Fla. congressman vows energy shift

JUPITER, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney remembers suffering through long gasoline lines just to fill up his car.

But it wasn't during 2004 or 2005, when hurricanes hit and there were only a few gas stations with electricity available to run the pumps. It was in the 1970s, during the Arab oil embargo.

National leaders began talking about finding other ways - solar, hydrogen, biomass - to power the United States, but things didn't pan out, Mahoney said.

"We never heeded that call," the Palm Beach Gardens Democrat told about 200 people, most of them renewable-energy advocates from around the state, who gathered Monday at the Jupiter Beach Resort and Spa for a daylong conference on alternative energy and climate change.

"We have to be bold, we have to be resolute and I can tell you this: Congress is not going to roll back the clock," Mahoney said to applause.

"This is not a temporary alarm. We're going to make alternative energy policy that's going to last."

Mahoney said developing renewable fuels such as biomass - plant debris, for example - in Florida is about creating jobs, preserving the environment and shoring up national security because the U.S. would be less dependent on foreign oil.

The state should look at developing electricity from the sun, wind and ocean, he said.

Florida Atlantic University hopes to start a demonstration project on ocean energy this fall, said Rick Driscoll, associate professor in the school's department of ocean engineering.

"We need to adapt this technology and bring it to Florida," Driscoll said.

Florida lagged in strong policies to promote renewable energy until this year, when Gov. Charlie Crist said he considered global warming the century's top issue and signed off on initiatives that include making the state's utilities get 20 percent of their fuel from renewable sources.

Though Florida Power & Light Co. gets half its electricity from natural gas, sister company FPL Energy LLC is the nation's top producer of wind and solar power and is a heavy investor in nuclear generation.

Many other states are starting cap-and-trade emission programs and taking other steps to reduce greenhouse gases, which are blamed for global warming, said Henrietta McBee, the utility's director of renewable-energy project development.

"We plan today to phase in different programs for each of the carbon-abatement categories," McBee said. "We will need to plan for nuclear. ... This is a daunting task, yet as a nation I'm sure we'd be able to do it."

At a news conference later, Mahoney praised FPL's response to Crist's new policies. The utility was one of few in the state that didn't balk at the requirement to get 20 percent of its power from renewable fuels, he said.

"They said, 'Bring it on,'" Mahoney said.

But FPL and other utilities have said that goal will be difficult to meet unless nuclear power is included.

Many of the presenters at the conference - called Powering Florida's Energy Independence and organized by The Public Forum Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank - agreed that the state's best untapped renewable-energy resource is biomass.

James Fenton, executive director of the Florida Solar Energy Center, said biomass has so much potential that he refers to it as "baby coal."

But the first thing the state should try is using less energy in the first place, Fenton said.

"If the goal is to be energy-independent, that's a technology job that you can't outsource," Fenton said.

The Cocoa-based solar center is part of the University of Central Florida.

Though the state leads in areas such as citrus, wood waste and forest residues, Florida won't be able to produce electricity solely from biomass, said Lonnie Ingram, director of the Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels at the University of Florida.

"We will not be able to do it all. We will need a blend of technologies," he said.