Nevada seen as renewable energy leader

Assistant Energy Secretary Dan Reicher sees Nevada as a leader in renewable energy such as solar, wind power and even water heated naturally deep below the surface.

"We think the state is blessed with natural energy resources," Reicher said during a Las Vegas visit Tuesday.

Nevada's sunshine and wind combine with its geothermal -- deep, hot water -- potential found along deep fractures in Northern Nevada.

"Nevada is the Saudia Arabia of geothermal," Reicher said.

The DOE has asked Congress for about $30 million for geothermal projects in the next year. If it gets the money, the DOE plans to join energy companies to generate power from Nevada's natural resources, Reicher said.

Geothermal costs a lot to start. But while it cost 16 cents a kilowatt hour 10 years ago, the production price has dropped to 8 cents today. Reicher said geothermal generation should compete at 3 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt hour by 2006.

Then there's sunshine.

The state, especially Southern Nevada, has enough sunlight to generate electricity on a 100-square-mile grid to supply power to the rest of the continental United States.

The DOE has requested more than $80 million to develop the technology to transform sunlight into heat, light and power for TVs, air conditioners and computers.

Inside modern homes, efficient appliances such as a refrigerator will run on 500 kilowatts of electricity a year by 2001, instead of the icy relics of a decade ago that gobbled 2,000 kilowatts annually.

Reicher did not forget wind power. In wide, open spaces found in states such as Nevada, one of the newest wind turbines produces as much energy as 10 conventional units, all without killing migrating birds.

His enthusiasm is backed up by statistics. For the first time in 1999, wind produced more megawatts of electricity -- 400,000 -- than new nuclear power plants at less than 200,000 megawatts total.

The energy future envisioned at the DOE is intimately tied to how Americans build residential communities, industrial parks, and whether the United States continues to develop a service economy or a manufacturing economic base, Reicher's assistant, Richard Bradshaw, said.

Industry efficiency and computers have raised U.S. consciousness enough to develop alternative energy sources such as natural gas, new nuclear power generators, wind fields, solar energy and biomass, Bradshaw said.

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