People will often ask, “Of all the issues you deal with, which one keeps you awake at night?”

 The answer, without question, is energy.

Maybe it is because my dad was a master electrician. He spent 50 years wiring everything from people’s homes to major equipment in factories. Over the course his lifetime, he saw the demand grow for electricity, or as he called it, “juice.”

For example, in the 1950s, he was on the crew that wired the aluminum smelter at Columbia Falls, Mont., when there was an abundance of electricity that became the backbone of the Northwest economy.

Today, electrical demand in our homes continues to climb. In 1978 the average size home used 1.07 kilowatt-hours. By 2030, the average household electrical need will be 1.45kwh due to more energy-consuming devices such as computers and flat-screen televisions.

So if you figure that America’s population will grow from a little over 300 million today to 363 million in 2030, you have to worry if we will have enough “juice.” That’s the $64 million question.

All Fuels on Deck
First, in the Northwest, where hydropower produces 70 percent of our electricity, some of the same groups opposing coal and other fossil fuels also want to cut hydropower production on the Columbia and Snake rivers — the core of our power generating corridor. 

Never mind hydropower is greenhouse gas-free and biologists continue to make giant strides in salmon runs recovery; some just want to breach the four lower Snake River dams. Those dams, at peak production, provide enough electricity to light the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan areas.

Second, while everyone wants wind power, there are some who consider the towering wind mills to be “visual pollution.” In at least three areas near Dayton, Cle Elum/Ellensburg and Goldendale, people have gone to local government and the courts to protect their unobstructed views.

Third, some leading politicians want to ban using coal regardless of rapidly developing clean coal technology developments. If coal is wiped out, the TransAlta power plant at Centralia is in deep trouble. It burns low-sulfur coal, mostly from Montana and Wyoming, and generates enough electricity for 1,123,200 homes and provides 370 jobs family-wage jobs. It has state-of-the-art air quality technology and the company is willing to spend more. By-products from its emissions abatement go into making concrete and “green” sheetrock.

Fourth, I-937 was written in a way to create winners and losers. For example, it is also biased against black pulping liquors, an energy by-product from making paper. The result is Simpson Investment Co. is constructing a $100 million biomass energy plant on Tacoma’s Tideflats and because its electricity does not qualify as renewable under I-937, Simpson is selling the electricity to Oregon and California where pulping liquors count as renewable.

Finally, our state energy policies encourage solar and wind as electrical sources, yet I-937 limits purchase of that power to Washington, Oregon, northern Idaho and western Montana. The big-time wind potential is in Texas and the plains states.

China and India Focus on All Sources

Consider these next two facts and you, too, may have insomnia.

China and India will triple their power consumption by 2030 and are building coal-fired power plants at a record pace — about one each month. Their emphasis is power supply, not fuel sources. They want “the juice” from where ever it is made.

We need to increase wind, solar, biomass and conservation, but despite our best efforts by 2030, our dependency on coal increases. Today, 49 percent of our electricity comes from coal and by 2030, it increases to almost 58 percent.

America is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. We owe it to our children to leave them with a reliable supply of energy.

Washington needs a rational, realistic energy policy based on fact, not prejudice. We need to encourage the private sector to be innovative with all fuel sources. Rather than finding ways to kill coal, why not develop the technology to make it a cleaner fuel and sell that technology to the rest of the world?

Isn’t that what developing our “green economy” is all about?