Progess Energy and Climate Change

This has to qualify as the news story of the day. Progress Energy has just released a report in which it acknowledges the problem of global climate change and advocates a national plan to address it. The official press release can be found here.

What’s interesting is that the study that produced the report was undertaken due to pressure from shareholder groups. It’s a good example of how organized shareholder movements have been successful in directing corporate boards toward a more responsible course.

- Craig Williams

Latest news on the global warming meltdown…

You may just have waterfront property and not know it. Check out this article in the New York Times on melting polar ice.

- Craig Williams

Why should we drill in the gulf…

Brooksville resident Dallas Dunlap stated a nice, eloquent case against drilling off Florida’s beaches in his letter to the Hernando Today newspaper.

- Craig Williams

Solar energy dwarfed by other economic incentive proposals

When looking at what Jeb Bush has proposed for his technology-based economic development plan, you would think that solar energy must be some kind of technological stepchild. He’s recommending that $630 million of the budget surplus go to develop a variety of technology-based programs while the solar industry is chomping at the bit to move into Florida. The $2.5 million solar rebate program is all that’s being proposed for a technology that, if supported, will not only build an industry and create jobs, it will help us solve our energy problems.

Craig Williams

Lecture at UF on March 28 - Why Biomass is Important

Ann Bartuska, deputy chief for research and development for the US Forest Service, will be giving a lecture at the University of Florida in Gainesville on March 28th. Her topic is “Why Biomass is Important – The Role of the Forest Service in Managing and Using Biomass for Energy and Other Uses.” For more details, click here.

Craig Williams

New Jersey’s Solar Rebate Program

It’s good to look at renewable energy programs in other states while considering what a reasonable program should look like in Florida. I hope to be posting figures from several states soon. But right now I’ve got some numbers from New Jersey. I thought New Jersey would be a good place to start since it has one of the best solar programs in the country and the cost of electricity, considering the full range across the country, is closer to Florida’s cost than most of the other solar states.

New Jersey uses a societal benefit charge collected on each electric bill to fund their Clean Energy Program. 75% of the fund is targeted for energy efficiency programs and the remaining 25% goes to renewable energy projects. In 2003, the fund budget was $124 million. I haven’t been able to find more recent figures for total fund amounts. But following are figures from recent years on amounts used for solar rebates:

2002 $2.6 million
2003 $3.4 million
2004 $10.9 million
2005 $26.6 million

Here are a few demographic numbers to help compare the two states.

2004 Population (from StateData.info):
Florida - 17,397,161
New Jersey - 8,698,879

Total Energy Consumption (from 2001 DOE information):
Florida - 4,134.8 trillion Btu
New Jersey - 2,500.4 trillion Btu

Jeb Bush’s proposal for a solar rebate program in 2006 is $2.5 million. I’ll let you do the math.

Craig Williams

FPL to install 250KW PV System over Sarasota Landfill

Florida Power & Light recently announced plans to install 250 kilowatts of solar panels over a landfill in Sarasota. This is part of their Sunshine Energy plan where customers sign up to pay $9.75 more per month on their electric bill to help purchase clean, renewable energy. So far they have 23,000 customers signed up. It’s a good indication of what people are willing to pay for cleaner energy.

Craig Williams

Solar incentives desperately welcome, but much more is needed…

As you can see from the lead news story on the website, Jeb Bush’s proposed Energy Act calls for $2.5 million in rebates for solar technologies. This could be a welcome drink of water in Florida’s solar-incentive desert, but a great deal more is needed before Florida can began to catch up with the thriving solar industries developing in many states in the U.S. and several countries around the world.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to find any reason why Florida should not fund a program many times the size of this proposal. We rank third in the country for total energy consumption. We import nearly all of the fuel needed to produce that energy. Very little conservation is practiced by our runaway construction industry. And yet, at the same time, we press for a total restriction on drilling off our shores. There’s something definitely not right about this.

And the availability of funds certainly doesn’t appear to be a drawback to a more extensive program now that our state budget has scored another surplus in the billions this year - $3.5 billion, to be exact. But funding for a good, long-term incentive program doesn’t have to, and probably shouldn’t, come from the general fund. As most states with good solar rebate programs do it, a small, almost unnoticeable, charge on each monthly electric bill could be put aside in a public benefit fund to finance the rebates. Just a dollar a month on each of the more than 9 million electric bills in Florida would raise more than $100 million per year. Or we could just use the current public benefit funds the utilities are collecting now that go mostly to ineffective efficiency programs. Either way, there is just no reasonable explanation why a world-class solar incentive program shouldn’t be funded in Florida today.

And just to be completely clear and thorough, our solar exposure in this latitude certainly isn’t a drawback either. Germany recently installed the world’s largest solar-electric system consisting of 10MW of panels covering sixty-two acres of unused farmland in Bavaria. I looked up and compared the irradiance figures for both Germany and Florida. If the same investment were made here in Florida, it would yield nearly twice the electricity.

Craig Williams