Mar 05 - The Palm Beach Post

Imagine that as the sun rises each day, it beams down on your solar-paneled rooftop.

Those panels, which are saving you plenty on your electric bill, didn't cost that much to put up because of tax rebates.

The tax-free hybrid car you drive runs on biodiesel, and you park at meters and garages for free because the vehicle is energy-efficient.

Your windows didn't leak after the last hurricane, and you didn't have to fight with the city building department to get a permit to install your high-efficiency air conditioner.

And Florida Power & Light Co. just announced it wasn't going to have to build another power plant right now because it's getting more of its electricity from a company that makes fuel from agriculture waste.

This is the new Florida, designed in part by the legislature. These are among the proposals for the 2007 session starting Tuesday that backers say would help make the state more energy-independent.

"We want to do everything possible to encourage people to use more energy-efficient technologies," said Rep. Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach. "Energy-efficient products such as refrigerators and light bulbs need to become a part of everyday life in Florida."

Alternative fuels weren't in vogue when natural gas was cheap. No one talked about solar power. There wasn't any money in the budget to figure out how to mass-produce electricity from trash.

But then fuel prices shot up, and Hurricane Katrina damaged the Gulf Coast's oil and natural gas rigs in August 2005, choking off Florida's gas supply. Utilities started talking about building nuclear and coal-fired plants. Florida lawmakers said the state needed to figure out a way to wean itself off oil and natural gas.

"I think the snowball started when the gas pumps started shooting through the roofs," said Rep. Bob Allen, chairman of the newly created House Energy Committee. "This year, it seems the planets are aligned and the investments are ready."

The state's new buzzwords include biomass and carbon caps. The Florida Cabinet wants to talk about global warming. Gov. Charlie Crist asked for $68 million in the state budget for alternative fuels, and lobbyists are falling all over themselves to make sure he mentions energy in the upcoming State of the State address.

"I think we all recognize that this is extremely important for our economy. We recognize that this is extremely important to our environment," said Hasner, the House deputy majority leader.

He said his main focus this year will be helping to make Florida a leader in solar energy and renewable fuels.

The ideas range from having school buses run on biodiesel to promoting Florida-based alternative fuels that can garner the most financial backing from the private market.

This year, there's more money: $60 million in grants for renewable-energy projects, four times the $15 million allocated last year. And the ideas are more focused, said Allen, R-Merritt Island.

"This committee and the subject brings everybody and their best ideas out of the woodwork. People say, 'I have a hamster on a wheel and it will create a kilowatt, and if you give me a grant, I'll have 100 hamsters on wheels,'" he said jokingly. "I want to go after the most promising, larger-scale things that can get Florida into the business."

But it's not as though Greenie the Energy-Efficient Fairy is going to fly into Tallahassee, wave her wand and dramatically free the state from most of its carbon emissions overnight.

Lawmakers are taking cues from other states that push renewable-energy programs, from environmentalists who say one-third of the state could be underwater in 100 years because of a rise in sea levels, and even from the utilities, many of which have come out in favor of capping carbon emissions.

FPL has joined General Electric, DuPont and other industry leaders in calling for a reduction in carbon emissions, coming out in January in support of federal legislation that would do so. Later that month, FPL joined an industry-environmental partnership backing a carbon cap-and-trade system. In February, the utility said it supported a statement from the Global Roundtable on Climate Change urging governments to adopt energy-efficient policies.

"The answer is not to do a lot of one thing, it's to do a little bit of a lot of things," said Neal Elliott, industrial program director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a Washington-based nonprofit. "You've got a good start. The state has to fill in all of the details."

Elliott, who visited Tallahassee in February to talk up ways Florida could better use renewable energy to cut back on natural-gas use, said the state should require utilities to get 5 percent of their electricity from renewable fuels by 2023.

Florida also should look at states such as California, Vermont and Connecticut, whose energy-saving programs are cutting energy use by 1 percent a year, he said.

"If you save a little bit of energy, it could have huge impacts a decade or so down the road," Elliott said.

Terry Tamminen, former secretary of California's Environmental Protection Agency, visited Florida and Crist at the request of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Tamminen said Crist, who has said he is adamant about protecting the Everglades, was receptive to some of California's policies.

"He really did get it," Tamminen said.

When it comes to states that have taken up the issue of climate change and carbon emissions, the Southeast falls short, giving Florida an opportunity to step up, Tamminen said.

It's important for the country "that Florida provide leadership and bring in other Southeastern states," he said.

As for the utilities and other major industries wanting to see more action on reducing carbon emissions: "They are going to have to match their actions to their rhetoric," he said.

Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunellon, said she hopes the renewed enthusiasm behind alternative energy is "real, and not just for somebody's pocket."

"Some people who are yelling that (renewables), I suspect they see dollar signs everywhere," Argenziano said. "And the utilities, they don't usually come out and say, 'This is great,' unless there's something for them."

FPL Group Inc.'s subsidiary FPL Energy is the world's largest producer of wind power and a top producer of solar. But the unregulated subsidiary operates outside Florida.

FPL Group's utility, Florida Power & Light Co., is "continuing to evaluate" technology to develop renewable sources in Florida, company spokesman Mayco VillafaOa said.

"The technology for wind and solar as it stands today has limitations that curtail how it can be applied in a state with Florida's topography," VillafaOa said.

FPL, supported in Tallahassee by an army of utility lobbyists, believes any decision to produce renewable energy in Florida must be shared by its customers, the legislature and the Public Service Commission, VillafaOa said.

Despite the go-green push, the bulk of Florida's power is going to come from traditional electricity sources for some time. In 2006, only 1,100 megawatts of power in Florida -- about 2 percent -- came from alternative fuels such as trash, hydropower, biomass and landfill gas, according to a report on energy efficiency released last week by the service commission.

"The cold, hard fact is people have laptop computers, and they have TVs, and those things eat power like you wouldn't believe, and the power companies have to provide that power," said Rep. Dave Murzin, chairman of the House Committee on Utilities and Telecommunications.

"When you give a power company a mandate, you may seem like it's nice and green, but in the end, it dramatically drives up the cost of the price for consumers," said Murzin, R-Pensacola.

"The policymakers, I hope, are not going to drive the cost of power up for everybody because they want to accomplish their own goals."

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