Yesterday, The Governor hosted another Governor and 3 high ranking officials from Washington. The Obama and Granholm Administrations want federal climate change legislation to become law. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus was there.
TRX1: The White House invited 250 influential people in the Energy industry to the Dow Center in Saginaw. The highest ranking official was Gary Locke. He’s the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
AX1: “what is the true energy policy of the United states?”
TRX2: Not many people know. It’s complicated and the government hasn’t done a good job explaining what the policy is. Let’s just take one idea among the many: incentives. Secretary Locke says alternative energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel energy.
AX2: “If you have to build a power plant the ratepayers have to pay this enormous cost. So your electricity prices go up every time you’re building power plants. And if we can be more efficient as Governor Doyle was talking about, conservation saves you money. It saves you money. And we need to have the incentives for utilities to save money and to pass the savings on to the ratepayers.”
TRX3: Critics of wind, solar and biomass say it’s not dependable. There’s not enough of it. And it’s too expensive. In many cases it still is. Gary Locke says that’s why the government is providing grants for weatherization, tax credits for insulation and new windows in homes. And he says that’s where the utilities have to be involved.
AX3: “because they’re the ones always communicating with the citizens every month and talking about various programs.”
TRX4: Secretary Locke is promoting the smart grid. This is where you can tell your computer when to run all the appliances and vehicles hooked up in your home. The entire country might have a smart grid in the next few years. Some parts of the West coast already have smart meters. The utility companies even install them for free.
AX4: “If the utility charges less for electricity after midnight I’m gonna use my computer and tell my electric dryer to come on when the power is cheapest. When the utility charges the lowest price for electricity.”
TRX5: Those little savings on each device, every day, in every household, will save billions of dollars and tons of co2 from going into the atmosphere. So the average guy will be more aware of his energy consumption. Meanwhile, the government has to motivate power providers. It needs to take away the guessing and give certainty. Says Commerce Secretary Locke:
AX5: “we need to make sure that the utilities have the authority to charge different prices for different parts of the day.”
AX6: “it’s hard to incent a utility to run out and get customers to use less if that ultimately is gonna harm them financially.
TRX6: David Joos was one of the special invitees. He’s President of Consumers Energy.
AX7: “….this decoupling mechanism.”
TRX7: Utilities will make money when they don’t have to spend money on having so much power available to customers. Eventually, everyone will compete to use as little energy as possible. This is also the thinking of groups like the Sierra Club that are trying to stop new coal fired power plants from being built.
AX8: “I look at renewable energy and I think a lot of it is very distributed.”
TRX8: That’s Jim McGuiness. He manages Crystal Mountain Resort near Thompsonville.
TRX9: A couple miles west of the Dow Event Center in Saginaw, Gerry Decker was sitting at home. He has the credentials to have been amongst the bigwigs yesterday. His company was the first to put up windmills in the thumb. He was a Dow Nuclear engineer. And President Jimmy Carter wanted him to be Energy Secretary. He’s 88 years old.