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Florida's green machine: Can Crist get it done?

The governor has set goals for renewable energy, but no deadline. How far can the state go? And how fast?

By Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer
Published November 11, 2007

Since Gov. Charlie Crist's climate summit four months ago, it seems nary a week passes without a much-hyped announcement of yet another renewable energy project. Biomass! Ethanol! Solar! Suddenly it seems Florida's energy future will be green, indeed.

But most of Tampa Bay's renewable power comes from two unglamorous sources that don't enjoy green gilding: burning trash and wasted heat from industrial plants. Progress Energy counts among its renewables a facility that burns some 30,000 tons of tires. Tampa Electric's entire solar portfolio couldn't power two homes for a single year.

Some call it a telling measure of the industry's truecommitment to renewable power. Others say it's a realistic measure of the limits of today's technology. Either way, it provides a baseline. It's a measure of how far Florida has to go to fulfill Crist's ambition to curb greenhouse gases and spur a renewable revolution.

"It's a very ambitious hill to climb," said Jim Owen, spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, the utility industry trade group. It opposes federal renewable mandates now under debate by Congress, but remains "agnostic" on similar skirmishes raging in about 20 states, including Florida.

Surprisingly, some environmentalists echo Owen's concerns. If Crist pushes utilities to meet his 20 percent renewable goal too quickly, it could hurt the economy, said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. But if state legislators "carry the water for the utilities," they might low-ball what's possible, stifle investment and change nothing.

Amid the cynical political horse-trading, Crist's dream shimmers like a green mirage. How close can Florida come, and how quickly, without hurting those of us who flip the switch and expect the light to come on?

"That is the sweet spot that needs to be defined," Smith said. "And there's a difference of opinion about where that is."

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To figure out Florida's energy future, it helps to understand its present. Progress Energy says 5 percent of its power comes from renewables. Tampa Electric counts 2.5 percent.

Dissecting the utilities' small slice of renewables requires some complicated math. Both utilities count energy that they never produced: their estimate of how much power wasn't generated because of energy-efficiency programs. For Progress Energy, it accounts for 30 percent of its renewables. For Tampa Electric, it's more than half.

Much of the rest comes from burning trash or capturing the waste heat from industries like phosphate mining. Solar, the renewable icon for many, accounts for less than half of 1 percent of all the power they generate. Neither Progress nor Tampa Electric generates any wind power.

By contrast, fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - produce nearly two-thirds of the power Progress Energy generates, and 99 percent of Tampa Electric's electricity. Coal, the highest-carbon fuel available, accounts for most of it.

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What Florida can afford to do about global warming - or can't afford not to do - was the subject of dueling legislative meetings in Tallahassee last week. House Speaker Marco Rubio, Crist's opponent on climate change, has argued that Floridians can't afford the governor's green dreams.

The debate rages nationwide: How much renewable energy can we produce, and how soon? What counts as renewable? What will it cost? What will it cost if we fail?

Crist set a renewable goal of 20 percent, but didn't set a deadline. It remains unclear if the rules and penalties will be set by the Public Service Commission or the Legislature. Congress, meanwhile, continues to debate a national standard.

"What is the goal?" asked Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of Progress Energy. If it's low-carbon electricity, then nuclear is the immediate answer.

Renewable power like solar and wind can't compete, he said. It's less reliable than fossil fuels and nuclear, and more expensive. That could change, but not in the near term.

The best way to push toward energy independence in the near term has little to do with power plants, he argued. It starts with the consumer. It's time to stop thinking of energy use as a lifestyle choice and start treating it like a civic responsibility.

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Some enthusiasts argue that taking the carbon out of our economy will pay for itself. Energy costs will be cheaper, green jobs will abound. As Crist often repeats: "There is gold in green."

Most experts, though, agree that cutting carbon will cost us.

"There is a general view out there that it's probably going to be easier to develop and implement renewable resources than it actually is in real life," said Owen, of the utility trade group.

Climate change, though, comes with costs of its own, like rising seas, health effects of polluted air and reliance on increasingly scarce supplies of oil and natural gas. The Electric Power Research Institute, a nonpartisan research group with offices throughout the country, estimated that "decarbonizing" the U.S. economy could cost up to $1.8-trillion. But it's cheaper to act now, the group concluded. Aggressive investment in a handful of nascent technologies, like carbon storage and plug-in hybrid cars, could slash that cost by as much as $1-trillion.

Clay Perry, spokesman for the institute, put it in terms that any Florida homeowner can understand: "We have to decide if it's an insurance policy worth buying."

Asjylyn Loder can be reached at aloder@sptimes.com or 813 225-3117.

By the numbers

4.5: Approximate number of homes that could be powered for a year using all the solar power generated by Tampa Electric and Progress Energy combined.

117,527: Number of homes that could be powered for a year on electricity from burning trash for both utilities.

2,161,017: Number of homes that could be powered using all the electricity from coal from both utilities.

Sources: Progress Energy Florida, Tampa Electric

[Last modified November 9, 2007, 22:30:35]