energy policy

Maybe. From my seat as a journalism and environmental science student at the University of Idaho, things are not looking too great for wind power. While the wind energy industry has seemingly flourished here in parts of the Pacific Northwest (as seen in Beyond the Light Switch’s wind segment), with wind turbines populating once vacant stretches of land, a recent article in The Denver Post revealed that developments like this might come to a crashing halt.

The increased production and assembly of wind turbines in the U.S. over the past 10 years are partially the result of production tax incentives (PTC), a program whose future may be in jeopardy.

Created under the Environmental Policy Act of 1992, PTC has promoted growth in renewable energy industries and supplied many Americans with jobs in sustainability-related areas. PTCs currently offer a 2.1 cents/ kilowatt-hour tax credit to qualified wind industries and other renewable energies like biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal – with the U.S. currently sporting a total of 38 states with utility-scale wind turbines. The PTC program is currently up for renewal, but deliberations in Congress may tie it up for good. The Denver Post reported that the $1.4 billion program (extended over 10 years) has already failed three times in the Senate.

Here Allison Sherry of The Denver Post quotes U.S. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, "It's nuts…it's like Congress will get around to it when Congress is ready to work on it, but that's cold comfort for people getting laid off across the country and the state of Colorado." Sherry adds that cutting this program now would be way more damaging than it would have been 10 years ago because of the industry’s recent and rapid growth. But opponents of the program’s renewal are less sympathetic...

 A February article from The Wall Street Journal offered an example of such wind-opposing sentiment here, “The wind industry simply cannot continue to rely on the American taxpayer," said Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), who is currently pushing a bill that would cut many energy-related credits from the tax code. "Each time it comes up to a year of expiration, they say, 'If we just get a few more years our technology will mature and we will become more competitive.' It's time for them to figure out how to do that."

Director of Stanford University Atmosphere and Energy Program Mark Z. Jacobsen’s response to this issue is related more to the health benefits of switching to renewable energy sources versus fossil fuels. A Beyond the Light Switch video interview posed the following question to Jacobson: “If energy from renewables is going to be more expensive, why should we consider our energy mix at all?” Jacobson answered, “This is a really twisted incentive system where we pay people to cause environmental damage, and so as a result they can freeload off the health of our citizens. And at the same time we complain about giving subsidies to renewable energy industries that are effectively eliminating those air pollution health problems and deaths.”

DETROIT, December 21, 2011 – The Columbia University Journalism School has awarded Detroit Public Television’s groundbreaking documentary Beyond The Light Switch an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award.  Produced in partnership with Scientific American magazine and aired around the country, the production took a new, in-depth look at the controversy and urgency surrounding the challenge of developing a new infrastructure for electricity in the United States. 

For 70 years, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards have recognized excellence in broadcast journalism. Regarded today as the most prestigious prize in broadcast news, the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, the duPont-Columbia Awards bring the best in broadcast and digital journalism to professional and public attention and honor those who produce it. The duPont-Columbia Awards engender a collective spirit for the industry and inform the public of the contributions news organizations make to their communities and to the world. 

The two-hour documentary premiered nationally in April, 2011 and was seen in all 20 Top broadcast markets as well as in 92 percent of the Top 50 domestic markets.  It has been available to one hundred million households in the U.S. and has been broadcast nearly 2500 times on public television.  The two hour broadcast has also generated more than 100 hours of video assets that have been featured around the web.

Produced by Detroit Public Television’s Ed Moore and guided by an independent advisory panel convened by the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Beyond The Light Switch is hosted by David Biello, energy and environment associate editor at Scientific American.  He takes viewers to a first-of-its-kind coal plant in West Virginia, gas wells in Pennsylvania and Texas, inside a nuclear reactor under construction in Tennessee, to wind farms along the Hood River Valley in Oregon and to the shores of Cape Cod, among other places around the country that showcase the options for our energy future.

“This award is the highest level of recognition for the professionals who completed this project and our organization’s commitment to exploring the issues most important to our community and country,” said Rich Homberg, President and General Manager of Detroit Public Television.  “We hope this will allow even more Americans to be exposed to the balanced perspective in Beyond The Light Switch to prepare our country to face a challenge more critical than anything since healthcare."

Today we would like to remember and pay tribute to a BTLS Expert who has recently passed away. Professor Lester Lave of Carnegie Mellon University was a renowned economist and humanitarian. One of his most important legacies remains his research—the critically important research which first established a direct link between air pollution and its health impacts on humans. Lester's findings would eventually become the basis for early federal and state regulations to improve air quality in the U.S.

Lester earned his doctorate in economics from Harvard University and served eight years as head of CMU's Department of Economics. Lester was also Director of the Carnegie Mellon Green Design Institute and Co-Director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. Lester first caught the attention of BTLS producers because of his integral role in energy and efficiency related research—but it was his outspoken nature and unwavering dedication to the truth that really make his presence in the documentary a standout. Interviewing Lester was truly an honor.

Lester is survived by his wife of 46 years, Judith, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh and their two children; Jonathan M. Lave of Washington, D.C., and Tamara R. Lave of Miami; and two grandsons. His family has asked that memorial contributions be made to charity.

Click here to read the New York Times’ tribute to Mr. Lave, or hit 'Read more' below to read a thoughtful account of Lester’s professional history, written for the Environmental Science and Technology journal by a few of Lester’s friends and fellow Carnegie Mellon professors; Jay Apt, Chris T. Hendrickson and M. Granger Morgan.......