February 19, 2010 08:02 PM UTC

Colorado Energy Jobs Summit Live Blog

•  
• by: redstateblues

(Because I love jobs and RSB – promoted by Danny the Red (hair))

UPDATE: 9News is streaming the Q&A session with Sen. Udall and Sec. Chu. Click the link to go to the live feed. Adam Schrager is monitoring the chat on 9 News too, so if you want to ask a question, Adam will be watching.

Today at Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Sen. Mark Udall is hosting an energy jobs summit. I was invited to come cover it for Pols by Udall’s Senate office, and I was happy to accept.

A few technical problems with the WiFi forced me to take some notes, but I wrote them in the live blog style. Check back for updates in the diary throughout the day, and make sure to check back around lunch time because Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be giving the keynote address.

Live blog follows

Udall – “China is investing billions in renewable energy… it’s not because it makes them feel good. It’s because they have to, and we can’t let them get [any further] ahead.”

Udall: “We need to put a price on carbon. I am currently drafting legislation in the Senate that would be a comprehensive energy bill. We’re working with people to figure out a way to do this.” Says he hopes that the panel will discuss it today.

Sen. Udall spoke for ten minutes, opening the summit. Intoduced Rep. Perlmutter.

Perlmutter:”We’re not here to just pat each other on the back, but when you have as much focus and have shown as much leadership [as Gov. Ritter and Sen. Udall] it deserves to be acknowledged.” Followed by polite applause.

“The tipping point for this recession was the $147 a barrel oil prices.”

Perlmutter welcomes everyone to the 7th CD, Anschutz Medical Campus, and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

The panel discussions are getting started now. The moderator, Mike Hughes of the Keystone Center, asked the Governor to talk about ways to create clean energy jobs. This is Ritter’s strongest issue as Governor, so it’s not too surprising that he’s able to talk clearly and concisely. He mentioned the 10% RES (Renewable Energy Standard) that the voters passed in 2004. He said that despite the political will not really being there, the state legislature was able to pass laws that are helping to build the New Energy Economy. “The New Energy Economy and the Clean Energy Economy are the same thing.”

“Conoco Phillips, a Forbes 500 company, is bringing their renewable energy facility here (to Louisville, my home town – rsb)

Ritter is talking about the 30% RES that he is trying to push the state legislature to adopt. Says that it’s important to make sure that they aren’t adversely affecting the people who are out of work, or struggling to make ends meet.

Don McClure of EnCana Oil and Gas (he’s also the President of COGA) is about to talk. This should be interesting. Moderator Mike Hughes says he will be talking about natural gas.

McClure: “[over 100,000] people are employed in the oil and gas industry in Colorado, which makes up 6% of the total people employed.”

“Natural gas has very, very strong domestic clean burning potential in the United States.” Mentions that it has 50% of the carbon emissions of oil or other fuels.

The next speaker on the panel is Kim Sanchez Rael, a venture capitalist from New Mexico.

“When I was told that I would be sharing the stage with some politicians, a friend told me that I by the time it got to me, I wouldn’t have enough time to talk.” Mentions that she loves politicians, mostly because her husband is one. He’s running for Lt. Governor of New Mexico.

“It is a very high risk business… it’s hard to attract capital to these kinds of ventures because it’s such a risk.”

Rael: “There just isn’t a source of capital for these renewable energy projects.” She says she has some potential fixes though. “What if we created a fund to attract capital, and we made those investments capital gains tax free?” This suggestion is directed right at Udall. Sounds like Laughing Boy’s kind of Democrat.

The panel is now going to discuss some of these issue between themselves.

Ritter asks if there’s anything that we can do to address climate and energy in the political climate this country is currently in, where Americans are concerned about deficits and spending. He asks “Is there a way we can address [these issues] without racking up huge deficits?”

Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund says that there are ways, but that the budget deficit isn’t as important as the trade deficit. He mentions that America imports 70% of its energy from overseas, and that should be more concerning for Americans than whether or not the potential plan is deficit neutral.

10 more minutes in this panel. The audience will now ask some questions of the panelists.

A business owner asks the panel about long-term policies. He mentions that he was in India, and they are working on 20 year plans to reduce carbon emissions through renewable energy. (He kind of soap boxed for a little while, Moderator Mike Hughes asked him if there was a question in there somewhere.) Fred Krupp says that there is pending legislation (I think he said Waxmann sponsored it) but that it’s getting held up in the Senate, but that it is a 14 year plan.

“I would say that all major legislation that has ever passed the Senate has been declared ‘dead’ 5 or 6 times before it was passed.” 🙂

The next question is from a business owner wondering about the sunset on a particular law that affects whether or not his company will be able to get the tax credit it needs to pursue these renewable energy projects.

Ritter says that his hope is that the tax credit will be extended beyond September of 2011 when it is set to expire.

Udall says that there are a lot of “sweeteners” that can be added to legislation to help  encourage businesses to be partners in the push for renewable energy.

————————————————-

Okay, back from the break. We’re on to the second panel now, which features Sen. Michael Bennet and a few other panelists. The moderator for this panel is Jon Cowan, who is President of the “moderate progressive” (oxymoron?) group Third Way, whose board includes Sen. Udall.

Cowan: “Udall is undoubtedly one of the… leaders in the country on clean energy.”

“China invests almost as much on clean energy R&D in one week as the US does in one year.” [That’s just sad – rsb]

Cowan introduces Sen. Bennet, and asks him about renewable energy projects in rural areas, which he Cowan says are often overlooked compared to energy projects in big cities.

Bennet: “If we can end our dependence on foreign oil, it will be the biggest gift we can give to the next generation.”

“I believe the place where we need to put our marker down is on renewable energy.”

On rural renewable energy: “In rural Colorado, where people make a habit of being entrepreneurs… the first thing we need to do is make the case that this is good for rural Colorado.” He says that we have to overcome the skepticism that exists there, where they wonder if this will work for them.”

Bennet mentions that it would be important to include agriculture in the plan, and to reward farmers who are trying to make their businesses more energy efficient.

The next panelist to speak is Ledy Garcia-Eckstein, who is the executive director of the WIRED initiative, which was a four year program funded by grants that was designed to create a pipeline of workers for Denver’s “high growth industries”, including renewable energy.

[Sorry for the gap here, I had to take a phone call and missed what Ms. Garcia-Eckstein had to say.]

The next panelist is Jim Hunter, who is Director of the Utility Department of the IBEW, which is a member of the AFL-CIO.

Hunter: “It’s not just about jobs, it’s about careers.”

“Once we build all of this [the technology] we need people who can maintain it.”

“The IBEW firmly believes we need a policy on what we’re going to do about carbon moving forward.”

The next panelist is Jerome Ringo, who was the only African American delegate at the Kyoto conferences in 1998, and now works for Global Strategies, Green Port, Inc., a company that is trying to make trading ports more green and energy efficient.

Ringo talked about the need to reach out to African Americans about renewable energy. Said “There are more young black Americans in our prisons than there are in our universities.” He says that the more young black men and women we can get to go to college, the more we can work to get them involved in green jobs–which pretty much everyone here agrees are crucial to economic development in poor rural and urban areas.

The last speaker is Charles Zimmerman, who is the VP of International Design and Construction for Wal-Mart.

“Energy is our #2 operating expense.” [#1 is keeping out union organizers. j/k -rsb]

“We got a lot of credit for how we responded to the Katrina situation, and we started asking ourselves ‘How can we be this kind of company every day?'” Says that as the biggest company in the world, they are also one of the biggest consumers of energy in the world.

“Two weeks ago, I was in Guatemala City standing in a parking lot… the reason we were there was because it was the first parking lot built solely with LED lighting anywhere in Central America.”

“Those LED lamps will last ten years, rather than two years… we have made a commitment to build all of our parking lot lighting with LEDs”. He says rather than exporting green jobs, we should be building products in America, and exporting them to other countries.

“There is still a lot of low-hanging fruit left on the efficiency side,”

Question time from the audience now.

Audience member: “Is there any tie between clean energy and clean water?”

One panelist whose name I didn’t catch, says water needs to be part of the discussion–especially on the Eastern Slope where here have been issues with the cleanliness of river water, and she believes

Bennet: “Thank goodness we’re not using water at the rate we were in the 70s.” Says that we’re using more water from the streams than we’re putting back in.

“We have, I think, to have a much more comprehensive approach… to land use than we have had. And it’s not the same approach that we’ve had since the natural gas wars of the 1970s.”

The next question is about the jobs bill that Congress will be tackling next week.

Bennet: “I’m dreading going back to Washington to work on this jobs bill because it’s been so nice to be in Colorado this week… I completely agree… that as we think about this new energy policy we should be thinking about picking these [job areas] so that there aren’t winners or losers, but so it helps everybody.”

“If I look at the bill that came out of the House of Representatives, what I see in that bill is that natural gas is losing out to some renewables, and coal. Whatever you think about clean coal, I think it’s a mistake because of the fact that natural gas burns at 50% of the carbon emissions of coal.”

———————————————

And we’re now back from lunch. Udall is introducing Energy Secretary and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu.

Chu: “In this second industrial revolution, we can decrease our dependency on foreign oil, we can combat climate change.” He shows a slide that has a pie chart of total energy consumption. 95% of our total consumption is petroleum.

“By 2015, 2020, 2025, the oil price [per barrel] might be back to $100.”

Next slide reads “Climate change is real”. (sorry libertad -rsb)

Chu is now going through the arguments and counter-arguments that have been presented by the AGW crowd. One of them is that the amount of solar energy reaching Earth has increased. The next slide is one that shows two graphs; one is the solar energy cycle, and the other is average global surface temperature. The solar cycle looks like a sine wave, but the surface temperature is steadily rising.

Chu: “It ain’t sunspots.”

The next slide is a graph showing CO2 concentration during the past 800,000 years. Showing present day, the graph shows that current levels are above the highest concentration in that time.  “Right now, we’ve gone off the scale of the last 800,000 years.”

Going ahead in time, the line shoots up from 300 parts per million to 900 parts per million in just 100 years. This is triple the highest level over the last 800,000 years.

Chu is now going through a fairly complicated slide showing the effects on CO2 on naturally occurring carbon isotopes in the atmosphere.

“When we take fossil fuel and burn it. We’re making pristine carbon, not radioactive carbon.”

Chu says this data is “the smoking gun”, because it proves that the non-radiated carbon in the atmosphere is caused by fossil fuel emissions created by humans.

The next slide shows that the solar energy hitting the Earth is constant, the greenhouse gasses trapped inside the atmosphere stay trapped, so the Earth gets hotter as a way of maintaining equilibrium.

Chu: “Now let’s get to the good news… [but] first some predictions: the price of oil will go up, and we will live in a carbon-constrained world.” Says that it’s like what Wayne Gretzky used to say: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.”

Next slide reads: “We are falling behind in the clean energy race.” Chu says “We are not doing so well.” The next slide shows how China is now the world leader in renewable energy technology. “Why we would want to stop being the leader in this is beyond me.”

Next slide headline: “China is spending ~$9 billion a month on clean energy.” (is anyone else as scared by this fact as me?)

Chu: “So what are we doing? Well, we’re doing something, that’s the good news.” He touts ARRA as having helped, the next slide says “The Recovery Act is making an $80 B down payment on the clean energy economy.”

The next slide shows that ARRA supported the construction of 20 battery factories for hybrid automobiles. Next slide says that $550 million in awards from the Department of Energy came to Colorado.

Chu: “We’re enforcing mileage standards–they were never really enforced before.”

The next slide shows that Dow Chemical saved $7 billion over the last 13 years through its commitment in 2004 to become 20% more energy efficient. (This is something that needs to be repeated to Republicans and business leaders. It’s something that they can relate to. Who wouldn’t want to save $7 billion over a little more than a decade? -rsb)

Chu: “We also need to develop and deploy renewable energies.” Again referring to ARRA, Chu mentions that there is a 30% tax credit for renewables available to companies as soon as they install the renewable energy technology, rather than having to wait for tax time to get that money.

The next subject he’s addressing is making  rechargeable batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles more efficient. He shows a battery showing that the most efficient fuels are gasoline, diesel, and fat metabolism.

Chu is now discussing a new sub-agency that was created to disperse funds to projects that he says have the potential to be “home runs”. “Now, if you’re trying to hit a home run, you’re going to strike out a lot… but if you can get that 1 in 10 or 1 in 20, then you know you’ve done something.”

Chu is wrapping things up now. He showed a picture of the Earth taken by Apollo 8 astronauts, along with the quote from one of them “We came all this way to discover the moon, but the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

Chu: “The most important policy that will stimulate innovation is a declining cap on carbon emissions”.