Expert: Ohio’s Clean Energy Leadership is a Blueprint for the Nation
Mary Kuhlman, Managing Editor
Thursday, April 28, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio is being highlighted as a state where clean-energy policies are helping businesses and creating jobs.
Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, now a senior policy adviser to the Pew Clean Energy Program, spoke Wednesday to the University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio about how the state's 2008 alternative-energy portfolio standard already has boosted its wind, solar and renewable-energy industries.
"Now you've got about 9,000 people in Ohio working in renewable energy, when that didn't happen before."
The standard requires that by 2025 at least 25 percent of all electricity sold in Ohio must come from alternative-energy resources. Granholm says something similar is needed on a national level.
"Policy matters. We're not talking about cap and trade, not talking about a carbon tax. We're talking about our very specific policies like you have done, but on a nationwide basis."
Such a federal energy policy would spur clean-energy investments and keep the nation competitive globally, Granholm says. The Pew Charitable Trusts recently ranked China and Germany higher than the United States in clean-energy investments, and outlined how government policies are linked to investments.
Granholm also toured Ohio State's Center for Automotive Research, which develops next-generation power systems for clean vehicles of all sizes. These types of industries are crucial to modernizing the manufacturing base in the state, she says.
"The opportunity for states like Ohio, the suppliers to the auto industry, to thrive because they are making the next generation of vehicles is huge for the industrial Midwest, for job creation and for energy independence."
Granholm also will make stops in Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee as part of a nationwide clean-energy tour.
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