Climate change will disrupt energy supplies, DOE warns

Wendy Koch | USA TODAY

U.S. energy supplies will likely face more severe disruptions because of climate change and extreme weather, which have already caused blackouts and lowered production at power plants, a government report warned Thursday.

What's driving these vulnerabilities? Rising temperatures, up 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century, and the resulting sea level rise, which are accompanied by drought, heat waves, storms and wildfires, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

"It (climate change) is a very serious problem and it will get worse," says Jonathan Pershing, who oversaw the report's development. While impacts will vary by region, "no part of the country is immune," he says. He adds that climate change is exacerbating extreme events.

"Sea level rise made Sandy worse," Pershing says, noting that it intensified flooding. When the superstorm slammed the East Coast last year, it took down power lines, damaged power plants and left millions of people in the dark.

The report comes one week after President Obama, describing climate change as a threat to future generations, called for action to address the problem "before it's too late." He said he aims to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants.

Echoing other research, the DOE report makes the case for why such reductions are needed. It says coastal power plants are at risk from sea level rise and power lines operate less efficiently in higher temperatures.

"The report accurately outlines the risks to the energy sector in the United States" and should serve as a "wake-up call," says Jennifer Morgan, deputy director of climate and energy at the World Resources Institute, a non-profit that advocates for sustainability.

The report cites prior climate-related energy disruptions. Last year in Connecticut, the Millstone Nuclear Power Station shut down one reactor because the temperature of water needed to cool the facility — taken from the Long Island Sound — was too high. A similar problem caused power reductions in 2010 at the Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey and the Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania.

Reduced snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains last year cut California's hydroelectric power generation 8%, while drought caused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop the transport of oil and coal along the Mississippi River, where water levels were too low, according to the report. Also, in September 2010, water levels in Nevada's Lake Mead fell to a 54-year low, prompting a 23% loss in the Hoover Dam's generation.

While climate change is not the sole cause of drought, climate scientists say rising temperatures can exacerbate it by causing more moisture to evaporate from the soil. They say those temperatures, which the third federal National Climate Assessment says could rise 3 degrees to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, will contribute more to drought in the future.

In Texas, which is suffering a three-year drought that now affects 87% of its land, conflicts are arising over the water-intensive process of extracting oil or natural gas from shale deposits, known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. In 2011, Grand Prairie became the first in the state to ban city water for fracking. Other municipalities have restricted water use for that purpose.

Nationwide, 47% of fracking wells are in water-stressed areas, according to a report in May by Ceres, a Boston-based non-profit that promotes corporate sustainability.

The DOE report cites research indicating that nearly 60% of current thermoelectric power plants, which need water cooling to operate, are located in water-stressed areas.

It says higher temperatures will boost the demand for air conditioning, which could threaten energy security by forcing the nation's power system to operate beyond ranges for which it was designed. It cites a study by DOE's Argonne National Laboratory that found such peak demand, given current population levels, will require additional electricity equal to 100 new power plants.

The dire tone of the DOE report, while warranted, can "give a reader a sense of fatigue," says Joe Casola, a senior scientist at C2ES, formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Yet he says it also points to solutions such as water-efficient technologies and protection for energy infrastructure.

"It's technologically within our means to address some of these issues now," Casola says. "There are a lot of things we can do."

DOE's Pershing agrees. "It's a problem we need to work on," he says. He notes that the billions of dollars in losses already incurred from climate-related disasters show the need for additional measures.