New study warns of serious blackout potential in 2009

The NextGen Energy Council has published a study warning that “the U.S. faces significant risk of power brownouts and blackouts as early as next summer that may cost tens of billions of dollars and threaten lives.”

While US demand for electricity has been growing inexorably (and will skyrocket as the next generation of PHEVs hits the market in a few years), we have not been adding power generation capacity at the same rate.    When the lines on that graph – power demand and power supply – cross, power outages are inevitable.  As a nation, we are just about at capacity for hydroelectric power.  Solar and wind are years, maybe decades, away from making significant contributions to power capacity.  It’s time to face reality and embrace the fact that coal is the only immediate way forward.  We can’t build traditonal coal plants, but the technology for clean(er) coal is already here.

It is a domestic fuel source, it can be made to burn relatively clean, and even clean coal is a relatively cheap source of power.  There is no reason – other than slavish devotion to ideology – to not embrace coal as the immediate answer.