Charge Ahead
Texas can lead the way on renewable energy

Dallas Morning News
April 5, 2005

Clip this editorial and put it inside your checkbook or beside your computer, where you can contemplate it every time you pay your electric bill.

In 1999, Texas became one of the first states to require that a portion of the power generated in the state be produced from renewable sources -- primarily wind. The advantages are obvious: Technologies such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal are cleaner than fossil fuels, and they can help wean us from increasingly costly foreign oil.

Today, committees in the Legislature will discuss a plan to extend and bolster the state's "renewable portfolio standard." That's good, except that the measure on the table doesn't go far enough.

It would mandate that, by 2015, Texas produce 5,000 megawatts of energy a year from renewable sources. The current requirement is 2,000 megawatts a year by 2009.

On the face of it, that's a pretty respectable increase. But here's the reality: Sky-high natural gas prices already are driving a boom in renewable energy. At the current rate of increase, Texas would generate more than 7,000 megawatts a year from renewable sources by 2015.

What's the good of a goal that you're almost guaranteed to surpass? The new target must be achievable, but it should also make us reach.

Let's say we double it: 10,000 megawatts by 2015. At current levels, that's equal to about 9 percent of the electric power sold in the state. That's a less ambitious target than those in place in New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, New York, Connecticut and Hawaii. And it's behind California, which is going for 20 percent by 2017.

This isn't just about saving a few bucks or even protecting our air. We're talking about our security as a nation -- as 26 former national security officials told the White House in a letter urging greater emphasis on alternative energies. "We do not know today what form a crisis over oil will take but we know that a crisis is coming," they wrote (see "Letter to the President" at www.energyfuturecoalition.org ).

Texas has been a leader on renewable energy. The Legislature should renew that leadership.

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