JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Four years ago, officials of the
city-owned utility here plucked a number out of the air in an effort to
placate local environmental groups: They promised that 7.5% of the
utility's electricity production would come from "green" energy sources
within two decades.
Now the utility, JEA, is finding out how difficult it is to
deliver on that pledge. Some environmentally friendly renewable energy
sources are expensive to tap; others are technologically unproven. And
still others draw opposition from environmentalists themselves, who find
certain "green" power sources nearly as problematic as the high-polluting
oil and coal they seek to supplant.
JEA officials aren't abandoning their goal, arguing that it
will give Jacksonville cleaner air, cushion local residents from future
oil-price rises and boost some local businesses. "We're doing this for the
community," says JEA official John King. But the hurdles the utility faces
carry lessons for many other communities as the nation debates shifts in
energy production.
Renewable energy derived from sources including the sun,
wind and vegetation currently supply just 1.7% of the nation's power. But
14 states so far have required utilities to develop future
renewable-energy production "portfolios," ranging from 1.1% in Arizona to
30% in Maine.
Senate Joined Movement
Last month, the U.S. Senate joined this movement, putting a
renewable-energy standard in its energy bill. If approved by the House, it
would require most U.S. utilities to generate 10% of their power from
"green" sources by 2020, a timetable that closely resembles the voluntary
goal adopted by JEA.
"It's almost as if they're trying to copy our portfolio,"
muses Mr. King, a former U.S. space scientist who is trying to navigate
JEA's plunge into renewable energy.
It is a world of abrupt departures from the humdrum
business of burning coal, oil or natural gas to make electricity. JEA's
first "green" project relies on Arundo donax, a fast-growing, bamboo-like
plant whose commercial use until now has been for clarinet reeds. The idea
is to harvest the plant, chop it up and digest it in a compost-like
process to make methane, which then would be burned to make nearly
pollution-free electricity.
The utility has signed a contract with Biomass Industries
Inc. of Gulf Breeze, Fla., to buy $250 million of electricity from the
company during the next 15 years. Biomass plans to plant 12,000 acres of
Arundo this summer. "It will be almost like cutting corn for silage,"
explains Alan Sharpe, company president, referring to a process farmers
use to make cattle feed. Through the use of a federal tax incentive for
so-called biomass fuels, Mr. Sharpe promises electricity at slightly less
than four cents per kilowatt hour, which makes it economically competitive
with coal.
Yet some environmental groups are raising red flags. They
worry that Arundo, a native of the Mediterranean region, might prove "an
invasive species" damaging to Florida's indigenous vegetation.
"People don't have a real good concept of the damage it can
do to the environment," asserts Nelroy Jackson, founder of a coalition of
environmentalists and local officials that has been battling the spread of
Arundo in California. Florida's Sierra Club branch, which helped JEA
launch its renewable-energy program here in 1998, isn't opposing all use
of Arundo but has asked JEA not to cultivate any more of it.
Local and State Permits
Mr. King of JEA acknowledges that Mr. Sharpe may have
trouble winning needed local and state permits for his "fuel farm." And
"if he doesn't, that means we have a big hole in our plan."
Tapping Florida's abundant supply of sunshine is another
possibility that looks promising, but isn't. JEA has plastered 17 local
schools and four utility sites with solar panels that produce electricity.
But the price is shocking -- 10 times higher than what the utility pays to
generate electricity from oil or coal.
![[Green States Chart]](/spacer.gif)
"Those costs are coming down, but it will take a long time
for them to get them down" to a more-competitive level, Mr. King says. He
has invested $750,000 of the utility's money in another local venture:
Energy Laboratories Inc., which has been working on devices that would
focus solar heat on making steam for utility boilers. The company also is
working on rooftop collectors that intensify solar energy to power an
"absorption chiller," a kind of heat exchanger that could be used to
air-condition homes.
Not to Use Solar
"Our whole idea is not to use solar as a panacea," explains
Greg Peebles, a vice president of Energy Laboratories. "But if you can use
it to chop 5% to 15% off of the demands on conventional power plants
during periods of high demands, utilities will start perking up their
ears."
Mr. King, an engineer who once helped design the lunar
lander for the U.S. space program, is pushing on other fronts as well. He
is planting a variety of trees on utility-owned land and fertilizing them
with sewage to see if JEA can perform an environmental twofer: cleaning up
local rivers and developing wood chips as a source of cleaner-burning
fuel.
Wind power is yet another option. JEA has spent
considerable time investigating the possibility of building a large
wind-turbine "farm" in a gusty spot off Florida's coast. Environmental
groups usually support wind power and, with the help of a federal tax
subsidy, wind is becoming cost-competitive for utilities in Texas and
other windswept states in the Midwest.
Wind Power
Yet JEA officials may face opposition from attempts to tap
wind power. That is happening now in Massachusetts, where the Alliance to
Protect Nantucket Sound is attacking a similar offshore project being
proposed off Cape Cod. The Alliance says a complex of 170 windmills about
five miles offshore would "industrialize" the area, interfere with local
fishing, destroy a "place of pristine relaxation" for boaters and drive
away tourists.
Some experts insist the best green-energy producers will be
low-tech. A few hours north of Jacksonville, Atlanta utility giant
Southern Co. is exploring ways to harvest grass, dry it, form it into
cubes and then burn it with a mix of coal in its boilers. The process
ultimately could allow some cattle farmers to get rid of their herds and
simply sell their grass to utilities for a higher profit.
"There are a lot of pieces of this puzzle that are already
out there," insists David I. Bransby, an agronomy professor at Auburn
University in Alabama who is working with Southern on the project. "It's
just a matter of putting them together in a way to make them work."
Write to John J. Fialka at john.fialka
Updated April 4, 2002