Renewable energy in Portland, Oregon, and the world

Yesterday, the Portland City Council adopted the Peak Oil Task Force report. Lots of comments pro and con on Portland Transport. Today, updated news of proposed legislation at the State Legislature, via the CUB* (Citizens’ Utility Board of Oregon) web site. They cite the article in The Oregonian on Tuesday, noting it gave opponents of the bill more column inches than its supporters.
[* Note: if you only have time to follow one of the links in this post, please read the CUB web site post]

Readers of Jack Bog’s blog will be amused as I at the quotation in The O‘s article, “We really are the linchpins to effectuate this,” said Scott Bolton, a lobbyist for PacifiCorp, which operates the electric utility Pacific Power.

Let’s get real. There are many things each one of us could do, that wouldn’t take an extraordinary amount of effort on our part, to cut down on the use of fuels of all types. And Oregon, with our wind, wave, and solar capacity, should be leading the world in using renewable sources.

Today in Brussels, European Union (EU) leaders are expected to commit to cutting carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.
“We have been speaking about climate change; now we have an opportunity to take decisions that are really important, not only for Europe but for the rest of the world. Only if we take the initiative are we able afterwards to engage the rest of the world,” said Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Commission President. “It’s not just about Europe, it’s also that we need the United States, we need China, we need India, we need others to come with us,” he added.

EU leaders would likely agree to a deeper cut of 30% in emissions by 2020 if those other other developed and emerging nations joined in. But France, which depends heavily on nuclear power, is opposed to the EU compromise even, saying that, too, should be considered a clean source of energy. Sorry, French people, unless you’ve found some way of neutralizing the toxic waste left over, it isn’t. And poorer Eastern European countries, which are more dependent on heavy industry and carbon-heavy coal, say they will struggle to make the investment in wind farms and solar power necessary to meet the targets. If countries like Poland are going to have to meet the targets, surely Oregon and the United States can manage it too? As a BBC editorial comments, “The big prize is of course persuading the United States to come on board”. Oregon’s adoption of renewable energy targets would be a step in nudging national policy.

Meanwhile China continues heavily dependent on coal, whose pollution, reported in the New York Times last year, was known and worried about back in the 1980s, according to Norma Paulus when she visited the Alliance a few months ago. She said when she was on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a four state commission with Idaho, Washington, and Montana, there were two more liberal delegates, two more conservative. They all agreed actions needed to happen on global warming and pollution, back then.

Is it time yet? If not now, when? Pass the renewable energy bill at the Legislature, already.