Nov 21 - Chicago Tribune

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's ambitious plan to run Chicago government partly on wind and solar energy has drawn praise from environmentalists, envy from other cities and a speaking invitation from actor Robert Redford.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was so impressed that it named the city its green power Partner of the Year in 2002.

But five years after Daley pledged to buy a fifth of the city's electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2006, Chicago's energy mix isn't so green. Nearly all of the megawatts powering City Hall and other government buildings are still coming from nuclear and coal plants.

After deals to buy power from wind farms and landfills fell through or were canceled, the fanfare surrounding the mayor's vow has quietly been replaced with more modest attempts to install solar panels on buildings such as fire stations, schools and the Chicago Cultural Center.

As a result, Chicago has ceded bragging rights as one of the nation's top buyers of green energy to such cities as San Diego and Austin, Texas.

Chicago officials say they have not given up on the idea of curbing harmful air pollution by drawing electricity from the growing number of wind farms in the Midwest. But they contend it will take until at least the end of the decade to fulfill Daley's promise.

"We're still planning and hoping to get there," said Sadhu Johnston, Daley's assistant for environmental initiatives. "I think the (renewable energy) industry has come a long way in the last five years, but you can't just turn it on."

Critics say the problem is not a lack of green-energy sources but a failure by the city to provide the money needed to back up Daley's rhetoric about making Chicago a national showcase for renewable power.

By now, the city was supposed to be getting 120,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually _ enough juice to meet the mayor's goal _ from an array of wind turbines about two hours west of Chicago.

The mayor's 2001 commitment to buy renewable energy helped Gamesa Corp., a Spanish turbine manufacturer, attract financial backers to make the Mendota Hills project the first commercial wind farm in Illinois.

It also led to a slew of glowing stories about Daley in national magazines and newspapers. Articles in The Washington Post, Time and The Christian Science Monitor hailed Chicago's promised transformation from soot-covered factory town to tree-hugging environmental pioneer. Last fall, Outside magazine cited Daley's green-energy pledge as an example of "progressive cred" that made Chicago one of the nation's "dream towns." Madison, Wis., and Salt Lake City were among the others.

But Chicago's deal to buy wind power fell through, in part because Daley's office wanted the developers to build a manufacturing plant here. The city lost out to Philadelphia for Gamesa's U.S. headquarters, and the company found other customers for its electricity.

"The deal we were expecting from Chicago and the deal they offered didn't match," said Gamesa spokesman Gabriel Alonso, declining to elaborate.

Daley's office also has stopped buying green energy from landfills, which as recently as three years ago had provided 10 percent of the electricity for city government. Landfill energy is generated by capturing and burning methane gas from the natural decomposition of garbage.

When the city's contract to buy landfill energy from ComEd expired in 2004, the mayor's office declined to renew it.

Johnston, who took over as Chicago's environment commissioner that year, blames budget woes. While city officials consider finding another green-energy provider, he said, they are encouraging energy conservation and the installation of more solar panels.

"We want to achieve our 20 percent goal," he said. "But we're not looking at that as the sole emphasis."

One of the frequently cited drawbacks of green energy is higher costs, though prices have dropped as more wind farms come online.

Wind power generally costs 5 to 6 cents a kilowatt-hour. By comparison, retail customers generally pay 3.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for ComEd's electricity, most of which is generated by nuclear plants. Rates are scheduled to jump to 6.4 cents a kilowatt-hour in January, however. ComEd declined to disclose its price for landfill-based power.

Big users such as the city typically can negotiate more favorable deals than other customers. Moreover, the additional cost to the city for renewable energy was covered by money ComEd had paid in a series of legal settlements. Those funds went to other things after the city dropped out of the market.

Meanwhile, brochures on ways to encourage more green energy have not caught up with the changes. One shows Daley accepting a giant renewable power certificate from John Rowe, chief executive of Exelon, ComEd's parent company.

"If (the city doesn't) lead, then no one follows in the private sector," Daley told Conscious Choice magazine in 2004. "The government has to do it, and show that it's economical and saves money, and that it's a good thing."

A year later, Daley brought the same message to a summit of U.S. mayors who gathered at Redford's Sundance resort in Utah to talk about local solutions to global warming. Other participants said they hoped to emulate Daley's aggressive efforts to plant trees, put green roofs on buildings and buy renewable power.

"I had a lot of high hopes based on what the mayor and others were saying publicly," said Alden Hathaway, director of green power at the Environmental Resources Trust, a non-profit group that brokered the city's purchases of landfill energy from ComEd. "Then they stopped buying."

One of the benefits of purchasing green power is curbing pollution from fossil-fuel plants that contribute to Chicago's chronic problems with dirty air.

During 2004, the last full year the city purchased green energy, Chicago prevented more than 70,000 tons of emissions that contribute to global warming, smog and acid rain, Hathaway's group estimated.

Bill Abolt, who had Johnston's job when the mayor announced his energy plan and later was the city's budget director, said many people still assume Chicago is a player in the renewable power market.

"We were making pretty good progress when I was there," said Abolt, now a private environmental consultant. "It certainly was an achievable and affordable goal."

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