Why Not Ohio? Colorado Towns Explore Renewable Energy Options

[irishbobcat]

Why Not Ohio? Colorado Towns Explore Renewable Energy Options
Already, 75 percent of the electricity distributed by the municipal utility department in Aspen comes from renewable sources, mostly wind. The city hopes to push that to 83 percent with installation of a small hydroelectric plant on a local creek.

Could something called a feed-in tariff push Aspen toward its goal of 100 percent renewable energy?

Feed-in tariffs provide generators of small to intermediate amounts of renewable energy fixed prices and long-term guarantees from their utility. The guarantee gives entrepreneurs easier access to financing.

"We are certainly going to look at it intensely to see if it has merit," says Dave Hornbacher, the city's deputy director of utilities and renewable energy. "It appears to have the potential to facilitate additional photovoltaic installations," he added.

In the wonkish world of energy policy, feed-in tariffs occupy a particularly esoteric niche. But speakers at a workshop last week in Boulder said they will be crucial in accelerating the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're not thinking grandly enough, boldly enough," said Randy Udall, an energy analyst and activist from the Aspen area. Feed-in tariffs, he said, are the only way to achieve the giant steps that are needed.

Jim Woolsey, a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, said they would also provide environmental benefits by reducing atmospheric pollution from mercury, nitrous oxide and other toxin byproducts of burning coal.

Woolsey said feed-in tariffs could also make the United States less vulnerable to terrorists by making our energy supplies less centralized. An ordinary squirrel in Ohio was able to put New York as well as other states and parts of Canada into the dark in 2003. He suggested a few people with far more malevolent intentions could do far worse.

The effect of the tariffs would be to substantially change the nature of our electrical supply. That existing system is centralized around large coal-fired plants. But feed-in tariffs would create more diverse and dispersed energy sources.

Why Not Ohio? Why does Governor Strickland not push for Feed-in tariffs?

Is it because we know Ted Strickland is tied too closely to dirty coal and nuke PACS who tell Ted how to supply power to the state?

I am afraid it is so.

Dennis S. Spisak-Green party of Ohio Nominee fior Governor

www.votespisak.org/governor
www.dennisspisak.com

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