Clean Energy
The cost of energy is the biggest threat to Maine, its economy, and its standard of living today. 80 percent of our homes are heated primarily with oil; in fact 88% of all energy consumed in Maine is produced by fossil fuels. This represents the biggest cost to our businesses and our families. Every dollar that the price of gasoline and home heating oil goes up represents $1.2 billion gone from our economy. This cost is essentially what would happen if Maine doubled its sales and income tax; but in this case, we get nothing in return.
Money spent on fossil fuels is money that families could use to save for college or retirement, do home repairs, go out to dinner or a movie, or simply put food on their tables. It is money our businesses could use to reinvest, to expand, or just to remain competitive in this global market place. We must take steps now to change it.
As the next Governor of Maine, I will make reducing our dependence on foreign oil the centerpiece of my economic strategy.
But we must be more than a staging area. We must, to quote several experts, "vertically integrate the value chain". This means we have to be self-sufficient. To benefit fully from producing energy in Maine, we must also build the infrastructure to do so here in Maine.
How Will We Do It?
By focusing our economic development efforts on expansion of renewable power and energy efficiency. Our energy needs are both our biggest threat and our biggest opportunity. Wind power is an important part of the equation, but there are other essential elements as well: energy efficiency, biofuels, solar and tidal/hydro. Maine has opportunity to be an important national player in this regard.
This is not only possible; it is happening right now. We have taken big steps in the past several years. The legislature created pre-permitted sites for wind power that have dramatically decreased the permitting time. At Kibby Mountain, beautiful and graceful windmills are already working in what was already an industrial forest to produce enough electricity to supply all the homes in Franklin, Oxford, and Somerset counties combined!
The Ocean Energy Task Force is completing the same process for offshore sites, where Maine has the greatest possibility of producing energy that is equivalent to 40 nuclear power plants – only without the waste.
Simply hosting renewable power is not sufficient, however. We must make the components here in Maine. Windmill blades can and are being made here in Maine by our composite companies, traditional boat building companies. Maine companies, some of which are already building offshore oil rigs, can make the stations and offshore platforms. The University of Maine received a grant from the US Department of Energy to create the only marine wind power research facility in the state. This grant builds upon investments Maine has already made in the world-class composite testing laboratory.
Wind is not the only opportunity. The University of Maine is working with the pulp and paper industry to develop processes that use the waste product of paper making to make levelonic acid – a substance that can be used as a substitute for oil. This value added process is being tested at a facility in Gorham, and will be commercially produced with the company Red Shield at the former Georgia-Pacific site in Old Town.
At the same time, we must tighten up our homes. Maine has the oldest housing stock in the country, which adds to its charm, as they are a beautiful and historic part of our heritage. But many of these homes are drafty and inefficient. This past session the Legislature passed a major energy bill that consolidated the functions of our energy efficiency programs into one agency, and we provided funding of $30 million to supplement the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These funds will be used to help Maine people make their homes more energy efficient and decrease their use of energy for heating and lighting. The funds also provide much-needed jobs for the construction industry.
Maine has the capacity in our research, our heritage industries, and our workforce skills to truly transform our energy use. We have started that process, but it will take a focused effort to bring together the resources of the private sector and public sector, to retool and update the skills of our workforce. It is a partnership that Libby Mitchell’s administration will make happen by doing what she has been doing throughout her career: bringing people together from all sides to accomplish great things for Maine’s people.
