Southeast has big potential for clean energy production

COMMENTARY

Southeast has big potential for clean energy production

Sam Gomberg Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Today our country stands at an important crossroads. Economic uncertainty and our addiction to dirty energy sources pose impressive challenges, forcing us to make critical decisions about how we produce and consume energy in America. Instead of clinging to the same dirty energy sources, we have a unique opportunity to embrace a new energy future. Unleashing a clean technology revolution built around energy efficiency, smart grid technology and renewable energy will create economic opportunities and put Americans back to work solving important global problems like energy security and climate change.

Numerous clean tech opportunities are already beginning to renew and repower our nation's economy. According to the American Wind Energy Association, our nation's wind industry grew by 50 percent last year, injecting nearly $20 billion into our economy. In fact, 40 percent of all new energy capacity installed last year came from new wind energy facilities.

With energy efficiency, a smarter grid and the plentiful renewable energy resources throughout our region, we can lay the foundation for a clean tech revolution that transforms our economy, spurring growth and making it more secure.

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy's report, "Yes We Can: Southern Solutions for a National Renewable Energy Standard," shows that the Southeast has enough homegrown resources to produce 25 percent of current electricity generation from renewable sources by 2025. This modest goal for renewable energy production offers the best opportunity to develop our region's renewable energy resources. Nevertheless, even after obtaining 20 percent or 25 percent of our energy from renewable sources, the vast majority of our energy will still come from the same outdated energy sources, like coal, that many cling to with a determined grip.

Frankly, there is no such thing as "clean coal," although proponents tout this oxymoron as the solution to our energy crisis. Our energy challenges are great, and we must continue to explore opportunities to capture emissions from new and existing coal plants. Yet we also face a fierce urgency to transform our energy systems and renew our economy. The coal industry and its surrogates, however, want us to bet our economy and the future of our planet on this unproven technology. The technology to capture carbon dioxide and successfully store it underground faces challenging uncertainties. Additional research and demonstration projects are needed, but we can't continue building coal plants until we have resolved this and other challenges coal continues to face.

From cradle to grave, coal is a dirty business, and all the lipstick in the world won't make this pig pretty. Blowing the tops off of mountains to get at the coal below, known as mountaintop removal mining, irreversibly destroys our beautiful Southern Appalachian Mountains and devastates mountain communities throughout the region (see www.ilovemountains. org). Our nation's parks continue to suffer from air pollution, while dirty air and toxic mercury put our public health in jeopardy. Recently, the "clean coal" myth came crashing down on Harriman, Tenn., as more than a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge from a TVA storage facility flooded this small community.

In contrast, we know that renewable energy is clean, it works and it can kick-start our economy. Eleven states across the Southeast, including Tennessee, have abundant solar and biomass resources. Several of these states, including Tennessee, have pockets of good wind that can be developed in environmentally sensitive ways — but our Southern offshore wind potential is very strong. Just this week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told reporters that the wind energy potential off our Atlantic Coast could easily surpass all of the onshore wind potential available throughout our country.

My organization's analysis concludes that the Southeast has the potential to meet 15 percent of our region's energy needs with renewable sources in just six years, but we need to start now. By 2025 the Southeast could provide enough renewable energy to power 27 million homes using existing technology and resources.

The economics of renewable energy are changing rapidly and positively, and these resources are becoming cost competitive with conventional resources. Lazard Management, a leading energy consulting firm, concludes that prices for biomass and wind are already competitive with new coal and nuclear. As costs come down, employment opportunities are on the rise. The Renewable Energy Policy Project analysis shows that Southeastern states could create between 16,000 and 30,000 jobs per state in the clean energy field.

In Tennessee, for example, clean solar power manufacturing companies have made billions of dollars worth of commitments in the past few weeks because they see the renewable market about to explode in our region. Our state leaders provided creative policies, and now we need our federal leaders to help grow this market through a national renewable standard that will require utilities to provide a modest 25 percent of their electricity from clean and renewable energy.

Utilities across the Southeast are moving toward embracing a clean energy future, too. In Georgia, Oglethorpe Power and Georgia Power are planning to construct large bio-energy facilities. In North Carolina and Florida, solar development is taking off, with several large facilities moving forward. But this isn't even the tip of the iceberg. A commitment to developing our renewable energy potential will release a wave of clean energy economic development that will play a major role in our economy's recovery.

The choice is clear. We can cling to the old ways that the fossil fuels like coal represent, and pretend it is clean. Or we can harness the truly clean and homegrown energy opportunities right in our back yard, spurring economic growth, creating employment opportunities, protecting our communities and solving the climate crisis. Our future demands a clean tech revolution. Let's not delay it any longer.

Sam Gomberg is the Tennessee Valley Energy Policy associate for the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. He can be reached by e-mail at sam@cleanenergy.org.