Survey points to renewable energy

BOISE – Idahoans see renewable resources as the state’s top energy priority and support using both incentives and rules to cause change, positions more aggressive than those embodied in the state’s updated energy policy, a new survey says.

The survey of 513 Idahoans by the Energy Policy Institute at Boise State University also found that residents are more comfortable with state intervention in siting of potential power plants than lawmakers.

“I think Idahoans want more action than the Legislature has said they probably want to take in a plan,” said John Freemuth, interim institute director and a BSU professor.

The state’s 93-page energy plan, released last week, suggests conservation as the most cost-effective energy option and recommends incentives to expand use of renewable energy, ethanol and alternative fuels.

“In the committee, they saw energy conservation and efficiency as the low-hanging fruit,” said Mike Louis, assistant institute director.

Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, co-chairman of the joint legislative committee that made the plan, said the policy takes into account the fact that its electricity prices are among the nation’s lowest.

“We really don’t want to set policies that drive up prices that make it hard for families to live here and for businesses to thrive here,” McKenzie said.

Conservation is foremost because “it’s important to use the energy we do use more efficiently regardless of its source,” he said.

“Conservation is always a cleaner option than generation, regardless of how you generate it,” he said.

The Interim Committee on Energy, Environment and Technology created the policy following outcry over plans to build a coal-fired power plant in Jerome County last year, which resulted in a two-year moratorium on new coal plants.

Idaho currently gets most of its power cheaply from hydroelectric and out-of-state coal plants. Yet those sources may become “a source of risk for Idaho’s energy future,” the plan states.

Renewables, such as wind, solar and geothermal power, make up just 1 percent, an amount expected to increase to 8 percent by 2015.

Half of Idahoans surveyed chose renewable electricity as the state’s chief priority, 26 percent chose conservation programs and 20 percent chose increasing traditional sources.

Availability of renewables surpassed the price of gas, water consumption and nuclear waste as the most pressing energy issue facing Idahoans.

The Idaho plan, unlike those in nearby states such as Washington, Nevada and Montana, does not set mandatory targets for how much of the state’s energy must be renewable.

Slightly fewer than half of the respondents said they prefer voluntary renewable energy targets, while 38 percent said they favor stronger mandates.

On a different question, 76 percent said the state should use a combination of both rewards and penalties if setting targets.

Freemuth said Idaho is a “follower, not a leader” in energy policy, although that “doesn’t mean we won’t come up with stuff eventually.”

“Idaho in some cases shouldn’t be expected to be a leader. I don’t think we see these issues as directly impacting on us quite as easily as the state of California might,” he said. “And our political culture in some cases is not responsive to that.”

While Idaho’s policy says the state should prepare for possible federal greenhouse gas regulations, it does not recommend action, such as taxing carbon emissions.

“The Committee did not debate the science of global climate change,” the policy states, adding that some utilities are already correctly planning for regulations.

Seventy percent of Idahoans said they believe “human activities are contributing to global warming,” compared to 24 percent who disagreed. Fifty-four percent of the former prefer actively reducing Idaho’s greenhouse gas emissions.

While the policy does not give the state authority to decide where power plants are sited, 69 percent of Idahoans said both state and local officials should be involved. Only 5 percent said such decisions should be strictly local.

Half of Idahoans surveyed called taking action to help low-income residents pay for power “very important.” But lawmakers decided the plan was the wrong place to legislate “social policy,” Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, has said.

Institute representatives attended many of the interim committee’s meetings this summer, taking notes to formulate the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percent.