Energy In the News

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland Thursday signed into law the state’s new energy bill, which while everyone says it will lead to higher energy prices in the near term will also pave the way for what a panel of economists, energy experts and advanced-energy employers said could lead to massive job growth if action to turn the tide on global warming is addressed now through a marketplace system for reducing carbon emissions known as cap and trade.

Strickland made Ohio the 26th state to enact a renewable energy standard, an accomplishment environment advocates, labor organizations, manufacturers and legislative leaders were fired up over. The bill is described as a “landmark energy reform bill that will ensure predictability of affordable energy prices and serve as a catalyst to enhance energy industries in Ohio, bringing new jobs while protecting existing jobs.”

“Today I am proud to say that with the help of legislative leaders in both parties we have kept our word to Ohioans on these important and guiding principles. This bill, Senate Bill 221, will ensure predictability of affordable energy prices and maintain state controls necessary to protect Ohio jobs and businesses.

We will safeguard Ohio families by empowering consumers and modernizing Ohio’s energy infrastructure. And we will attract the jobs of the future through an advanced energy portfolio standard—and today’s action by Ohio means that a majority of states now agree that these technologies represent the future of energy in the United States." [Strickland]

In his statement on the bill when it was introduced, Strickland said, “Energy is at the core of Ohio's economic and environmental health.  Energy built our past; energy sustains our present; and, energy holds the promise of an even brighter future.  That future is ours to shape.[Gov. Strickland]

In the absence of help from the Bush White House or Congress on producing a coherent renewable energy standard, supporters of the bill said state like Ohio have to go their own way.

“Clearly this is a case of individual states leading the way in the face of failed attempts by Congress to pass a national renewable energy standard,” said Erin Bowser of Environment Ohio, a group that lobbied heavily with a coalition of other partners for the advanced-energy part of the bill, which is said to be a model for other states to follow.

The punchy name of the energy plan, “Energy, Jobs and Progress,” goes to the heart of what advocates of green energy say can happen now that specific standards and incentives are in place.

For a job-hungry state like Ohio, which has seen hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs siphoned off to other states or nations over the last 15 years, the news a panel of energy experts delivered on Thursday that Ohio could reap thousands of new “green” jobs should be welcomed with the same exhilaration an old oil man would feel upon seeing a towering gush of crude explode from the ground.

In a preemptive strike to provide background and analysis on the presentation to be given tomorrow in Columbus by Ohio Sen. George V. Voinovich about the results of an oil-funded report on cap and trade panelists think presents misleading arguments, Tom Bullock, of the National Resources Defense Council, Pew Environment Group, lead the panel in a discussion of the opportunities for green energy job growth, which already has a strong foothold in Ohio, and the potential for Ohio to become both a world leader in technology and an energy exporter.

“Now more than ever, America needs to harness its ingenuity and resil­ience to meet our growing energy needs with clean energy technology solutions that will bring jobs back to this country and state, enhance our national security and reduce harmful pollution,” Bullock said in his opening remarks. Bullock and his co-panelists spoke of the need to address global warming and the costs of inaction.

Serving as the moderator for a group that include a professor of economics, two experts on energy public policy and three advanced energy employers, Bullock said the purpose of the panel conference call was to explain how a market-based program to limit carbon dioxide emissions can help the Buckeye State expand its job market, invest in existing and new technologies and become a leader in the production and exportation of these technologies.

Bullock reiterated that global warming is affecting Ohio, as the OhioNews Bureau has reported on previously, as demonstrated by more severe storms and floods, water levels dropping in Lake Erie, on the northern shore, and the migration northward of growing ranges, which will have a direct impact on agriculture, still Ohio’s largest industry.

As the economy evolves from cheap oil to an energy-diversified, carbon-constrained environment, Bullock said the best policy bridge to the future is through a system of cap and trade. Cap and trade is a marketplace process that reduces emissions in a cost-effective and flexible manner by creating a financial incentive for emission reductions by assigning a cost to polluting.

Creating the technology isn’t the problem, Bullock said, noting that wind turbines were invented in the 1930s in Cleveland. He said what’s lacking now is a “business reason to use clean technology.” He said the science is clear and action is needed now to achieve emissions target for carbon dioxide, a major culprit in global warming science.

Kristen Sheeran, Associate Professor of Economics, St. Mary's College and Executive Director of Economics for Equity and the Environment: E3 Network, took issue with results from the Lieberman-Warner bill she expects Voinovich to deliver. Sheeran, an economist developing new arguments for environmental protection whose had performed research on the economics of climate change and the political economy of environmental agreements, said other studies exist that consider the benefits of action, not just the costs, as she says Voinovich will focus on.

The Lieberman-Warner bill, introduced last August as America’s Climate Security Act (S. 2191), which would outline a mandatory, market-based cap-and-trade program that would cover 80 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions and that would reduce those emissions to current levels by 2012, to 10 percent below current levels by 2020, and to 70 percent below current levels by 2050.

Critics of the bill, which has not become law and likely won’t this year, say its gives hundreds of billions of dollar to advocates of nuclear power, who will build more plants because the industry is defined as a “zero or low-carbon” technology.

“The longer we wait the higher the cost will be,” she said, noting that the study Voinovich will use has not been subject to peer review, a situation she said was not driven by a need to focus on best practices but a political agenda.

Dr. Andy Keeler, an Associate Professor, John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University, has also conducted his own research in environmental and natural resources economics and policy. He challenged the “modeling” in the study and the problem confronting Ohio and the nation can only be solved through technology working in the marketplace, and pointed to the positive effects this partnership of function had on reducing acid rain, resulting in the eastward drift of utility-plant emissions falling in rain on eastern states.

The Executive Director of Policy Matters Ohio, Amy Hanauer, said cap and trade “is the right thing to do” and said Ohio can become a winner if the trade and investment components of such a system are done correctly. “A strong carbon cap will help raise billions, and help displaced workers in Ohio,” said Hanauer, who folded into her comments the need for more research and development in fuel technologies, more mass transportation and infrastructure improvements. “To get the future right we need to get carbon policy right,” she said.

Neill Lane, President & CEO, Sunpower, Inc. a manufacturer of high-efficiency pistons with green applications headquartered in Athens, in southeastern Ohio, said his company builds the kinds of energy engines that convert sunlight to electric power. He said his product produces three times the electricity as do solar panels. Lane said Ohio doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel because it’s already here. “Ohio has the lead in technology and we should be winners in addressing climate change,” an effort he said using existing technology to create a “huge economic opportunity to create jobs.”

Mark Schuetz, President, Replex Plastics, a manufacturer based in Mount Vernon, Ohio, about 50 miles northeast of Columbus that makes high performance plastics components, including new solar product line, said his company, which has already reduced its own heating needs by 90 percent, would greatly benefit if capital costs for solar energy projects were reduced. “Advanced energy technology will be the big growth industry this century,” he said, adding, “the US market needs to get serious” about incentives.

Paul Gandola, an attorney representing Sargas, a Norwegian company with carbon capture and sequestration technology seeking to do business in coal states like Ohio, said technology today can capture more than 98 percent of carbon emissions. Such technology, he said, could tap Ohio’s vast reserves of lower grade coal. He said a manufacturing opportunity exists for Ohioans to produce new boilers and components for them. He said Ohio’s location on the Ohio River would present an affordable option compared to the cost of using diesel fuel to transport carbon down south to Gulf states. “Ohio has opportunity if we play our cards right.”

One warning for Ohio and the US the panelists said should be taken seriously is that if the US doesn’t get in the ball game, the game will shift to other countries, like German for example, which is way ahead of the curve. The manufacturers said that if the US doesn’t lead, the focus will be in other countries, and the US and Ohio can be choose to be part of the winners or losers. They said the rest of world is passing us by.

Asked how many more jobs would come to their plants in Ohio if their plans become reality, Lane and Schuetz said they would have jobs for many more. Lane said “explosive growth” would happen.

About the author 

John Michael Spinelli is the chief of ePluribus Media OhioNews Bureau. A business columnist, former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter, Mr. Spinelli, a certified Economic Development Finance Professional who  worked in Ohio government in various position, contributes stories on Ohio government and politics and feature stories on national or world topics. Archives for OhioNews Bureau stories are found here and here.