The True Cost of Alabama’s Energy Dependence
February 5th, 2009Guest Editorial
by Jenny Dorgan
Program Coordinator,
Alabama Environmental Council
It has been repeated time and again that Alabama doesn’t have the climate to support renewable energy, but a close look at the situation leaves plenty of room for disagreement with that assessment.
A recent Montgomery Advertiser article reported the claim that proposed energy legislation would be blatantly unfair to Southern states because it would lead to increased rates and dampened economic development. As the alleged proof of their position, Brian Kennedy was quoted as saying: “Passage of the energy legislation would be a tool of economic warfare.”
Moreover, at the Joint Committee on Energy meeting last week in the statehouse, it was clear that dirty coal and nuclear interests are trying to dominate the energy discussion. It has been suggested that additional environmental regulations will be bad for poor people. Nonsense.
It has been repeated time and again that Alabama doesn’t have the climate to support renewable energy. Wrong.
The Business Alliance for Responsible Development, an entity that in fact resists efforts that promote a cleaner and healthier state, claims that “no-growth extremists maintain that we must choose between having a healthy economy or a healthy environment.”
Alabama Power Company is listed as the Chair of that organization whose members are a who’s who of Alabama’s top polluters.
They call it “clean coal.” We call it dirty business as usual.
Many people in Alabama are tired of being given a false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. Public interest groups and environmental groups have stated for years that the two are mutually dependent upon one another.
Why the negative spin doctors in a time of such opportunity? Simply put, these corporations are in the business of protecting their economic interests and they are threatened by the prospect of progress. What are they leaving out of the conversation?
The fact remains that clean and affordable energy efficiency measures coupled with renewable energy technologies will allow us to phase out both coal and nuclear plants over the next 40 years.
And as writer Paul Roberts says: “Saving energy is almost always cheaper than making it: there is far more oil to be found in Detroit by designing more fuel efficient cars than could ever be pumped out of ANWR.”
It has been noted that as the U.S. economy continues downhill, our lawmakers continue to compromise the country’s economic position by limiting public policy to the short-term profit motives of the coal, natural gas and nuclear industries. In the meantime, oil-rich Abu Dhabi is moving strategically to accelerate development of solution-based renewable technologies that in large part, tap into expertise from the American university system. Their Masdar Initiative will create a newly built model city based on sustainable, zero-carbon design with a population of 50,000.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will support the new Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and have a satellite campus on site. It is reported that the project is expected to cost $22 billion and take 8 years to build. Stanford is also receiving research dollars to the tune of $25 million. American ingenuity now seems to be for sale to the highest bidder.
Due to influence from the coal, natural gas, nuclear and utility industries in the U.S. Congress and in the Alabama Statehouse, we could soon be adding renewable and other technology imports to oil imports from the Middle East. So much for energy independence through American ingenuity!
At one time, the United States was at the pinnacle of wind turbine technology and was the largest producer of solar photovoltaic cells in the world. What have we done with those economic and energy secure advantages? We have squandered them along with the opportunity to create millions of jobs.
But energy executives in Alabama aren’t worried about their jobs. Top energy corporate executives like Charles McCrary brought home 3 million dollars last year, in addition to the millions of dollars that southern energy companies spent lobbying our lawmakers and green washing their commercials. These expenditures are unacceptable on the heels of proposed rate raises that would impact some of Alabama’s poorest people and in light of the recent spills of waste associated with TVA’s dirty coal power plants that put our citizens in harm’s way.
They incorrectly claim we don’t have the climate to support renewable energy, but Alabamians are tired of corporate greed driving energy choices. As a state, we need and deserve a commitment to clean, affordable renewable energy.
Locust Fork News-Journal Joins Call for Renewable Energy
Here at the Locust Fork News-Journal, we second the sentiment.
We can no longer afford to listen to these conservative, industry-driven arguments. It is time to come clean on the environment — and make our economy stronger at the same time.
If anyone believed raping the environment was good for the economy, take a long, hard look at the result of the Bush years. We wasted eight years that could have gone toward cleaning up the environment while transforming our economy toward a green future.
Is Alabama going to remain one of the most backward states in the Union on this front too? Or are we going to get aboard the green revolution train? That’s where the Obama administration is headed.
Whoever decides to run for governor of Alabama in 2010 best take the right positions on these issues, or they will have no chance of winning, Republican or Democrat. We will be watching and asking questions and spotlighting those on the right side of the argument, while castigating anyone on the other side — and we have the votes on our side!
February 5th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
One of the biggest issues with energy policy in Alabama is that we waste so much energy here. A great portion of our wasted energy is in heating and cooling homes, especially the increasingly popular middle class mansions that have been popping up everywhere within the last few years. However, there is a solution that could radically reduce our energy use (both gas and electric) especially during the most extreme weather times of the year…. heat-exchange geothermal.
The process is simple enough, we would use the stable temperatures underground and exchange that with the variable temperature above ground and create either heating or cooling within a building based on need. The process is very efficient and workable just about everywhere. It is also very common in the Northeast and even former President Bush uses this process on at least one of his houses.
The biggest issue is cost of drilling and installation of the underground plumbing. This can make up half to 2/3rd’s of the cost. However, with our current economic and environmental crisis. I can think of no better way to create jobs, encourage spending amongst the people who have spendable income, while at the same time creating a serious decrease in energy use (amongst those who are the most wasteful) than to create a federal program to offer free drilling and underground plumbing for anyone who wishes to convert their heating and cooling to heat exchange geothermal. If you couple this approach with deep discounts and tax breaks for the very efficient heating/cooling hardware, the cost/benefit of this approach will be quite appealing, especially for those with larger homes and for businesses.
My understanding is that the efficiency of this approach should radically reduce the energy required to heat and cool buildings to such an extent that alternative energy such as solar power can become feasible for homes (as the biggest energy use would now be relegated to dryers and the heating element in dishwashers and the stove/oven.) Even without using clean energy, the amount of energy not used would drastically reduce greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants. All of this while pumping money into local economies by hiring and training people for drilling and giving a kickstart to a burgeoning green economy.