eye on business
‘Just Say No’ is Not an Energy Strategy
Don C. Brunell, AWB President
When President Obama took a pass on the Keystone XL pipeline, it only reconfirmed that our current national energy
strategy is “Just Say No!” Any project that burns fossil fuels —
coal, natural gas or even waste wood — is especially off-limits.
For example, a very small biomass boiler in downtown
Vancouver raised such an outcry from city leaders and neighborhood groups that the investors threw up their hands and
walked away. Clark County contracted with Schneider Elec-
tric to build and operate a biomass-fueled plant that would’ve
generated heat for five county buildings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years.
is the answer blowing in the wind?
In 2006, our state’s voters narrowly approved I-937, which
emphasized wind as its preferred renewable electricity generating source. Unfortunately, I-937 authors said “no” to
hydropower as “renewable” and soon learned no one wants
wind towers in their backyards or within their line of sight.
The latest example is family- owned SDS Lumber
Company located in Bingen. SDS proposed building a 75
megawatt wind farm on a windy ridge not suited for timber production outside the boundaries of the Columbia
River Gorge Scenic Area and hidden from Interstate 84 in
Oregon and State Route 14 in Washington.
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association of washington business
Finally, after four years of hearings and deliberations, Gov.
Chris Gregoire approved a slimmed down Wind Ridge Wind
Farm, reducing the number of turbines from 50 to 35. But
that wasn’t enough to please the Friends of the Gorge whose
members want the project eradicated.
no tradeoffs, no mitigation, just kill it
It is not a matter of tradeoffs or mitigation anymore. Today,
it is “Just Kill It!”
Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce identified
351 stalled energy projects nationwide that in aggregate are costing the American economy $1.1 trillion in
GDP and 1.9 million jobs a year that could be created
during the construction phase of these projects alone.
Neither the Vancouver biomass nor the Wind Ridge
project were included in those calculations.
The Keystone XL pipeline bringing crude from the
Canadian oil sand to Midwest and Gulf state refineries alone could create 20,000 U.S. manufacturing
jobs immediately and 250,000 by 2035. The projected
impact to U.S. GDP would be between $200 billion —
$800 billion, but hardened and well-heeled national
environmental groups are out to stop it period.
Meanwhile, gas at the pump has gone from $1.81 a
gallon in December 2008 to well north of $4 today.
inconvenient truth
While Americans find reasons to stop energy projects, the
rest of the world is moving ahead fast. They realize energy is
the key to their future. The truth is energy demand around
the world will grow by 53 percent by 2035 especially in China
and developing countries.
Meanwhile, coal, which America has in abundance and
opponents abhor, will increase as fuel to generate electricity.
In fact, China is now the leader in clean-coal technology
and replacing old smog-belching coal plants with advanced
pollution technology.
So whether we like it or not, the rest of the world isn’t
just saying no. They will use more energy from all sources
and are finding ways to XZ