Provider: United Press International
Western state governors will dutifully salute the future prospects of renewable energy at their two-day energy summit in New Mexico this week and also tackle the fossil fuel issues that are of greater immediate urgency.
Endless supplies of solar and wind energy remain an alluring vision, but the Western Governors' Association's three-day summit in Albuquerque has a full plate of more-pressing concerns, such as soaring gasoline and natural gas prices as well as the need to expand the region's pipeline and power transmission infrastructures.
"This will be a results-driven summit," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the chairman of the WGA and official host of the summit, promised in a statement. "Key leaders from the United States, Canada and Mexico will offer their perspectives on the challenges we face in developing a reliable energy system that protects our environment and is affordable for citizens and businesses."
Richardson, who served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration, has long been an enthusiastic booster of renewable energy, and the notion of building commercial power plants fueled by the West's broiling sun and steady winds will be the topic of various workshops and panel discussions in Albuquerque.
The conventional wisdom, which is also the general thrust of the Bush administration's energy philosophy, is that renewable energy is a worthy goal and may become a significant part of the nation's energy mix some day down the road but that the technology still hasn't developed to the precise point that solar, wind, biomass and other so-called exotic energy sources can be counted on to shoulder a significant share of the nation's increasing energy burden.
Advocates of renewable energy at the meeting are expected to contend that the technology actually has advanced to the point that electricity produced by the sun or wind can be competitive with natural gas power, particularly since natural gas prices have been uncomfortably strong in recent years.
"Energy from traditional fossil resources is usually more predictable than power produced by wind or solar resources, since the availability of these renewable resources varies naturally," said a report on Colorado's energy picture written late last year by Public Policy Consulting. "On the other hand, wind and solar systems have essentially zero fuel cost, so that the price of their electrical output is unaffected by fluctuations in domestic natural gas markets and regional electric power markets."
The fact that such fluctuations in the price of natural gas and the electricity it produces was the genesis of California's electricity crisis in 2000 and 2001 will not be ignored by attendees. The realization that the demand for both gas and electricity is growing steadily also hasn't been lost on government officials — at either the federal or state levels.
Some of the discussions will focus on the Bush energy plan that seeks a major expansion of access to gas and oil reserves on public lands — much of which is in the Rocky Mountains — and more transmission capacity for gas and for electricity being gobbled up, not only on the West Coast, but in the booming areas around Phoenix, Las Vegas and Southern California's Inland Empire region where air conditioning is a dire necessity for the entire populace rather than a luxury for the comfortably well-heeled. Giving the green light to high-voltage power lines has long been primarily a state responsibility that some critics see as an impediment to the needed expansion of the North American power grid.
"The electricity transmission grid also has evolved into an interstate network. It has become increasingly difficult to obtain necessary siting permits from affected states, which may receive few direct benefits and thus have little incentive to approve new transmission construction," said a recent statement from the industry-supported Edison Electric Institute. "Some state laws may even prohibit approval if regional benefits exceed local benefits."
The power industry is urging that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will be well represented at the meeting, take over as the ultimate authority for power-line siting so that these roadblocks can be kicked aside and beneficial projects moved forward forthwith. Governors nationwide, however, have been reticent about handing over to Washington their authority to prevent a major power line from cutting through a pristine state park or a residential neighborhood, or even giving the federal government the power of eminent domain to kick voters out of their homes.
But the influential EEI, among other industry lobbies, sees the removal of as many regulatory roadblocks as possible as the way to avoid power shortages during times of soaring summer demand. "In order to facilitate the formation of regional electricity markets and meet consumers' needs for reliable power," the group said, "siting processes for new transmission must be reformed."
Also to be discussed is the fact that states will want to retain as much control as possible over the design of the wholesale electricity market in order to prevent a repeat of California's deregulation efforts at the turn of the century. Another area of growing interest will be the structure of the West's gasoline market.
The huge and influential California market is experiencing pump prices well above $2 per gallon that show no sign of slacking off any time soon. Because California has its own state-mandated formulation, it is largely unable to import gasoline from overseas or even out of the Pacific Northwest; on the flip side, California has to provide so-called conventional gasoline to Arizona and Nevada.
The easiest answer would be for the gas-guzzling Golden State to eventually downgrade to conventional gasoline; however that would presumably undo all of the fine environmental work that the pricey — yet effective — California-grade gasoline has accomplished in Los Angeles and other smoggy locales.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is as good a Bush Republican as any governor, has gone so far as to seek a temporary waiver for the state from the federal government's requirement for the use of oxygenate additives such as ethanol — a sacred cow among the powerful farm lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill.
Schwarzenegger made the request to take some of the heat off pump prices in his state, proving that he and the rest of the western governors may have the national interest at heart when it comes to energy, but still treat their home states as their home turf and aren't willing to let Washington call the shots without question.
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