They rolled up the solar panels, fired ‘em up, and the first Advanced Energy Day at the Legislature on Wednesday at the Arkansas State Capitol was a success, by all accounts.
The Arkansas Advanced Energy Association, created last year, is the state affiliate of the national AEE. Its mission is to promote greater public understanding of the advanced (alternate) energy sector. On Wednesday, its mission was to introduce itself to Arkansas lawmakers.
AAEA director Steve Patterson thinks it was mission accomplished. He told INOV8 there was lots of interest from legislators of both political stripes and the general public throughout the afternoon at the Capitol. Several lawmakers joined in a late afternoon panel discussion with state industry leaders, including Rep. Walls McCray, D-Lonoke, a three-term legislator, and freshman Rep. John Hutchison, R-Harrisburg.
The day entailed advanced energy exhibits from Arkansas companies set up for display in the Capitol rotunda. All exhibits were powered by solar panels from AAEA member Stellar Sun that were parked in front of the Capitol. In addition, Pulaski Tech’s Mobile Weatherization Lab was out front, too. Patterson called it a great display.
Industry leaders then held a panel discussion in a House committee room, discussing the challenges faced by advanced energy firms in today’s marketplace and how they believe advanced energy represents the country’s best way forward.
Industry leaders and companies represented included David Baker of FutureFuel; Mike Callan, president of Arkansas Oklahoma Gas; John Malinowski of Baldor Electric; Steve Packard of Schneider Electric; Naomi Lovinger, head of communications for Nordex USA (she spoke earlier in the day at the Clinton School for Public Service); Mario Hurtado, Clean Line Energy Partners, and Pam Speraw, Sun City Solar Energy.
FYI, AAEA members that also are IA clients include NextGen Illumination, Silicon Solar Solutions and Infinite Enzymes.
Patterson said he hopes Wednesday’s events will help legislators recognize the value of advanced energy firms in Arkansas. The AAEA likes to bill “more jobs, more energy options,” and Patterson thinks that’s a formula hard to dismiss.
In fact, the AAEA released a report that said about 11,337 Arkansans are employed by 90-plus advanced energy companies in the state as of 2010. The national AEE last week said advanced energy represented a $1.1 trillion global market in 2011 (larger than pharmaceutical manufacturing). In the U.S., advanced energy was a $132 billion industry in 2011, according to AEE, and with a growth rate of 19 percent (to $157 billion) expected for 2012.
Other nuggets:
See the latest AAEA report on advanced energy jobs in Arkansas here.
All told, a good day for advanced energy in Arkansas. Patterson said progress was made — a couple of years ago, no one in Arkansas thought about advanced energy, he said. Arkansas has been ahead of the curve, one of just eight AEE local chapters. Other chapters are located in Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina and South Carolina with a New England chapter as well.
Chapters are in development in California, Alaska, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington (state), Oregon, Tennessee and Virginia.
Patterson hopes Advanced Energy Day at the Legislature can become an annual thing. They’re off to a good start.
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Government subsidies will never make the HIGHLY POLLUTING technologies of wind and solar power cost effective. You completely ignore the damage done by the rare earths mining industry and the semiconductor manufacturing that is required to build the massive amount of wind turbines and solar panels required to make even a small amount of power.
You who promote “green” technologies are the true enemies of nature. There is a proper and natural way for technology and energy to develop. You government beggars and talkers need to step aside and let truth and freedom lead the way forwards.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether tax incentives are the best way to encourage the development of renewable energy, but there is no question that in the U.S., they are the most significant financial vehicles available to the industry to work toward parity with fossil-fueled sources. Energy has been subsidized in the U.S. for more than a century, with most of the incentives going to fossil fuel and nuclear development. Oil and gas companies even have access to special, tax-free investment structures called master limited partnerships that are currently off-limits to solar and other renewables. Many fossil fuel subsidies are so obscure and have existed for so long that they are invisible to most Americans. By contrast, solar incentives have been politicized to the extent that they have come under scrutiny from a wide range of sources, even though the tax rules that govern equipment financing have been in place for decades and should be the same for everyone. Despite the manufactured controversies surrounding them, these tax policies have created an opportunity for solar to achieve the scale necessary to reduce costs and lessen its dependence on incentives — the identical role that the same policies played to encourage domestic oil and gas production in prior decades.
Wind and solar are not “renewable” energy. Solar panels and wind turbines both have effective lifetimes of <30 years. Both of these "green" technologies do not exhibit the ROI that should be present in a qualified sustainable generation deployment.
Both wind and solar present SIGNIFICANT technical issues from both a transmission and distribution standpoint. Oklahoma is currently experiencing significant voltage swells and other power transients due to the inclusion of over 500 MW of wind generation in western portions of the state. The multi-million dollar grid upgrades and expensive new natural gas turbines that MUST be installed to support all these "green" generation sources defeats any arguments for the adoption of these non-dispatchable resources.
Anyone promoting wind and solar as a viable solution to american energy independence is only detracting investment from actually viable solutions.
I think that government subsidies need to be cut from ALL the existing energy sector companies. Only then will you see true environmental and human friendly solutions.
I personally am a huge proponent of nuclear technology based on a thorium fuel cycle. There is a reactor south of fayetteville (SEFOR) that was run back in the 70s that could easily be adapted as a 20 MW capable demonstration of concept for less than the cost of five 2.5 MW GE wind turbines!!