Alabama's need for change

It has been repeated time and again that Alabama doesn't have the climate to support renewable energy. A recent Montgomery Advertiser article claims proposed energy legislation would be blatantly unfair to Southern states because it would lead to increased rates and dampened economic development.

As proof, Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research was quoted as stating that passage of the energy legislation would be a tool of economic warfare. Moreover, at the Joint Committee on Energy meeting last week in the Statehouse, it was clear that dirty coal and nuclear interests are trying to dominate the energy discussion.

It has been suggested that additional environmental regulations will be bad for poor people. It has been repeated that Alabama doesn't have the climate to support renewable energy. And the Business Alliance for Responsible Development, an entity that in fact resists efforts that promote a cleaner and healthier state, claims that "no-growth extremists maintain that we must choose between having a healthy economy or a healthy environment." Alabama Power Co. is listed as the chair of that organization, whose members are a who's who of Alabama's top polluters.

They call it "clean coal." We call it dirty business as usual.

Many people in Alabama are tired of being given a false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. Public-interest groups and environmental groups have stated for years that the two are mutually dependent upon one another.

Why the negative spin-doctors in a time of such opportunity? Simply put, these corporations are in the business of protecting their economic interests, and they are threatened by the prospect of progress. What are they leaving out of the conversation?

The fact remains that clean and affordable energy efficiency measures coupled with renewable energy technologies will allow us to phase out both coal and nuclear plants over the next 40 years. And as author Paul Roberts has written: " Saving energy is almost always cheaper than making it: there is far more oil to be found in Detroit by designing more fuel-efficient cars than could ever be pumped out of (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge)."

It has been noted that as the U.S. economy continues downhill, our lawmakers continue to compromise the country's economic position by limiting public policy to the short-term profit motives of the coal, natural gas and nuclear industries. In the meantime, oil-rich Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates is moving strategically to accelerate development of solution-based renewable technologies that, in large part, tap into expertise from the American university system.

Its Masdar Initiative will create a newly built model city based on a sustainable, zero-carbon design with a population of 50,000. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will support the new Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and have a satellite campus on site. It is reported that the project is expected to cost $22 billion and take eight years to build. Stanford University is also receiving research dollars to the tune of $25 million. American ingenuity now seems to be for sale to the highest bidder.

Due to influence from the coal, natural gas, nuclear and utility industries in the U.S. Congress and the Alabama Statehouse, we could soon be adding renewable and other technology imports to oil imports from the Middle East. So much for energy independence through American ingenuity!

At one time, the United States was at the pinnacle of wind-turbine technology and was the largest producer of solar photovoltaic cells in the world. What have we done with those economic and energy secure advantages? We have squandered them along with the opportunity to create millions of jobs.

But energy executives in Alabama aren't worried about their jobs. Top energy corporate executives brought home millions last year, in addition to the millions that Southern energy companies spent lobbying our lawmakers and green-washing their commercials. These expenditures are unacceptable on the heels of proposed rate raises that would impact some of Alabama's poorest people and in light of the recent spills of waste associated with the Tennessee Valley Authority's dirty coal-power plants that put our citizens in harm's way.

They incorrectly claim we don't have the climate to support renewable energy, but Alabamians are tired of corporate greed driving energy choices. As a state, we need and deserve a commitment to clean, affordable renewable energy.

Jenny Dorgan is program coordinator for the Alabama Environmental Council.