Bend News

Central Oregon Could Tap Geothermal Power

Oregon Senate Gets Renewable

By Joseph Friedrichs, 4-11-07

After an extensive and arguably pointless debate, the Oregon Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would require the state’s largest utilities to eventually draw 25 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind, waves, sunlight and right here in Central Oregon, geothermal energy.

According to a story by Aaron Clark of the Associated Press, the bill was a centerpiece of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s effort to reduce global warming.

The measure passed despite opposition from Republicans who said it might result in higher costs for consumers by forcing new technologies into the market before they are cost competitive, Clark reported.

This bill is one of the strongest actions this body can take to do our share to curb global warming and protect and our increasingly fragile planet,” said Sen. Ben Westlund, D-Bend, as reported by the AP. “It helps brand us as the environmentally clean state that we are ... this has huge implications not only for today but for our future.”

The bill would require Oregon’s major utilities to obtain 5 percent of their power from renewable resources by 2011, increasing by increments to 25 percent by 2025.

The bill allows utilities to recover the cost of investing in new generating sources, Clark reported, such as wind farms, through increases to customers but includes a provision that could release them from the mandate if their costs increase by more than 4 percent of their revenue in one year.

According to the AP, Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said the bill was “part of somebody’s political agenda, and it has got a lot of energy behind it, a lot of heat behind it, and a lot of political power behind it. But it isn’t good public policy.”

Ferrioli and other Republicans said they supported a renewable energy standard for the state but argued a renewable mandate should include electricity generated from hydroelectric dams, Clark reported. Although the legislation allows electricity generated from new “low-impact” dams to count toward the standard, existing hydroelectric generation is not included under the bill.

Oregon gets about 40 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, according to the state’s Department of Energy.

Supporters said the measure would jump-start new technologies and techniques and help make Oregon a leader in the rapidly emerging clean energy, low-carbon economy, as it continues to race with other states for swiftly flowing investment capital, Clark reported.

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