COLUMN: Held hostage: Florida's energy future at the tipping point

In the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, Floridians must address important questions about how we meet our energy needs going into the future: Should we trust our energy security to risky nuclear power expansion plans or rather should we pursue aggressive energy efficiency and conservation programs which will save money?

Now is the right time to tackle this crucial issue. Globally, policymakers are questioning the future of nuclear power. Rightfully so, it's incredibly expensive to build any power plant because we are competing in a world market for copper, concrete and steel.

When it comes to nuclear, Wall Street smells risk and will not provide financing. Of the 60 nuclear power plants being proposed worldwide, none of them are free market purchases. With help from the politicians they fund, the nuclear industry is shifting the burden to consumers with subsidies, loan guarantees and early cost recovery schemes — sweetheart deals where they privatize the profits and socialize the risk.

It's also very difficult to insure big nuclear reactors, and there's still the pesky, unresolved problem of nuclear waste. In an era of where the price tag for a nuclear power plant is 20 Billion or more, clearly nuclear is high risk and it's wise to look at alternatives.

John Rowe, the CEO of Chicago-based Exelon, owner of the nation's largest nuclear fleet, said in an interview just before the Japan earthquake, "Except with massive subsidies, there's really nothing one can do to make a whole lot of nuclear plants economic right now,"

Fortunately, we have alternatives. McKinsey & Company, a global management-consulting firm, documented the incredible economic return resulting from energy efficiency and conservation measures.

Their report, Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy, identified energy efficiency measures in buildings and communities as the most important step to conserving a dramatic amount of energy. The report states that global growth in electricity demand could be cut in half over the next 25 years if energy efficiency measures are adopted.

There’s a valuable lesson here for the State of Florida which owns or leases about fifty million square feet of buildings, including those that comprise the state university system, state authorities and prisons. The benefits from investing in energy management systems, energy efficient mechanical systems and lighting, solar heating, solid waste upgrades, etc. are dramatic.

In a cost effective manner, energy efficiency and conservation measures can postpone or negate the need for massive new nuclear reactors, drastically reduce greenhouse gases emissions, and create tens of thousands of jobs. Florida has 421 municipal governments, dozens of community colleges, and school systems, and millions of homes and businesses that can and should be given incentives to conserve energy.

So what's the problem? Why have we done so little when there is so much at stake?

What’s being hidden and why?

At the same time we were reading about Japan on page one of our local papers, buried inside were stories about the Florida Public Service Commission’s approval of the energy conservation plans of Florida's big utilities.

The programs are dressed up on the utilities’ web pages to sound great until you do the math and realize that the PSC and the IOUs are just not serious about energy conservation. In fact, their plans amount to a small fraction of what other states are requiring of their utilities.

This lack of action by Florida’s big power companies is simply not acceptable. Energy policy is vitally connected to Florida's economic future. Ask any expert about the cornerstone of an effective energy policy and you will get this answer-energy efficiency and conservation.

That's where you start and that's what you build upon. Invest in your built environment.

One successful tool to take advantage of efficiency are performance contracts which allow government entities to pay for the efficiency retrofits and improvements out of energy savings over the long-term. This is a “no-risk” strategy for school boards, cities, counties and community colleges.

Adopting municipal programs, like those in St. Lucie County and the City of Gainesville, that utilize creative financing programs is smart government. So is providing incentives to local home and business owners to adopt energy conservation measures.

These programs are not just saving money; they are saving the environment and creating jobs. Before we allow the IOU’s to build new nuclear reactors that we will pay for over the next fifty years, let’s get serious about capturing cost effective energy efficiency.

Lawton “Bud” Chiles is with Renewable Energy Strategies, a government consulting and public relations firm. He can be reached at Bud@respartners.com.