Published: August 27, 2009 10:29 am      

House Bill 80 keeps clean energy on fast track

The promise of green jobs and clean energy projects is being kept all across Pennsylvania. Billions of dollars in clean energy investment and thousands of green jobs are helping in these tough economic times.

The competition for green jobs, clean energy technology, and billions of dollars in private investment is fierce. We must pass House Bill 80, a bill that updates and expands our most important clean energy policy.

During 2009, Pennsylvania’s wind industry will more than double, going from 360 to 817 megawatts or enough power for 270,000 homes. Wind power will bring $900 million of private investment to the commonwealth this year.

Now about 500 Pennsylvanians are constructing wind farms, including the state’s biggest wind farm to date, the 124 turbine Armenia Mountain project in Tioga and Bradford counties. Wind energy has created thousands of permanent jobs with 40 companies such as GE and Gamesa in Pennsylvania manufacturing turbines or parts for these systems.

Clean energy, however, is much more than wind power.

In Lackawanna, Lancaster, Somerset and other counties, we are capturing methane at landfills, mines and sewer plants, and turning animal manure into power to run farms.

The Holtwood hydropower facility on the Susquehanna River is being repowered to supply another 100,000 homes. This project will potentially use hydro turbines made at Voith Siemens in York and will improve fish passage.

Geothermal systems are being installed at homes in Camp Hill, schools in West Chester, Philadelphia and Edinboro, as well as many other buildings around the state.

Solar power too is shining brightly as the new PA Sunshine Program (www.dep.state.pa.us – Keyword: PA Sunshine) helps families and businesses to use the sun for electricity and hot water. By 2010, Pennsylvania will be a top-five solar state.

Businesses such as Fessler USA, a clothing manufacturer in Schuylkill County, use solar on roofs to stabilize electricity costs.

Making solar equipment by companies such as Solar Power Industries, AE Polysilicon and Plextronics in Westmoreland, Bucks and Allegheny counties has already created hundreds of jobs. Carlisle Syntec in Carlisle both generates solar power on the roof of a plant and manufactures solar panels. Another 186 mostly small companies have been certified to install solar equipment.

Prices for solar are declining and the solar boom is beginning. Solar will be the dominant way society powers itself by the end of this century, and Pennsylvania must be a solar leader.

Sunlight also powers plants.

Turning Pennsylvania’s soybeans, restaurant grease and other materials into biodiesel is a growing business. Next year, Pennsylvania will become the third state where all diesel sold will include biodiesel. While gasoline takes more energy to make it than it provides when used, biodiesel provides three times more energy than what is needed to produce it.

Taking Pennsylvania plant material and converting it to fuel pellets to make electricity, digesters on farms, and biodiesel fuel are a few ways for agriculture and forestry to prosper.

Conserving energy in our buildings and operations by installing efficient lighting systems made by Appalachian Lighting Systems in Ellwood City, Lawrence County, and efficient windows manufactured by Pennsylvania companies such as TRACO in Cranberry, Serious Materials in Vandergrift, and CertainTeed in Valley Forge, save dollars, create jobs and cut pollution.

More energy supply from clean energy sources and energy conservation reduce electricity prices. Indeed, failing to build the thousands of megawatts of clean energy supply required by House Bill 80 that will be largely financed by private investors and not electric ratepayers means existing power generators will have less competition and more ability to raise sharply the market price for electricity when rate caps end throughout Pennsylvania.

Green jobs, clean air and water, and lower electricity bills are a powerful combination.

It is also an attractive combination, and other states and nations such as China and Japan are eager to win green jobs and investment, so we cannot be complacent.

Five years after it was enacted in 2004, our Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act has been surpassed by states and nations that are competing for clean energy leadership.

Our clean energy progress is at risk if the General Assembly does not pass House Bill 80.

House Bill 80 updates and expands our clean energy policies by increasing the renewable energy requirements and by creating an incentive for plants that emit carbon dioxide to capture and store it.



John Hanger is secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection.