NOTE: Both U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) and U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) are listed as "fence sitters" on the proposed comprehensive climate and energy legislation. See paragraphs below in red.

E&E Daily - 10/20/09

by Darren Samuelsohn, E&E senior reporter

The fence is getting a bit more crowded.

Despite two significant moves over the last month -- a bill introduction and the emergence of a possible bipartisan partnership -- the number of senators unwilling to commit to voting for comprehensive climate and energy legislation continues to grow.

According to E&E's latest analysis, 24 senators now belong in the "fence sitter" category that leaves them up for grabs headed into the winter push for 60 votes that sponsors will need to overcome an expected Republican filibuster.

Here's the good news for climate advocates: E&E now finds that at least 67 senators are in play on the issue, enough not only to pass the climate bill but also to ratify an international treaty should sponsors actually run the boards and not lose a single member.

For starters, the bill's lead sponsors, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), can safely rely on 31 "yes" votes as they work on building their coalition. That list includes Ben Cardin of Maryland, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Tom Udall of New Mexico. All appeared at a Capitol Hill campaign-style rally last month during the public unveiling of the legislation, S. 1733.

Another 12 senators fall into the "probably yes" camp, from Michael Bennet of Colorado to Al Franken of Minnesota and Mark Warner of Virginia. Bennet and Warner are not slam dunks given the fossil fuel interests in their home states, while Franken dropped off the "yes" list when he signed a letter with nine other Democrats in August that raised concerns about President Obama's stance against trade sanctions on carbon-intensive goods from developing countries that do not have strong enough climate policies (E&ENews PM, Aug. 6).

As for the fence sitters, the list continues to swell from both directions as key senators hedge their bets.

For example, Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) no longer reside in the "probably yes" camp given their recent statements on allocations and oversight of the carbon markets, respectively. Baucus may drive the hardest bargain as chairman of the Finance Committee, where he is sure to negotiate on behalf of coal-state Democrats who think the House-passed bill unfairly favors electric utilities that service the East and West coasts.

Two senators have recently been upgraded to the fence from the "probably no" camp are Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio). Byrd has long questioned action to curb emissions but has taken a lead role on carbon sequestration language that Kerry and Boxer are trying to wrap into their proposal. Voinovich has a reputation for bipartisan consensus building, and recent signals supporting the nuclear power industry are raising hopes in some sectors that the retiring senator should still be considered in play.

"If you engage in a very proactive way to get a bill done, he will negotiate and compromise," said a former Senate Republican aide.

E&E's analysis is based on interviews with senators, plus dozens of Democratic and Republican sources, industry and environmental groups.

Counting Republicans

GOP interest is significant for the climate bill's overall prospects given that Democrats are unlikely to carry all 60 of their own votes on the floor.

In all, E&E now lists eight Republicans as "fence sitters" on the climate bill, with the two from Maine -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe -- holding firm as "probably yes" votes given their past efforts on the issue. Collins and Snowe are likely to compensate for the loss of Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the only Democrats listed among 11 "probably no" votes given their many comments questioning the environmental agenda of the Obama administration and Senate leaders.

Elsewhere, sponsors got their biggest boost when Kerry went public with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on a partnership that they had been quietly working on since the summer. The senators pledged in an Oct. 11 New York Times op-ed that they would try to find compromise on several key areas, including nuclear power, offshore drilling and a border tax on items produced in countries that avoid high environmental standards.

"I can see a way to get to 60 votes, and so can he, if we pull the right folks to the table and do this in the right way," Kerry said last week. "And that's what we're going to do."

Climate advocates are urging Kerry and Graham to turn their broad principles into legislation.

"It's still right now just a possibility," said Manik Roy of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "We need to operationalize that."

Graham's support also may be key for other Republicans.

Jason Grumet, a former Obama presidential campaign adviser and the president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, counts as many as 10 Republicans who have been engaged in past climate debates "who are certainly poised to come back if the Graham beachhead becomes more secured."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) stands out as one leading GOP candidate to get behind a climate bill. The two-term senator co-sponsored climate legislation last year with Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) in part because of provisions designed to protect against high energy prices, as well as financial aid to Alaska for adaptation to rising seas and melting permafrost.

So far this year, Murkowski has questioned Democrats' desires to push for a vote on the climate bill before a major U.N. climate conference this December in Copenhagen. At the same time, she said Sunday on C-SPAN that Graham's emergence opens the door further to a number of supply-side provisions she supports, including efforts to expand nuclear power, natural gas and oil production.

"Count me as one of those who will keep my mind open as we move forward in looking at all aspects of this," Murkowski said.

Other fence-sitting Republicans include Sen. Richard Lugar, the six-term senator who has tamped down his optimism this year in part because of unemployment in Indiana that continues to hover near double digits. Lugar said last month in an interview he remains engaged but does not like the approach taken earlier this year with H.R. 2454, the House-passed climate bill.

"I don't know that we've pulled back," Lugar said. "It's just the formulation from the House I find objectionable on many grounds. Without jumping up and down any further, I think more constructive ways of fighting climate change can be found and I'll be working to find it."

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) also remains in play, with nuclear power and fiscal issues atop his list of demands. Asked last week about how the Kerry-Graham partnership could influence his vote, Gregg replied, "If nuclear comes under that and has proper incentives, that could be a major step forward."

The party's 2008 presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), poses a big challenge for climate bill advocates (E&E Daily, July 16). While McCain appears to be making headway in his demand for greater incentives for nuclear power, he is in direct conflict with manufacturing state Democrats and Graham, one of his close allies in last year's White House campaign, over the border tax issue.

"I know that I'd never agree to tariffs on the borders for countries that don't comply with our requirements," McCain said last week.

Other big questions revolve around Florida's new GOP senator, George LeMieux. Gov. Charlie Crist (R) appointed LeMieux, his former chief of staff, to be a caretaker to the Senate seat he hopes to win in the 2010 elections.

But Crist must succeed in a Republican primary slated for next August that so far has forced him to distance himself from past progressive views on the climate issue. Already, Crist's opponent, Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, has garnered the endorsement of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), an outspoken opponent of global warming legislation. LeMieux's vote will be seen as a critical test for Crist among the state's Republican base (Greenwire, Aug. 17).

Fence-sitting Democrats

The fence also includes moderate Democrats from all corners of the country, some more actively engaged in the climate debate than others.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, for example, is crafting language to help manufacturers (E&E Daily, Oct. 14). Michigan's Debbie Stabenow hopes to release long-awaited agriculture ideas. And Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania will be forced to take a stand as early as next month when Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee holds a markup on its bill.

Other influential Democratic fence sitters include Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, who said last week that he expects to push at least four issues once the bill nears the floor.

Levin said he will be seeking a national greenhouse gas emission standard and repeal of state-specific standards. Like Franken, he said a border tax adjustment needs to be part of the bill. And Levin said he wants a "fail-safe provision in case the technologies don't advance as quickly as some people think they will."

"And you've got to fairly proportion the burden," Levin added.

Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) also remains on the fence. The two-term senator said last week that she wants to get a better grip on the effect that a climate bill would have on farmers and in the cost of food to consumers.

"I don't disagree with the objective, and I hope we'll stay focused on the objective, which is to lower our greenhouse gases and emissions and our carbon output," Lincoln said.

Lincoln in past years has cosponsored efforts to address the cost fluctuations in climate legislation. Environmental groups are banking on her and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) as key votes that get them to across the 60-vote threshold.

But an industry source tracking the climate debate doubts that Lincoln can sign off on climate legislation as she heads into a heated re-election battle next November. "No amount of National Wildlife Federation polling is going to help her in the delta," the source said. "She has an issue."

Election-year politics also may influence several other Democrats. Specter faces a primary challenge from his left in Rep. Joe Sestak, a campaign that has put an even larger spotlight on his vote (E&E Daily, Oct. 6).

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) faces the same unemployment concerns as Lugar but with the added pressure of a 2010 re-election campaign. So far, Bayh has not drawn a significant challenger and political analyst Charlie Cook ranked the race earlier this month as "solid D" for the incumbent. But political observers still see Bayh as vulnerable to home-state concerns.

Other Democrats on the fence include a number of senators representing either coal-consuming or coal-producing states, including Claire McCaskill of Missouri, North Dakota Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana and Jim Webb of Virginia. Conrad and Dorgan may be among the most difficult fence sitters to win over. Both have insisted for months that Senate leaders should start with energy-only legislation and save the big climate change measure for later.

Debating floor strategy

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has so far left open the door on a possible floor debate before the end of the year on the climate bill, but time is running short for the five committees still charged with filling in key details (E&E Daily, Oct. 16).

Committee leaders do not have any deadlines, leaving many to speculate the bill will most likely wait until early 2010 to see any floor action despite Boxer's plans for markup in November. Boxer has said she is waiting for U.S. EPA analysis of her legislation, something agency spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said should be finished by Friday.

Environmentalists have not stopped pushing for action. While several green groups have warned of the international consequences if the Senate rejected climate legislation before the Copenhagen negotiations, advocates still want to see a floor vote that forces senators to take a stand one way or another.

"People have to understand this vote is going to happen sooner rather than later," said David Goldston, director of government operations at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Inhofe, the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, predicts that Democrats will max out around 35 "yes" votes.

"They're going to try to fence off people," said Inhofe, one of 22 Republican senators E&E lists as a sure "no" on the climate bill. "We understand that. And they'll be counting votes as they do it. But I think it's a moving target."

For any group that signs up for the bill, Inhofe said he thinks they are just as likely to back out. "For example," Inhofe said, "when they tried to fence off the wheat growers, they bought into it for a short period of time, and then they said, 'Wait a minute, this is going to be just as hard on us and somebody else.'"

Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, has a much bigger target in mind as Democratic leaders gear up for the floor. He said Reid and company should try to have a big enough cushion that they do not need to give in to every demand of every fence-sitting senator.

"Senate leaders obviously want to have more than 60 votes in play," Weiss said.

Bit by bit, advocates for the climate bill expect a winning combination to come together. Asked for the recipe, Goldston said he does not think one compromise will do it. Instead, he said he is watching for coalitions to form on individual issues, with several degrees of overlap.

"There's not one simple way where you get person X and you automatically get everyone else," Goldston said. "The work still has to be done member by member."

Climate bill supporters also say that the senators just need to be reminded that they've been debating many of these unresolved issues -- on everything from cost containment to emission allocations, greenhouse gas targets, offsets, technological availability and international competition -- dating back to the George W. Bush administration.

"The good news is the path to 60 is not particularly mysterious," Grumet said. "The issues have been quite well defined for the last year or so."

And that means that some of the key compromises already reached in the House may just need to be renegotiated, with some state-specific tweaks here and there.

"Everything's been said," Weiss added. "But not everybody's said it."

http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2009/10/20/1/

by Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 10/19/09

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/science/earth/20fossil.html

WASHINGTON — Burning fossil fuels costs the United States about $120 billion a year in health costs, mostly because of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences reported in a study issued Monday.

The damages are caused almost equally by coal and oil, according to the study, which was ordered by Congress. The study set out to measure the costs not incorporated into the price of a kilowatt-hour or a gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel.

The estimates by the academy do not include damages from global warming, which has been linked to the gases produced by burning fossil fuels. The authors said the extent of such damage, and the timing, were too uncertain to estimate.

Nor did the study measure damage from burning oil for trains, ships and planes. And it did not include the environmental damage from coal mining or the pollution of rivers with chemicals that were filtered from coal plant smokestacks to keep the air clean.

“The largest portion of this is excess mortality — increased human deaths as a result of criteria air pollutants emitted by power plants and vehicles,” said Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who led the study committee.

Nearly 20,000 people die prematurely each year from such causes, according to the study’s authors, who valued each life at $6 million based on the dollar in 2000. Those pollutants include small soot particles, which cause lung damage; nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog; and sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.

The study lends support to arguments that society should pay extra for energy from sources like the wind and the sun, because their indirect costs are extremely small. But it also found that renewable motor fuel, in the form of ethanol from corn, was slightly worse than gasoline in its environmental impact.

Coal burning was the biggest single source of such external costs . The damages averaged 3.2 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 0.16 cents for gas. But the variation among coal plants was enormous.

The worst plants, generally the oldest and burning coal with the highest sulfur content, were 3.6 times worse than the average, with a cost of nearly 12 cents per kilowatt-hour (which is more than the average retail price of that amount of electricity).

The best plants carried a cost of less than a quarter of a penny. Natural gas plants also showed a large variation, but both the best and the worst costs were far smaller than for coal.

Such variation suggests that existing technology could be applied to make the electric system a lot cleaner, experts said. One of the study’s authors, Maureen L. Cropper, an economist at the University of Maryland, said the findings should be used not to raise the price of electricity based on an average of indirect costs but to measure the cost of cleanup on a plant-by-plant basis.

The study did not measure damage from pollution-control devices. “If you’re taking the output of a scrubber and dumping it in the Monongahela River, that’s not in our study, Professor Cropper said.

The study found that operating nuclear plants did not impose significant environmental costs, although uranium mining and processing did. But 95 percent of uranium mining takes place in other countries, the study said. Canada and Australia together account for 44 percent of world production.

The committee did not put a dollar value on the risk of a nuclear accident that would produce environmental damage. It also noted the uncertainty of the cost of long-term disposal of high-level wastes.

The committee said environmental damage from gasoline and diesel fuel cost 1.2 cents to 1.7 cents per mile. A co-author of the study, Daniel S. Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, said that would come to 23 cents to 38 cents per gallon. Still, Mr. Greenbaum said, “we were hesitant to make that a central part of our findings,” because pollution also results from manufacturing cars.

The study did not calculate the military cost of protecting fuel imports.

As for wind energy, the study said it killed birds but not enough to seriously affect populations. A possible exception was raptors, birds of prey that ordinarily eat species whose numbers are being reduced by spinning turbine blades.

The study was not kind to ethanol. A mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent unleaded gasoline, or E85, showed slightly higher damages to environment and health than ordinary gasoline, because of the energy required to raise the corn and make ethanol from it.

Electric vehicles and vehicles using synthetic diesel fuel, also ranked poorly. The electric vehicles might do better if emissions of heat-trapping gases had been factored in, because they have lower carbon dioxide emissions per mile than gasoline-powered cars. But the cars running on artificial diesel would look slightly worse in that analysis, the study said.

...from Paul Gipe

October 20, 2009

The Solar Alliance, the US industry trade association for solar PV manufacturers and project developers, has recently posted a position paper supportive of feed-in tariffs (FITs) to their web site.

While the industry is portraying the move as a natural evolution of its position, outside observers see it as a major policy development in the US. Previously, board members were split on whether to take a position on feed-in tariffs. Some key industry players openly opposed supportive statements on the policy used so successfully in Europe to install thousands of megawatts of solar PV as well as other renewable energy technologies.

The Solar Alliance is one of several organizations promoting solar PV in the US. The Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents the broader solar industry, has yet to take a formal position on feed-in tariffs. The American Solar Energy Society, representing the professional and academic community, also has not taken a position.

The Canadian Solar Industries Association has previously endorsed the use of feed-in tariffs. (See CanSIA Calls for Dramatic Growth of Solar PV in Ontario Through Higher Tariffs.) CanSIA specifically has called for a system of feed-in tariffs to be used in Ontario to supply 10 percent of the province's electricity (~16 TWh per year) by 2025.

The Solar Alliance's position paper begins with a simple statement: "FITs are often misunderstood but can be useful policy tools".

The document goes on to reiterate the Alliance's continued support for net metering and traditional tax subsidies to reassure readers that their position on feed-in tariffs should, in no way, detract from existing programs. The policy paper says the generator should be given a choice of which program to use where feed-in tariffs and other policies are available simultaneously.

The Alliance then lays out the characteristics necessary for successful feed-in tariff policies. This is as succinct a statement of feed-in tariff best practice as found anywhere. For example, the Alliance states that contracts should be for 20 years, though they acknowledge that some states may offer shorter terms, and that tariffs should be differentiated by technology and project size. The recommendations also include provisions for developing green field sites and not just those by "site owners" or existing utility customers.

However, the position paper limits the Alliance's support for feed-in tariffs to projects only up to 20 MW. There are a number of solar PV projects larger than 20 MW currently operating in Europe and there are many wind and concentrating solar power projects greater than 20 MW as well that have been installed with feed-in tariffs.

The position paper also doesn't specifically mention that feed-in tariff best practice requires tariff setting based on the cost of generation plus a reasonable profit. The Alliance only says that the tariffs should recognize the value of Renewable Energy Credits separately from energy.

The Alliance's paper represents the first clear statement by the association that feed-in tariffs would be an acceptable policy in the US.

Download
Solar Alliance Policy Recommendation: Feed-In-Tariffs

Posted 3:25 PM on 19 Oct 2009
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-19-a-little-heresy-on-transmission/

by John Farrell

The last thing renewable energy needs right now are new transmission lines.

This statement is heresy in the green community, but there’s a danger that the increasing focus of green energy advocates on a new nationwide transmission superhighway may undermine the pursuit of near-term renewable energy goals.

People are excited by renewable energy. It’s clean. It’s limitless. It’s local. It’s the one kind of energy source that anyone can harness. Public polls show substantial majorities of Americans in every state favoring more renewable energy.

And states have an abundance of renewable energy assets. A new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance—Energy Self-Reliant States—shows that every state has the potential to meet its renewable energy goal or mandate and that 3 in 5 states could get all of their electricity from in-state renewable resources. Almost every state could get at least 20 percent of its electricity from rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) alone.

These renewable assets can be tapped for significant local benefits. A single wind turbine, for example, creates $1 million in economic activity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. And that’s just a generic, utility size turbine. Locally owned wind projects can create twice the jobs and 3 to 4 times the economic impact of absentee owned projects.

The benefits from locally harnessed renewable energy create a feedback loop, building even greater public support for clean energy.

People are not so excited about new high-voltage transmission lines.

Transmission legislation moving through Congress would preempt longstanding state regulatory authority over transmission line approval and siting. The goal is to speed the construction of a $100 to 200 billion interstate transmission superhighway, bringing solar power from the Southwest and wind from the Great Plains to the coasts.

Why is this problematic? Let’s ignore for a moment that most people wouldn’t care to live by a 150 foot tower running through a 200 foot swath of denuded landscape. Or to have their land seized for this purpose by eminent domain.

Many states oppose the new transmission superhighway for two reasons. One, it’s expensive. Two, it undermines efforts to reap the economic rewards of renewable energy self-reliance.

In a New York Times Op Ed, the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, wrote:

Lawmakers should resist calls to add an extensive and costly new transmission
system that would carry electricity from remote areas like Texas, the Great
Plains, and Eastern Canada to places with high energy demands like Boston,
Chicago, and New York ... Renewable energy resources are found all across the
country; they don’t need to be harnessed from just one place.

In May 2009, the governors of 10 East Coast states wrote to senior members of Congress to protest. Requiring their residents and businesses to pay billions of dollars for new transmission lines that would import electricity from the upper Midwest and Southwest into their region “could jeopardize our states’ efforts to develop wind resources ... “ They added, “it is well accepted that local generation is more responsive and effective in solving reliability issues than long distance energy inputs.”

Nine of the 10 Eastern states whose governors signed the May 2009 letter could get over 80 percent of their electricity from in-state renewable resources, according to Energy Self-Reliant States. And local energy also means fewer legal battles over the siting of unsightly transmission towers, a fact that politicians in that region are unlikely to have overlooked.

It’s not just state energy self-reliance and economic benefits hanging in the balance. A recent study released by Duke University’s Climate Change Policy Partnership throws cold water on the renewable energy transmission passion. It found that the proposed interstate transmission links from regions with low-cost electricity (e.g. the Great Plains) to regions with high-cost electricity (e.g. the East Coast) could enable coal power as easily as renewables, with poor results for carbon emission reductions and other environmental goals.

The evidence undermines the conventional wisdom about high-voltage, long-distance transmission and should raise red flags among advocates. To the people in affected states, a new transmission superhighway is costly, anathema to local energy generation, and a potential enabler of coal-fired power. It creates winners (in the sunny Southwest) and losers (in the “import states” on the East Coast).

A victory for interstate transmission may be at the expense of broader public support for renewable energy.

Renewable energy does not have to be harnessed in a few, select areas and shipped across country. And public support for clean energy may hinge on the opposite.

The ubiquity of renewable energy means that the transition to a clean energy economy can also be a transition to a new, local energy future, where the economic and environmental benefits of powering the economy are everywhere the sun shines.

John Farrell is an Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR) senior researcher specializing in energy policy developments that best expand the benefits of local ownership and dispersed generation of renewable energy. He has written extensively on the economies of scale of renewable energy, the benefits of decentralized energy generation, and the policies and rules that support locally owned and distributed generation of renewable energy.

He authored one of the leading summaries of feed-in tariffs for the U.S. electricity policy market titled, Feed-in Tariffs in America: Driving the Economy with Renewable Energy Policy that Works.

By Lana Kunz

Sunday, October 18, 2009

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/oct/18/speakerscriticizeindiana-energy-laws/

If net metering — an idea that allows buildings that use alternative energy sources to sell their extra power back to utilities — were a test, Indiana barely would pass, according to one report.

Indiana earned a D grade on net metering, according to the "Freeing the Grid 2008" report by the Network for New Energy Sources.

A crowd of about 30 people was educated about alternative energy Saturday at the first South West Indiana Solar Tour at the Ohio Township Public Library in Newburgh.

Several of the speakers promoted various alternative sources of energy, but the main focus was educating the public on net metering and Indiana's limited participation requirements for power companies.

"Net metering is this idea that you can spin your meter backward when you're not using energy," said Eric Cotton , a partner at East Central Indiana Wind and Solar.

Net metering allows buildings with alternative energy sources to sell the excess power to the power company.

"We're trying to make people aware that Indiana is behind the times," said Brad Morton, president of Morton Solar and Wind LLC, which sponsored the event.

"Freeing the Grid 2008" also reports that Indiana is the only state to exclude commercial and industrial customers from net metering.

Currently Indiana's regulations only require power companies to buy energy from residential and K-12 schools, even though some facilities "sometimes go above and beyond" what is required, Cotton said.

Vectren Energy also net meters municipal buildings, such as the Ohio Township Public Library, which has solar panels on its roof.

"The law has not caught up with the technology," Morton said.

Some that attended the event do not rely on the power grid at all.

"We built a house where electricity isn't available, hopefully as urban sprawl continues we can eventually connect to the grid," said Doug Gresham, who lives north of Boonville, Ind., off the power grid.

State limits

Current state law limits not only the type of consumer that can sell back energy, but how much they can sell, the size of the system generating the alternative energy, the types of energy utilities are required to buy, pays only a wholesale rate back to the consumer and does not require all power companies to net meter.

"We're trying to focus on getting these laws changed," Morton said. "Most of this stuff is not new, it's just new to Indiana."

The event included a self-guided tour of buildings that use alter-native energy applications.

East Side resident Mark Ambrose said he attended the event, "Just to get an education, I'm very interested in the solar side of this equation."

After purchasing a hybrid vehicle, Ambrose is "slowly embracing the need to lower the need for petroleum" and considering making the next step in adjustments to his home.

Geothermal, solar and wind power were the main alternative energy sources discussed.

"Geothermal is a way to extract energy from the earth and use it as usable energy in your home," President of HF Refrigeration Andy Harbison said in his speech on the geothermal heating and cooling units his company installs.

Harbison said his customers have seen 40 percent to 60 percent off utilities each month with their initial investment paid back in five to seven years.

Morton showed a map compiled by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that showed Southwestern Indiana receives more solar intensity than the rest of the state. "Southwest Indiana should take the lead due to its solar resources," Morton said.

Brad Morton with Morton Solar & Wind LLC and Eric Cotton with East Central Indiana Wind & Solar are both Founding Members of the Indiana Renewable Energy Association and both serve on the Board of Directors.

Sponsors of the meeting included Evansville-based Sustainable Communities Coalition, the Izaak Walton League of America--Evansville Chapter and the Indiana Renewable Energy Association.