Like other major oil spills, the Deepwater Horizon spill has forced some new thinking on energy.
It's a terrible price to get action on comprehensive energy policy, but it would be sinfully irresponsible not to act now.
Once one of Florida's most powerful proponents of oil drilling near our coast, incoming state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, now wants to moderate a Florida Energy Summit July 8 in Orlando, hosted by the new nonprofit Citizens for Clean Energy, "a coalition of businesses, educational institutions and community groups dedicated to bringing clean energy jobs, investment and technology to Florida," according to a statement from Haridopolos.
The goal of the summit is to see "how we can provide an all-energy solution for the state of Florida," Haridopolos said.
A prominent businessperson in the coalition is Syd Kitson, who heads a group of investors planning to build a solar-powered city of 19,500 homes on Babcock Ranch property in Charlotte and Lee counties, northeast of Fort Myers. The 75-megawatt solar power plant - the world's largest - would be built by Florida Power & Light.
But FPL wants incentives that would make it easier to pass on the higher cost of solar power to customers.
Some solar water heater vendors argue that the cost of the sun is free and they don't want all the solutions to rest in the hands of the utilities. A rebate program for buyers of solar water heaters expires this month and the state is $14 million behind in payments.
The state needs to get on the ball.
There are lots of ways to promote alternative energy, but the central goal is legislation creating a "renewable portfolio standard." In 2008 Gov. Charlie Crist signed an executive order mandating that 20 percent of Florida's electricity be generated by renewable sources by 2020. The Public Service Commission drafted a Renewable Portfolio Standard, recommending the "20-by-2020" standard, with a 2 percent cap on additional costs to ratepayers.
But instead of pushing what would have put Florida on the road to developing a new energy economy, the Legislature gridlocked over the insistence of oil drilling advocates that it be included in energy policy and Crist went missing in action on the issue.
Deepwater Horizon may just have blown that gridlock apart. If so, the Clean Energy Summit, and a similar Clean Energy Congress scheduled for Tallahassee June 28-29, could lay the groundwork for a legislative breakthrough next year.
