Ohio turns green

By Douglas Hunter

Notorious for dirty power plants that fill Ontario’s skies with acid rain, smog and greenhouse gases, the state of Ohio is finally poised to take a great leap forward in switching to green energy.

Ohio is home to some of the world’s biggest offenders in dirty power. According to the nonprofit monitoring group Carbon Monitoring for Action, four of the state’s power plants produce some 57 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, compared with the combined 26.3 million tonnes generated by Ontario’s biggest emitters, Lambton and Nanticoke. And the Ohio plants produce significantly more carbon per megawatt of energy than their worst Ontario counterparts.

Now the local government plans to do something about it. Among the measures in Bill 147, tabled in the legislature on March 7, are specific targets for renewable-energy production, fines for power companies that fail to comply, funds to create jobs in renewable-energy businesses and measures to promote carbon capture and storage.

The bill mandates that renewable-energy production must constitute 12.5 percent of all electricity sold by utilities in 2024, with 1 percent coming specifically from solar power. Already in 2007, planning was under way for a Lake Erie wind farm, a few miles offshore from Cleveland. That move has helped encourage Ontario to lift a 2006 moratorium on applications to develop offshore wind farms on the Great Lakes, and Natural Resources minister Donna Cansfield announced on January 17, 2008, that “offshore applications we’ve received to date will be processed, and we are preparing to accept new applications for both onshore and offshore developments.”

The state’s Republican leadership has been getting high marks for acting dramatically against type. As Jon Husted, Speaker of the Ohio House, explained, “This is a situation where economic and environmental interests are meeting in a way that will move Ohio into the future. For once we will be out in front of something rather than being behind.”