Innovators, Imitators and Idiots Go

Posted on 5/1/2009 with 0 comments

Kansas Lt Governor Mark Parkinson started his talk on the RE industry by referring to Warren Buffet’s view on market development.  For certain segments (e.g. ethanol) — and there was no argument — the industry has progressed to the final stage of idiotic behavior.

With this lead in, he then proceeded to describe how Kansas (one of the windiest states) had gone from less than 5 MW a couple of years ago to now over 1000 MW.  Instead of working a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) or other mandatory incentives through the State Legislature, he worked with the developers, utilities and regulators to develop a plan to put Kansas on the “map.”  He explained that both he and the Governor did not feel confident they could get something through the Statehouse.  So instead, they took a non-traditional approach of working with the most important stakeholders (amazing).  Kansas is now one of the largest producers of wind power.

Parkinson also provided some insights into what he sees are some of the biggest needs for achieving real scale in renewable energy.  Specifically:

• National RPS
• Definable cost for carbon
• Significant increases in technology research (He thought we spent more on Halloween candy and costumes than what had been committed by DOE’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency group
• Much more transmission.

He also made the point that he thought it would be enormously difficult to institute a “cap and trade” system.  Despite Obama’s call for this type of emissions scheme, he said Democratic and Republican resistance is too great.