ALTERNATIVE ENERGY:

Green can fatten Nevadans’ wallets, too

That’s what summit speakers stress in advocating massive investments

Steve Marcus

Johnnie Stoker, left, president and chief executive of Henderson-based K2 Energy Solutions, shows off an electric HST Shelby Cobra to Kelvin Woods and Joseph Born at the National Clean Energy Summit on Tuesday. The car is equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries and can travel from 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds, Stoker said.

By Phoebe Sweet (contact)

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Clinton visits UNLV

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Former President Bill Clinton spoke Monday at UNLV as part of this week's National Clean Energy Summit.

National Clean Energy Summit highlights (8-19-2008)
Three years later, challenge renewed (8-19-2008)
Reid summit in green spotlight (8-16-2008)

The green in “green energy economy” is money as much as environmentalism.

That was the message Tuesday from academics, business leaders, governors and other politicians to more than 1,000 attendees at the National Clean Energy Summit at UNLV.

The tone was set in the morning by T. Boone Pickens, a Texan famous for making billions in the oil industry. He is spending $58 million of his own money touting a plan to use a 4,000-megawatt wind farm to free up natural gas for use by trucks and buses. Pickens said the country is “getting close to a disaster” by spending $700 billion a year on foreign oil.

“Critics say, ‘That’s commerce. We’re buying something and we’re getting something ... exchanging money for goods,’ ” Pickens said. “If I can exchange that money for goods in America, that’s commerce.”

He added that if he can also create jobs, tax revenue and economic development while lessening the country’s reliance on volatile Middle Eastern countries for oil, that, too, would be commerce.

Emcee Rose McKinney James said the Chinese word for crisis — as in energy crisis — is made up of the two characters for danger and opportunity.

The summit sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called this energy crisis — which many speakers say is the worst since lines formed at gas stations in the ’70s — an “enormous economic opportunity” if handled the right way. Among the potential benefits, he said, are hundreds of thousands of new jobs and billions saved on American electricity bills.

It was a theme echoed throughout the day.

Jim Murren, president and chief operating officer of MGM Mirage, said conservation and green initiatives can save businesses money and serve as a good marketing tool.

Van Jones, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and founder of Green for All, said green initiatives — especially conservation measures — will also help the poorest Americans by lowering their electricity rates and bills and providing new skilled jobs.

Danny Thompson, executive director and treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said solar projects in the valley are already providing jobs for Las Vegas workers.

Somer Hollingsworth, executive director of the Nevada Development Authority, said more projects in the pipeline will help spur economic development in a region traditionally reliant on the tourism industry. Hollingsworth said he is in talks with at least three solar developers who want to build projects in Nevada, including BrightSource Energy, Solar Millenium and El Dorado Energy. The three companies want to build more than 465 megawatts of solar power, he said. That’s enough power to supply more than 350,000 homes.

State Sen. Dina Titus said the $6 billion to $8 billion Nevada spends on energy every year could be kept in the state if it developed its solar, wind and geothermal resources. Keeping that money in Nevada would also create jobs, as it has at Nevada-based geothermal company Ormat, which employed eight people in 1984 and today is the third-largest geothermal company in the country, employing more than 200 people.

“It really is a win, win, win. The environment is better, the economy is better, national security is better ... We should be doing it in a hurry,” Titus said.

But before these predictions can come true, Reid and other speakers said, it will take action by state and federal governments, investment by private business and possibly a new president in the White House.

Key to spurring a renewable energy economy is passing long-term tax credits for renewables development, which will “incentivize alternative power projects and foster investment in renewable R&D. It’s been estimated that this one action alone will spur $1 billion in investments and create 75,000 green-collar jobs,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “The wealth of clean solar power that Harry Reid and others know can be produced here in the sun-washed Southwest will benefit all Americans.”

Speakers said other important initiatives include setting a national standard for the amount of electricity utilities must buy from renewable resources; updating and nationalizing building code and appliance efficiency standards; taxing or otherwise setting a price on carbon emissions; modernizing the nation’s electric grid to accommodate more renewable energy; and invest in research and development for new technology, especially electric cars.

Speakers also said expanding public transportation; funding a weatherization and energy efficiency program for poorer Americans; passing laws to reward utilities for investing in conservation and renewables rather than in traditional fossil fuel plants; and identifying federal lands with high solar, wind or geothermal potential would be important.

They also said states and the federal government should lead by example by reducing their own energy consumption, building only energy-efficient buildings and agreeing to purchase alternative-fueled or electric cars when they become available.

And Reid said he and the other politicians would take the policy suggestions from the summit to both parties’ national conventions this month. He said that although there would be no written list of initiatives he and the other politicians would like to see infiltrate party platforms, the message would be heard.

Many speakers also emphasized that no state was better positioned to lead the charge into this green energy economy than Nevada, with its rich renewable resources. They said Nevada could not only supply its own energy needs with renewables, it could also export electricity to the rest of the Southwest with an improved transmission grid.

One champion of Nevada’s energy export market who didn’t attend Tuesday was Gov. Jim Gibbons.

Spokesman Ben Kieckefer said Gibbons had not been invited.

“Harry Reid decided not to invite him,” Kieckefer said. “It was Harry Reid’s summit, so Harry Reid gets to invite who he wants ... It’s not appropriate to invite yourself to someone’s party.”

Kieckefer added that Gibbons was “not going to beg” for an invitation.

Reid spokesman Jon Summers said the point of the summit was to have a national conversation about renewable energy, and that Nevada was well represented by UNLV President David Ashley, state Sens. Randolph Townsend (a Republican) and Dina Titus, as well as business and union leaders from the state. Govs.Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Jon Huntsman of Utah (another Republican) were also there, as was U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis of California.

Discussion: 17 comments so far…

By Gordon

8/20/08 at 8:17 a.m.

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"Fattening one wallet lightens up others" I take it your not from Nevada. EVERY for profit business fattens one wallet and lightens others.

"Boones-Farm Pickens only investing $58 million versus the BILLIONS he's earned is pathetic." Well you summed up the argument of "Why hasn't big oil invested their profits in new energy" Over 150 billion in profits and very little invested in new energy sources.

I'm sure all you DRILL, DRILL, DRILL nuts will be happy the governement auctioned off leases for 9 million more acres in the western gulf coast today. The clock has started, lets see how quickly they drill.

All new industries are expensive in the beginning. Look how expensive cell phones and the internet were in the beginning. Once the basic infrastructure and manufacturing is completed, the costs for green energy will drop dramatically.

Great conference, hopefully their will be bi-partisan discussions in September and we get quality energy legislation soon. But the republicans have to stop blocking green energy in favor of the their overlords big oils demands.

Conservation was widely accepted as the fastest and easiest way to bring down prices quickly.
By jfnance32

8/20/08 at 8:49 a.m.

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The Solar One plant southwest of Las Vegas generates energy at 240% current market price.

I guess you can say that renewables will also deflat some wallets, too.

Thank God that energy is only a tiny part of what gets pump into our homes.

When they start building those expensive things west/northwest of Las Vegas, they will have to add the cost of building billions of dollars of transmission lines.

Watch out...consumers....one day your power bill might go up more than 240%.
By texexnv

8/20/08 at 9:10 a.m.

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Isn't it interesting that Hillary is #3/100 in the U.S. Senate on the list of hogs at the Big Oil slop trough? http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/su... And Boss Reid is #28/100.

I think we can expect Reid to do as much about energy as he has done about the war in Iraq. http://texex-xpress.blogspot.com/2008/08...
By Gordon

8/20/08 at 9:30 a.m.

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Hey tex, thanks for that link. It's very interesting. John McCain is number one receiving $1,394,000 million and yes Clinton is #3 with $400,419 thousand and Obama at #4 with $398,765.

But did you notice that 12 of the top 15 are republicans? Of the 3 democrats in the top 15, 2 of them are/were presidential candidates. The other democrat is from Louisiana which makes sense to me.

Nance: Where do you get this 240% from?
By PatriciaLV

8/20/08 at 9:35 a.m.

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"Boss Reid" took in $46K vs McCain who's just under $1.4 million. Even Obama's up there at just under $400K (right behind Hillary).

None of them will do much about anything re energy, it would seem. Can't bite the hands that feed them.

Very interesting list. I always liked that web site.
By Gordon

8/20/08 at 9:38 a.m.

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Remove the words million and thousand from my above post. My poor editing failed to remove them when I changed the number format from decimal to long form. Sorry Guys, it just looked so bad when I re-read it, not that my grammar is great, anyways.....
By neiman1

8/20/08 at 9:43 a.m.

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Green can help. But can we burn American oil instead of Russian and Saudi oil until then?
By thebs

8/20/08 at 9:54 a.m.

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I'd like some socioeconomic background to that list. I think what you'd find is that, as you climb the ladder from janitors to executives, the contributions would likewise tilt from Obama to McCain.

What's the point of evaluating the employees' contributions, again?
By KDR81

8/20/08 at 10:08 a.m.

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Subsidies, subsidies, subsidies...

Boy, NPRI was right yesterday when they wrote this: http://npri.org/publications/the-high-co...

Did they hire a physic or something?
By PatriciaLV

8/20/08 at 10:10 a.m.

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Aren't the executives of these companies considered as "employees"? The contributions also include PACs.

I'd like to see a better breakdown, too. Which employees? What were just the PACs' contributions? etc.

I've used this web site since 2000 or so (IIRC) and it's pretty eye-opening. Well, except for the apparent lack of specifics.
By jfnance32

8/20/08 at 10:26 a.m.

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Solar One southwest of Las Vegas is owned by a Spanish company.

I can't figure that one out.
By jfnance32

8/20/08 at 11:20 a.m.

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The car in the picture above is a electric HST Shelby Cobra.

It cost a cheap $125,0000.

It has a range of 125 miles.

It will take 8 hours to recharge.
By Future2012

8/20/08 at 3:44 p.m.

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Millions of jobs will be lost in the non-renewable industries. There are winner and losers. That is why we need a planned transition not the dislocation promoted by Reid and Pelosi.

Also why are we pick Solar and Wind as the answer. They require huge infrstructure investment to get electricity to the consummer, that can be avoided with Hydrogen fuel cells.
By Future2012

8/20/08 at 3:49 p.m.

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Geothermal Toxic Waste a Problem

Geothermal sites often are located in protected wilderness areas that environmentalists do not want disturbed.
The level of emissions from geothermal are quite varied and depend on both the geothermal resource as the technology used and the geography.
Geothermal plants require injecting "highly toxic acids" into virgin geothermal wells to increase geothermal power production. That will create groundwater pollution and pose a threat to trout and other wildlife in the regional watershed.
In some applications there can be CO2 emissions, heavy requirements for cooling water--as much as 100,000 gallons per MW per day--hydrogen sulfide emissions, waste disposal issues with dissolved solids, and even toxic waste.
Geothermal power plants tend to emit hydrogen sulfide (H2S)--which is toxic at fairly low levels--and mercury
Whatever is not re-injected into the ground can cause local groundwater pollution. geothermal plants would require excavating RCRA toxic hazardous waste sumps.
Geothermal fluids are always foul smelling--they smell like very rotten eggs due to the H2S. The fluids are highly brackish and contain high levels of heavy metals."
Geothermal power plants are linked to increased seismic activity. The folks in Anderson, California, and other areas surrounding Geysers steamfield, the world's largest developed geothermal field, have fairly complained about induced seismicity brought about by geothermal operations. The seismic activity results when re-injected materials replace extracted steam.
By PatriciaLV

8/21/08 at 6:08 a.m.

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Future, can you provide a link to the source for that? I'd like to investigate it further.
By Socrates

8/22/08 at 11:06 a.m.

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PatriciaLV, it seems that most of the information mentioned in the "Geothermal Toxic Waste a Problem" post comes from a 2004 article published by the Heartland Institute. Here's a link:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?art...

As always, I urge due diligence in checking the source of this information as well as its accuracy.

The bottom line is that everything we do has an impact. Overpopulation is amplifying the issue, turning even less-damaging activities into problems.