing is absolutely certain. Paraphrasing that great philosopher, Yogi Berra, if we don’t know where we are going and how we are going to get there, we will end up somewhere else. For more than 30 years, we have followed an energy policy built on hope and illusion instead of objective realities. As a result, today’s energy picture looks pretty much as it did then. A different energy future requires “lessons learned” and policies that reflect economic, energy, and technology realities.