Global Warming and Least-Cost Energy Planning

Abstract

Energy consumption is implicated in the growing emissions of all the major greenhouse gases'': carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide, and tropospheric ozone. All trap heat emitted from the earth's surface, a phenomenon that could accelerate to destroy the same planetary ecosystems that it has nurtured in the past. Strategies for reducing carbon dioxide emissions are this article's principal concern; increases in such emissions account for about half the projected atmospheric warming, with the increases themselves principally attributable to fossil fuel combustion. The United States is the world's largest emissions source, and while it cannot succeed alone, neither can it abdicate leadership responsibilities without all but ensuring failure. This article contends that US energy policy has been working to increase, rather than forestall, the danger of global warming. In particular, recent trends toward deregulation of the energy sector are grossly insufficient as solutions to the problem, although not necessarily inconsistent with them. The article outlines a way to organize urgent US and international energy policy reforms, drawing on the experience of certain state utility regulators with an approach called least-cost energy planning.'' Least-cost planning recognizes improvements in the efficiency of energy use as a major source of additional energy supplies,more » and seeks fair competition for energy investment dollars between conservation measures and production facilities.« less