Page images
PDF
EPUB

that the role of technology in addressing climate change may not be fully understood or appreciated. Although public investment in energy R&D has increased slightly in Japan, it has declined somewhat in the United States and dramatically in Europe, where reductions of 70 percent or more since the 1980's are the norm. Moreover, less than 3 percent of this investment is directed at technologies that, although not currently available commercially at an appreciable level, have the potential to lower the cost of stabilization significantly.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to testify. I will be happy to answer your and the committee's questions.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Dr. Edmonds.

Our next witness is Dr. Rattan Lal, School of Natural Resources at the Ohio State University, which is my alma mater. Dr. Lal, we are very happy to have you here.

STATEMENT OF RATTAN LAL, SCHOOL OF NATURAL
RESOURCES, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Dr. LAL. Thank you, Senator. I feel greatly honored to be here to be part of this very important hearing.

In addition to the strong support that I receive from the State of Ohio and Ohio State University, I have also received support from the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the USDA for the last 10 years. We are also developing a program now with three National Laboratories: the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

I want to address three issues in this very short time. No. 1, we have heard today that the source of carbon dioxide is primarily fossil fuel combustion. I want to indicate a couple of other sources which are also important. No. 2, what is the impact of laws on the carbon from the other sources on the quantity of those resources? And, No. 3, agriculture is often blamed as the cause of environmental problems, and I would like to state a potential that agriculture can, indeed, be a solution to the problems.

Senator I especially want to come back to the point that you raised that Ohio has been growing 11 million trees, and I want to indicate what those trees might be doing toward potential sink in soil of the carbon.

No. 1 problem: The carbon dioxide concentration has changed from about 600 gigatons in the pre-industrial era to 770 gigatons now. A gigaton is a billion tons. There are two sources from which that problem came. Fossil fuel combustion contributed 270 gigatons. In comparison to that, deforestation, biomass burning, and soil cultivation with respect to plowing contributed 136 gigatons. Out of that 136 gigatons, soil cultivation, plowing, et cetera, contributed somewhere between 60 and 90 gigatons. So soil and deforestation have been in the past a very important source of carbon. The difference is, while fossil fuel carbon we cannot reverse, the carbon in soil and trees that we have lost we can reverse, and that also can have an important impact on the natural resources and the economy.

The No. 2 point which I want to raise is, what impact did have the loss of carbon from soil on the quality of the soil, on the quality

of the water resources? First of all, most of our nation's soils have lost over one-third to one-half of their soil carbon pool since the start of agriculture. That carbon pool amounts to 10 to 20 tons of carbon per acre so far that we have lost in the middle of the United States. This loss of carbon from soil has resulted in decline in soil quality, which means we have put more fertilizers, performed extractive operations, applied other inputs to produce the same yield that we would have if the quality of our soil had not deteriorated. Because of the loss of soil carbon, the results are increased soil erosion, sedimentation, flooding, leaching of pollutants, and transport of other contaminants into the natural waters. The dangers of nonpoint-source pollution are exacerbated by erosion and reduction in the capacity of soil to bar chemicals. These problems have resulted in considerable environmental issues that need to be addressed.

My third point then is, how can agriculture be a solution to this problem? First of all, there are two things we can do. We can restore the degraded soils. Whether they are degraded by erosion, by mining-we have quite a lot of mineland activities or by other processes, those soils can be restored and reclaimed. Some of the carbon that we lost, 20 or 30 tons per acre, some of it, maybe 60 percent of it, can be put back through restoration.

Some of the techniques for restoration include CRP, the Conservation Reserve Program; a wetlands reserve program; mineland reclamation, restoring vegetative buffers and strips along riparian

zones.

Adopting conservation tillings, we have only about to 30 or 40 percent of the conservation tillings and rotation. I think that is another very important one. Forestation, as you mentioned, is a very important one.

The potential of all these practices is about 270 gigatons of carbon sequestration a year in the United States compared to a total potential, including forest fire models, if you combine soil and forest, about 520 gigatons. This potential is about 70 percent of the commitment the United States would have under the Kyoto Protocol.

This is a truly win/win situation. It improves soil/water quality. It increased agricultural and forest production. It reduces gaseous emissions, and as Senator Lieberman said, you cannot go wrong. Either way, this is the best option.

I thank you, Senator, for giving me the opportunity to be here. Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Dr. Lal.

Our next witness is James E. Rogers. Mr. Rogers is Chairman, President, and CEO of the Cinergy Corporation. Mr. Rogers, thank you for being here today.

Again, thank you all for your patience.

STATEMENT OF JAMES E. ROGERS, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CINERGY CORPORATION Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to thank you all very much for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts on global climate change.

It was my pleasure to testify before this committee last year on the need for a comprehensive environmental emissions reduction

program for coal-fired plants, where you would have a reduction of SOX, NOx, and mercury, and also address the CO2 issue. My views have not changed since that hearing. With the growing demand for more electric generation, energy producers, now more than ever, need certainty that could come from a comprehensive, longer-term reduction program that this Congress should pass, certainly should consider and pass.

In addition, I believe that Congress must consider at the same time the uncertainties and challenges posed to my industry by the climate change issue. If legislative remedies are intended to build some kind of certainty into our planning process, climate change must be on that environmental roadmap.

Now our company has a lot at stake. We are the largest non-nuclear utility. We are heavily dependent on coal. We burn 30 million tons of coal a year, and we have worked hard to reduce the impact of our coal-fired plants on the environment. We spent $650 million in emission controls and clean coal technology in the last decade. We are spending $700 million to reduce NOx over the next 3 years. We just spent a billion for gas-fired plants that are environmentally more friendly than coal-fired plants with respect to their emissions.

As I sit here and look at the challenges that we have and I think about the issues and I listen to the science this morning and the discussion on this panel, you all have had the opportunity to hear from several very distinguished witnesses regarding the state of the science on the climate issue. Mr. Chairman, you asked a question with respect to the uncertainties, and I thought you got a clear answer, as clear as you can get. But it is clear that there are uncertainties. But, notwithstanding the uncertainties, I believe that it is prudent to start taking measured steps now to begin to address the risks.

I thought it was interesting that Senator Chafee pointed out that six out of seven people on these panels have Ph.D.'s. I happen to be the one who doesn't. I actually find that an advantage.

I come from the business world and, as a lawyer, deal with ambiguities, uncertainties, improbabilities, and that is what this issue really is all about, if you think about it. I would suggest to you that, as policymakers, you need to think about this as we do as business people. You need to view the climate issue as a risk mitigation challenge.

What does that mean? What that means is we need to come up with a very pragmatic, common-sense approach to the issue. We need to focus in the first instance on no-regrets first steps and lay the groundwork for future transformation of the energy production fleet in the United States.

First steps should focus on activities that provide other benefits as well as reduce carbon. We can reduce other harmful emissions. We can decrease fuel consumption. We can lower production costs. We can decrease the need for new generating plants. We can focus on conservation and demand-side management. These are the kinds of first steps that we need to be taking.

We need, to say it in another way, to take first steps that hold the industry roughly where it is today. Let the debate continue. Let the scientific analysis continue. But this is a do no harm strategy.

We are at a tricky point in terms of our understanding of where we are, but what we ought to be doing is looking at ways to flatten out the carbon growth curve, allow technology to develop, and to continue the analysis. To me, those first steps are critical, and we cannot plan to provide energy for the people of this country unless we have certainty with respect not only to SOX, NOx, and mercury, but also with respect to the climate change issue.

Longer term-and this is a long-term issue we need to addresslonger term we need to continue to fund R&D programs for new technologies to generate zero emission power. So, as I sit here before you this morning, I am kind of reminded of the fact that for 25 years I had Neil Armstrong on my board of directors. I haven't been around that long, but he has certainly served on that board for that period of time.

As I think about what this country did 40 years ago, when we really as a country stepped up and focused on putting a man on the moon, we need that same kind of commitment and passion in trying to attack the technological puzzle that is wrapped around this whole climate change issue. We need to take first steps, as I suggested, but we also need to make a commitment on a longerterm basis to deal with it, because we have the capability within this country to develop the technology to deal with these issues. We just need to get on about it and recognize that, yes, there are uncertainties; yes, there are ambiguities, but we must take the first step. That is the only way we can provide reliable, affordable energy to people and at the same time achieve our environmental goals in this country.

Thank you.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you.

Our next witness is Dr. Marilyn A. Brown. Dr. Brown is the Director of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Thank you, Dr. Brown, for being here and, again, your patience.

STATEMENT OF MARILYN A. BROWN, DIRECTOR, ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY PROGRAM, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY

Dr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for inviting me to talk with you today. I am also the lead author of a recently published report called "Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future," and I would like to highlight some of its key findings for you.

That report was co-authored by researchers of five Department of Energy national laboratories. It was funded by the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, but the views am expressing today are not necessarily those of those two funding agencies.

This study is the most comprehensive assessment to date of technologies and policies that can be deployed to address the nation's energy challenges. It involves the analysis of hundreds of technologies and policies. The focus is the United States and the timeframe is the next 20 years.

The study creates a range of scenarios that characterize how the future might unfold under different sets of policies. First, we have

the business-as-usual scenario, which is really a forecast. If policies continue as they are today, what will happen? The other two major scenarios are defined by policies that assume that the public and political leaders have a greater sense of resolve to address the nation's energy needs and environmental challenges.

So under the business-as-usual forecast, we see a continuing increase in energy consumption in this country, about 10 percent more in each of the next two decades, and there is a concomitant increase in carbon emissions, about proportionate to energy use.

In the moderate scenario, one of these alternative policies scenarios, we define an array of market-based policies that range from a 50 percent increase in energy research to an expanded set of voluntary programs such as those currently in operation at DOE and EPA, and a system of tax credits to promote efficient appliances, vehicles, and non-hydro renewable electricity.

In the advanced scenario we are a bit more aggressive, and we define policies that include, for instance, doubling our current energy R&D budgets and voluntary agreements between industry and the government to reduce the energy content of our industrial products, as well as agreements between government and automakers to achieve various fuel economy goals, renewable portfolio standards, and, finally, a domestic carbon cap and trading system.

So we have these three scenarios. I am going to focus mostly on where we get with the advanced scenario, but just keep in mind we get between a third and a half as far with the moderate set of more market-based policies.

So under this advanced scenario, the United States consumes 20 percent less in the year 2020 than it would under the forecast that assumes today's policies. That savings is enough to meet the energy needs of all the businesses, consumers, and industries in the three largest energy-consuming States of the United States: California, Texas, and Ohio. It will bring us down essentially to where we are today in terms of our energy needs.

By 2020, U.S. carbon emissions would be reduced back to 1990 levels. In addition, NOx, SOx, and mercury emissions would be significantly reduced. We would save consumers money on their energy bills. In particular, $122 billion in reduced energy costs in the year 2020 would be achieved. Some but not all energy prices would rise. Because of the carbon cap and trade system and other policies, the amount of energy required to drive our economy would be so much reduced that the total energy bill would be less in the aggregate than it would be today.

Oil consumption is cut by 5 million barrels per day. This results in a reduction of $23 billion in reduced transfer of wealth from U.S. oil consumers to world oil exporters in the year 2020.

Finally, electricity demand would be cut 22 percent relative to the forecasters' growth rate, just a few percentage more than today's electricity requirements.

What evidence do we have that such technologies are real possibilities and not just wishful thinking? In my testimony, if you will take a look at figure 3, we show the progress that has been made in improving the efficiency of today's appliances, in particular, the household refrigerator. Back in 1970 those units that, hopefully, you no longer have in your basement cooling beer, they consumed

« PreviousContinue »