The reaction to Gov. Ted Strickland's much-ballyhooed energy plan has been generally positive, though underwhelming.
Some groups normally eager to jump into the fray went mysteriously
silent for hours after details were released Wednesday. Then there was
a collective shrug. They talked about a need for compromise, with
comments about how the plan is forward-thinking even if it's not as
robust as they would like.
The Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, a legal advocate for the
state's 4.5 million households, said the governor needs to do more to
protect consumers from rate increases.
The cornerstone of the plan is a requirement that 25 percent of the
electricity sold in Ohio come from either renewable or so-called
"advanced technology" sources by 2025.
The latter is the wild card. It means mostly clean coal or nuclear, the
former of which remains largely conceptual. And while nuclear power has
been around for more than 50 years, Ohio's experience with it has been
less than exemplary. The jury's still out on whether Wall Street has
enough faith in that industry to finance a new breed of nuclear plants,
even with improved designs.
Carbon sequestration - injecting carbon dioxide and other greenhouses
gases that cause global warming underground - won't be deployed en
masse for years, if ever.
Last year, FirstEnergy Corp.'s Berger plant along the Ohio River became
the Midwest's first for that type of research. Also in 2006, Ohio lost
its bid for the U.S. Department of Energy's FutureGen plant, a $1
billion project to see if anything close to pollution-free, coal-fired
power plants can be built.
If the Energy Department sticks to its schedule of picking a site this
fall, the prototype would be finished in 2012. At least 10 years of
research will follow. That means it could be 2022 before we know if
that kind of a plant is achievable, let alone affordable.
So how bold is Mr. Strickland's 25/25 initiative? Is it truly a mandate? Or a goal?
Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia now require more
energy diversity from their utilities, some calling for 20 percent or
more of their power to come from renewable sources by 2020.
But that's just it: Renewable energy. Nothing else. Mr. Strickland's
plan requires only 12.5 percent of Ohio's power from that. Advanced
technologies could be used to achieve the other 12.5 percent.
Ohio's proposal is modeled after Pennsylvania's law, the only one that
brought coal into its mix. Mr. Strickland went further by including
nuclear - much to the dismay of groups such as Environment Ohio and the
Ohio Environmental Council.
Nuclear only got a passing reference in Mr. Strickland's speech. So it's unclear if he's focused on the new breed of reactor.
DTE Energy is the Midwest's only utility that has announced plans for a
new plant. Under a best-case scenario, DTE would submit its application
a year from now and break ground at its Fermi complex in Monroe County
for a $3 billion plant by 2013. But that's all subject to change
because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hasn't considered
applications to build nuclear plants for about 30 years.
Ironically, FirstEnergy - which NRC Commissioner Ed McGaffigan, Jr.,
wanted out of the nuclear business five years ago - is in a comfortable
position if it gets credit for the power it generates at Ohio's only
two nuclear plants, Davis-Besse and Perry, and its Beaver Valley
complex in western Pennsylvania. Twenty-eight percent of FirstEnergy's
power output is nuclear, well above the industry average.
Column written by Toledo Blade Staff, Tom Henry
