Ken Silverstein | Apr 05, 2013

A movement to knock down existing renewable portfolio standards is now afoot. While those efforts are trying to get legs, they are getting blow back from green organizations that are intent on cleansing America’s energy use.

What’s really going on? Most of the information that is getting disseminated is coming from organizations that are funded by oil and coal interests. While that is hardly a secret, those related business groups don’t actually expect to kill the existing state laws that require domestic utilities to offer a certain percentage of green energy. But they are trying to create some negotiating power for themselves, which is that they would like the environmental laws loosened to the point where they can build advanced coal generation units, or in the case of oil, have greater leeway to drill on public lands.

True, coal is attacked by environmental organizations that point out that when burned, it releases at least twice the level of emissions regulated under the Clean Air Act as natural gas. Applying even the most advanced super-critical or ultra super-critical coal technologies are not enough to make it cleaner than natural gas, they say, adding those tools make construction very expensive.

Coal-fired power declined by 12.5 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Its market has been usurped by combined cycle natural gas facilities. At the same time, wind and solar energy use has increased, which the green organizations would like to say has come at the expense of coal. But according to the Breakthrough Institute, that assertion doesn’t hold up.

The Oakland, Calif-based environmental think tank says that natural gas is the benefactor. It goes on to say that taxpayers subsidized unconventional gas exploration to the tune of $10 billion between 1980 and 2002 -- a move that helped unlock the shale gas revolution that no longer gets much federal help. By contrast, the group says that wind and solar remain “almost wholly dependent on public support,” suggesting that the method by which they are subsidized be reformed.

All this circles back to the efforts by fossil funded organizations that are trying to remove green energy mandates from the states’ books. They are saying that the public support must be paid for in the form of higher electricity rates, which means people have less money to spend on other essentials.

Dirty Words

The Heartland Institute is one of the biggest critics of those green energy mandates. In a column sent to news organizations, Taylor Smith points specifically to the one in North Carolina: That law passed in 2007 and it requires utilities to generate 12.5 percent of their retail electricity sales from renewable sources by 2021. The column says that wind and solar are “significantly more expensive” than conventional fuels.

Smith references a report by the John Locke Foundation and the Beacon Hill Institute, which say that those mandates will cause ratepayers to fork over almost $2 billion more between 2008 and 2021 in North Carolina alone. “In some ways, the standard is like a giant, regressive tax increase,” writes Smith.

The green movement dissents, noting that the fossil fuels are far dirtier than any alternative. The full cost of such energy options must also include the high price of excavation along with the ill-health effects from breathing unclean air. An offshoot: Renewable energy capacity doubled from 43,500 megawatts in 2008 to 85,700 megawatts in 2012, says the American Council on Renewable Energy.

In a column written for Politico, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, who is also the chief executive of the council, says that renewable portfolio standards have decreased electricity rates. In Michigan, for example, he says that the public service commission there credits that law with saving ratepayers 30 percent, all compared to the building of new advanced coal generation.

To boot, North Carolina has attracted $1.7 billion in private investment as a result of its standard while Montana has leveraged nearly the same amount, the council notes. About 3.4 million people nationally are employed by clean tech companies, adds the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The benefits will be far-reaching for manufacturers, construction workers (and) engineers,” says McGinn.

But the federal and state assistance given to green energy is under sharp attack from free market thinkers. Part of their motive, though, is political -- to make “green energy” a dirty phrase so that oil and coal companies can build muscle. It’s a tack taken right from the environmental movement’s handbook. And it’s having an effect, causing wind developers to say last December that they would agree to a six-year phase out of their lucrative tax credit.

The real dirty word may be "compromise." That's why an all-of-the above energy strategy may be giving way to an all-out political war.



EnergyBiz Insider has been awarded the Gold for Original Web Commentary presented by the American Society of Business Press Editors. The column is also the Winner of the 2011 Online Column category awarded by Media Industry News, MIN. Ken Silverstein has been honored as one of MIN’s Most Intriguing People in Media.

Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein

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