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Guest Opinion: End oil addiction, invest in clean energy
Opinion | Billings Gazette | CONNIE KEOGH | July 15, 2010
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Most Americans would agree that now more than ever we need to wisely invest our limited fiscal resources, to move quickly toward clean, renewable energy sources that will never run out, will not pollute or endanger our health, and will not ruin our water, our air or our precious ecosystems, as we see unfolding off the Gulf Coast today.
Remarkably, there’s a concerted attempt to discredit and misinform the public of the extraordinary progress that has already occurred in moving to clean, renewable, inexhaustible sources of energy. When political pundits and lobbyists for fossil-fuel industries try to convince the public that renewable energy is technologically off in the distant future, or too expensive, it is time to look at the facts and evidence at hand in Montana.
The fastest-growing energy sector in Montana these days is wind. More than a billion dollars have been invested in Montana wind in the past decade, and that translates into jobs and income to communities, local citizens and landowners. And that’s just the beginning. Many more wind projects are moving ahead. The wind energy available from one of Montana’s first wind farms, outside Judith Gap, is already priced at approximately the same cost as power from PPL, which combines our state’s cheap hydropower with coal from plants built 20 years ago or more.
New coal or nuclear will be substantially more expensive than historic conventional power plants built years ago. When people try to convince you that clean, renewable energy is expensive, they are using prices for plants that were built 20 to 40 years ago and not taking into account significant new costs of lower carbon emissions and sequestration.
When Montana adopted a 15 percent renewable energy standard in 2005, a prosperous, new clean-energy industry took off. Colorado and Oregon recently raised their standards for clean, renewable energy to 30 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
Montana’s law also provided entrepreneurs the opportunity to sell renewable power through the grid. That means irrigation districts and other small producers are getting ready to sell power that helps keep energy dollars in our state.
Investing in energy efficiency is the cheapest energy dollar we can spend, by getting more work out of the energy already available. Strong Energy Efficiency Standards can build an affordable bridge to a clean-energy future. We have barely scratched the surface of this important and affordable resource.
Other viable energy supplies in Montana include opportunities for low-impact, small hydro generators, community-scale biomass, sustainable geothermal, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic.
Most of these energy sources create jobs, favor local entrepreneurs and ownership, and can be developed in many more areas of the state than fossil fuels. The time is now to build a bridge to the future. And Montana with its abundant wind, biomass, hydro, sun, and geothermal resources should be at the forefront of our clean-energy future.
Support strong renewable energy standards and energy efficiency investments in Montana and Washington, D.C. Call on our elected leaders to make sure they create the public policies to move us in that direction. That means putting strong renewable energy and energy efficiency standards in whatever energy bill moves through Congress this year and raising our state renewable energy standards when the Legislature meets in January.
Tagged with: renewable energy
