Scientists call for increased use of renewable energy
PITTSBURGH - Sep 8 (The Associated Press)
Pennsylvania consumers could save nearly $1.8 billion and nearly 6,000 jobs would be created by 2020 if the amount of electricity produced by renewable energy resources increases to 20 percent, according to an environmental group.
About 2 percent of Pennsylvania's electricity is produced using renewable resources, mostly wind farms, said Nathan Willcox, energy and clean air advocate for the environmental group PennEnvironment. Pennsylvania has a half-dozen wind farms and several more are planned.
"We are very much in support of what they're calling for at the national level, but we think that policy makers in both Washington and Harrisburg should be working on this," Willcox said. "There's no reason the state can't be taking more action to bring renewable energy to Pennsylvania in the absence of federal leadership."
Enacting the 20 percent standard at the federal level would save consumers $49 billion and create more than 355,000 jobs, according to the nonpartisan Boston-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
Recently, federal legislation that would have set standards of 10 percent of electricity produced from renewable energy by 2020 was defeated. While the legislation is being resurrected, Marchant Wentworth, a legislative representative for the group, said it isn't likely to see action before the election.
Consumers would see savings as natural gas and electricity prices drop because of competition from other energy sources, Wentworth said, noting that wind energy is competitive with natural gas. Increased use of renewable energy would also reduce air pollution, he said. Jobs would come from construction, operation and maintenance, the group said.
Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, said renewable energy sources are a "critical portion of the nation's energy mix" but warned that a national standard could amount to a hidden tax on consumers if energy producers were forced to create electricity using more expensive means.
Traditional power generators are using renewable energy sources where feasible, he said.
Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution, lauded the goals.
"The more we can put into renewable energy and defray from coal, that's great," she said. Pennsylvania ranks in the top five of the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory in 2002 for emissions of arsenic, dioxin, acid gasses, lead and organic chemicals from coal and oil-fired power plants, she said.
As part of Pennsylvania's electricity deregulation that passed in 1996, the state is supposed to increase use of renewable energy, Willcox said.
Fifteen other states also call for increased use of renewable energy sources to some degree either through legislation or regulations. California leads with plans to have 20 percent of its energy come from renewable resources by 2017, Wentworth said.
Colorado has a ballot initiative that would require its largest utilities to get 10 percent of their electricity from renewable energy by 2015. Colorado voters could become the first nationwide to impose such mandates.
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On the Net:
Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org
Group Against Smog & Pollution: http://www.gasp-pgh.org
PennEnvironment: http://www.pennenvironment.org
Edison Electric Institute: http://www.eei.org