Philip Warburg, former director of the Conservation Law Foundation, on Potential of Solar and Wind Energy in America

In late February, Philip Warbug came to Williams to speak about the potential of solar and wind energy in 21st century America. Warbug is a writer based in Newtown, MA with a diverse and impactful career in environmental law in the United States and abroad. His career began in 1973 when he staffed one of the first challenges to nuclear power. He then graduated from Harvard College, joined the staff of Senator Charles Percy (R-IL), and began work at the Environmental Law Institute. Soon after, his career took a turn when he became a freelance reporter in the Middle East covering the Palestinian intifada. In 1994, he melded his two pursuits by working on environmental legislation in Palestine, with the World Bank in Jordan, and then at the Union for Environmental Defense in Israel. He finally returned to environmental work in the States in 2003 when he became president of the Conservation Law Foundation where he was involved in the Cape Wind fight. Warburg is now a writer based in Newtown, MA. His book Harvest the Wind: America’s Journey to Jobs, Energy Independence, and Climate Stability was published in 2013, and his next work Harvest the Sun: America’s Quest for a Solar Future will be published in September 2015.

On Thursday February 26, Warbug gave an 1960s Scholars lecture on the possibilities of wind energy in America. First, he gave a short history of the technology. Windmills were first used at salt mills and in the Great Plains. There, they were great drivers of westward expansion because they allowed for ranching and farming. Later, when renewable energy and energy independence became common in the national discourse in the 1970s, wind energy became included in the rhetoric. Yet its progress was curtailed with President Reagan who ended financial incentives for renewables. Today, wind energy provides five percent of American energy nationally, with higher usage in states such as Iowa (27 percent) and South Dakota (26 percent). Yet Warburg explained that the potential for wind energy is greater than the current utilization. Additionally, offshore wind energy could produce more than fourteen times the nation’s total power needs, and Warburg cited a recent study that claimed that current wind and solar technologies could actually satisfy half of America’s energy demand.

Warburg then shared some of the personal interviews he conducted while researching Harvest the Wind: America’s Journey to Jobs, Energy Independence, and Climate Stability. After working on the Cape Wind project, Warburg traveled to Denmark to learn more about cultural acceptance of wind energy. Unlike in Cape Cod, residents do not strongly protest the energy source, and Warbug learned there that turbines are just other types of “visual annoyance of our daily lives that we learn to tune out.”

He then traveled to North Central Kansas and spoke with farmers with wind turbines on their land from Cloud County, noting that Selim and Michael Zilkha, funders of Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives also have invested in wind turbines in Kansas. In Cloud County, enthusiasm for wind energy has risen, with Cloud Country Community College offering high-demand certification courses in the technology. Farmers there greatly benefit from having wind energy on their land and often consider it as a hedge against the fluctuations in cattle prices.

However, not all landowners are in favor of the technology. Some oppose it for the perceived negative effect on birds, a remnant prejudice of the Carter era when early wind farms did kill many birds, while others protest its destruction of pristine land and the unobstructed landscape. Additionally, outside of these critiques wind energy is not perfect technology, as the most wind is often found in the least populous areas of the country.

In spite of these criticisms, Warburg highlighted that wind energy is still less environmentally detrimental that coal-burning power plants and less hazardous than nuclear power. The benefits of this clean, yet not perfect, technology arguably outweigh the costs.

Next, on Friday February 26, Warbug came to Log Lunch to give a talk about solar energy in the United States. He began with a brief overview of the solar energy landscape in the nation today, providing some promising figures on the use of solar. For example, 600,000 homes or one in 116 have solar power, and there is one new solar array installed every two to three minutes.

In the context of this high demand, there are many options to benefit from solar investment. Rooftop solar is the most known of the options and is quite reliable. Warbug installed an array on his own house for 17,000 dollars, receives three-quarters of his energy from it, and will be repaid in six to seven years. If one rents their living space or does not have an adequate rooftop, one can invest in a share in a community-owned solar facility.

Large corporations such as Ikea and Wal-Mart have even utilized this technology. Wal-Mart currently has solar on 250 of its stores with goals for 1000 more. The thirty percent federal investment tax credit and the reduction in price per watt of photovoltaic panels have certainly contributed to the greater proliferation and adoption of solar energy.

Additionally, many academic institutions have been solar energy pioneers. Arizona State University has eighty arrays at one of its campuses and receives one-third of energy from this on-campus energy generation. Others without such expansive space have found ways to engineer the technology for more compact settings; George Washington University has solar tables along pathways for charging purposes.

On the state-level, Massachusetts, with its cold, snow, yet great amount of sun, is number six in the nation for installed solar. Additionally, many other regions are utilizing the technology and moving beyond traditional conceptions of rooftop solar for more large-scale generation. The south side of Chicago has an expansive solar site and the Northeast Amtrak corridor has solar on landfill sites. Additionally, new sites of concentrated solar power, mirrors that reflect upon a receiving tower, are on the frontier of development, and some now can even store solar energy.

While solar arrays like these may take up great space, with the technology available and now more economically accessible, Warbug argues for greater proliferation of solar energy. In his words, “the opportunities are there, and we need to exploit them as well.”

To learn more about Philip Warburg and his work, please visit http://philipwarburg.com/about.

By Sara Clark ‘15

 

Philip Warburg with Students
Philip Warburg with Students