Feb. 23, 2005, 9:56PM

RENEWABLE ENERGY
It's the best way to reduce the high cost of oil profligacy and
decrease dependence on imports

HoustonChronicle.com
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Editorial
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Only a few statistics, supplied by Rice University researchers, are needed to demonstrate why the United States faces an energy crunch and remains dependent on imported oil and natural gas:

• It takes 100 BTU to produce 130 BTU of ethanol. Much of the energy expended to make ethanol from corn is eaten up by diesel-burning tractors and other heavy equipment that wipe out what little anti-pollution benefits the ethanol provides.
• Using less acreage than the nation now devotes to growing corn for ethanol, solar panels could provide all the nation's electricity. The solar panels would occupy desert land and not use up prime farmland.
• The United States government spends $100 million annually on solar power research. It grants a $1.5 billion subsidy to ethanol producers. In Washington, a desire to please farm-state voters seems to take precedence over crafting a rational energy policy. Nuclear power, from simplified, one-design plants, could play a larger role in meeting U.S. energy needs, but the government can't or won't establish a nuclear waste repository.

Texas has been a leader in renewable energy. When it introduced competition to the power market, the Legislature required that by 2009, 3 percent of electricity come from renewable sources, such a wind generators. The Texas renewable energy industry is asking the Legislature to raise the renewable requirement to 20 percent by 2020, a standard that has the added advantage of being easy to remember.

The Union of Concerned Scientists calculates that this requirement would produce 38,000 skilled jobs to install and maintain wind turbines in West Texas and solar panels in urban areas. Farmers and ranchers would reap $696 million in lease payments and royalties from biomass energy. As fossil fuel prices rise, consumers would save billions.

New technology allows ethanol to be made from switch grass and other woody plants, producing twice as much volume as the corn-fed process, without as much burning of dirty diesel fuel.

In order to fully take advantage of electricity from renewables, the Public Utility Commission would have to order new investments in expanding and making more efficient the state's electricity transmission grid.

These improvements will take years to achieve. Delay will only prolong the period in which U.S. consumers pay the price of oil profligacy, a price exacted in blood as well as treasure.

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