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A balanced energy plan focused on conservation and clean renewable energy sources
could do far more to save consumers money and protect the environment than President
Bush’s National Energy Policy, according to a new study by the Union of
Concerned Scientists. Clean Energy Blueprint: A Smarter National Energy Policy
for Today and the Future found that renewable energy sources wind, biomass,
geothermal, and solar - could supply 20 percent of US electricity by 2020. When
combined with incentives to improve energy efficiency, the UCS Blueprint would
begin saving consumers money in 2007, with savings growing to $67 billion per
year by 2020.
Clean Energy Blueprint and the Bush Plan
• In the National Energy Policy report, President Bush says 1,300 new power
plants are needed by 2020 to meet increasing energy needs. Policies outlined
in the UCS Blueprint that promote energy efficiency and renewable energy could
replace nearly 1,000 of these new power plants.
• The UCS Blueprint examined a package of clean energy policies, including
incentives for consumers to purchase more energy-efficient appliances, stricter
energy codes for buildings, and requiring electricity providers to obtain 20
percent of their supplies from renewable power sources by 2020. In contrast,
Bush’s National Energy Policy focuses heavily on increased supplies of
polluting fossil fuel energy sources and does not make any meaningful commitment
to increase the nation’s use of renewable resources beyond the 2.8 percent
in 2020 in a business-as-usual forecast.
• The UCS Blueprint would increase research and development spending for
solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources, while the administration’s
proposed budget slashes these funds in half.
Clean Energy Blueprint Uses Sound Analysis
The report’s forecast was developed in conjunction with the Tellus Institute
and uses the National Energy Modeling System, or NEMS - the same model that
the US Energy Information Administration uses to develop long-term forecasts
of US energy supply, demand, and prices. The analysis departs from EIA’s
approach to modeling renewable energy resources, which UCS and others - including
the five national laboratories that do energy research - have criticized for
including artificial constraints on renewable energy growth. (NOTE:, Next month
UCS will release Phase II of its analysis, which will examine additional policies
to reduce pollution and make power plants more efficient.)
Clean Energy Blueprint Saves Consumers Money
0 Clean power can help protect us from price-gouging, artificial shortages,
and market manipulation by a handful of energy companies. The conservation and
renewable policies in the UCS Blueprint
reduce natural gas prices and provide consumer savings.
• Although overall consumer savings from the Blueprint would begin in
2010, a balanced energy policy would start saving money for households through
projected lower natural gas prices in 2002 - growing to over $36 billion in
yearly savings by 2020. This is welcome relief to consumers, who have experienced
significant increases in natural gas bills in the last year.
• Monthly electricity bills for a typical household would decline from
about $40 per month in 2000 to less than $30 per month in 2020 in the Clean
Energy Blueprint, versus $38 per month under business as usual. (Electricity
prices would decline 7 percent from 2000, compared to I I percent under business
as usual. The higher electricity prices in Clean Energy Blueprint would be offset
by reduced electricity use and lower natural gas prices.)
Clean Energy Blueprint Reduces Damage to our Environment
• The UCS policy package shows that we can meet future energy demands and
still be responsible stewards of our planet. The Blueprint achieves significant
reductions in air pollutant emissions, helping to improve air quality and mitigate
against climate change, and avoids the need to extract fossil fuels from sensitive
public lands.
• Clean Energy Blueprint would reduce power plant carbon emissions by over
40 percent compared to business as usual in 2020. Carbon emissions would be
reduced to 1990 levels (Rio treaty, fourpollutant reduction proposals) by 2015.
Emissions of both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides would be more than 25 percent
below the levels forecast for 2020.
Clean Energy Blueprint is Achievable and Affordable
• This phase of the UCS analysis shows that energy efficiency and renewable
energy sources can meet a large share of our energy needs both today and in
the future. In fact, many of the policies included in Clean Energy Blueprint
have already proven successful at the national or state level.
• Over the entire period, between 2002 and 2020, cumulative energy bill
savings exceed the
incremental costs of the Clean Energy Blueprint by nearly $150 billion. Annual
savings would
exceed costs in 2007 and grow to $67 billion per year in 2020, with additional
benefits continuing
thereafter. In early years, program costs could exceed benefits by as much as
$13 billion per year.
• Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies are ready to serve
us. One of the greatest advantages that these technologies offer over new power
plants, transmission lines, and pipelines is their ability to be deployed with
almost no delay. Energy efficient technologies can be deployed many times faster
than any alternative. It takes only six months to add new wind turbines to existing
wind farms. With the right vision, leadership, and determination at the national
level, we can implement the policies of the Clean Energy Blueprint now and begin
seeing benefits right away.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit partnership of scientists and
citizens combiningrigorous scientific analysis, innovative policy development
and effective citizen advocacy to achieve practical environmental solutions.
The report can be found on the UCS Web page, www.ucsusa.org/energy