Clean-Energy Frenzy

Gov. Christine Gregoire is touring the state with a farmer who grows mustard seed used to make biodiesel. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is demanding that oil executives testify under oath about record profits. First District U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee's crusade for a clean-energy future has been embraced by the leadership of the Democratic Party as a central message for the 2006 elections. After a lengthy study of the cheapest way to generate electricity, Puget Sound Energy, the state's largest private utility, has bought two huge wind farms. Moses Lake Republican state Rep. Janea Holmquist is pushing a law to require the use of up to 10 percent biofuels to run vehicles in the state. Shell Oil has invested in a company building a cellulosic ethanol plant in Idaho. The Northwest Energy Coalition, an environmental group, is planning a voters' initiative to mandate use of clean energy by Washington utilities, because while public support for a policy is strong, legislators won't pass such a law.

Welcome to America's first energy crisis of the 21st century. Northwest politicians and activists are responding to the soaring prices of gas and oil by attacking the status quo, while corporate executives and entrepreneurs are embracing alternatives previously relegated to the fringe.

The latest energy crisis is due to a number of factors. The disastrous invasion of Iraq, of course, has highlighted the military and political costs of dependence on oil from the Middle East. Says Inslee, a Bainbridge Island Democrat: "We are addicted to oil from that region. That's unhealthy for our own security." Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted oil and gas supplies, driving prices higher, and created opportunities for profiteering by big energy companies. "There is no valid reason our gas prices went up after Katrina," claims Democratic Gov. Gregoire. Scientific consensus has developed more strongly around the relationships among global warming, the burning of fossil fuels, and climatic changes. "We are a coastal state fighting desperately against global warming," says the governor.

In the short term, all of this protest and recognition of problems isn't going to do anything to change the high cost of energy or dependence on foreign oil. "Americans will spend over $200 billion more on energy this year than they did last year," says Cantwell, a member of the Senate energy committee. Washington consumers have seen the price of a gallon of regular gas soar from $2.09 to $2.91 in September and drop back to $2.33 last week, according to the American Automobile Association. The Northwest Energy Coalition estimates that the average Washington household will pay $700 more to heat their home this winter than last year.

Even if remedies are not immediate, clean-energy activists and sympathetic politicians hope to use public concern over high energy costs to promote alternatives to fossil fuels. At the federal level, Washington leaders like Inslee and Cantwell are unlikely to make much progress. "Congress is still in the thrall of the oil and gas industries," says Inslee.

'This is an opportunity for us to work together as a state,' Gov. Christine Gregoire says of production and consumption of biodiesel fuel. (Jay Vidheecharoen)

At the state level, however, real progress has already occurred, and more is likely. This is no accident. It's the result of activists, politicians, and entrepreneurs working together to build a clean-energy future. Take the Apollo Alliance, named after President Kennedy's initiative to put a man on the moon. It's a broad coalition of environmentalists, organized labor, business executives, civil rights leaders, and politicians, and both Cantwell and Inslee are on the national advisory board. Gregoire is one of nine governors who have endorsed Apollo's call for energy independence within a decade by investing in $300 billion worth of clean-energy infrastructure. The alliance is promoting three areas of benefit that will flow from the clean-energy initiative. The first is energy independence, a goal endorsed by a broad political spectrum, from neoconservatives to greens. The idea is that if the United States can produce its own energy instead of relying on imported fuel, there will be geopolitical benefits, too. Energy independence would free us from the need for imperial wars in the Middle East. Second, clean energy addresses the planet's environmental crisis. It reduces pollution of air, land, and water. It reduces the climate-changing impacts caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Third, the alliance believes, such an undertaking would create 2 million to 3 million new, high-paying, permanent jobs.

That's a long way from where we are today. The nightly news brings flesh-and-blood reminders of the cost of our reliance on Middle East oil. Our national government is a pipeline of corporate welfare for environment-besmirching oil and gas companies. At the state level, Washington has a tiny clean-energy industry. Tony Usabelli, director of the Energy Policy Division at the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development (CTED), says his department will soon release a report on the clean-energy sector, which employs only around 3,000 to 4,000 people and has annual sales of a mere $900 million. While Usabelli notes that the industry has grown from $750 million in sales in the past five years, "The numbers are smaller than I would have expected."