The proposed plant has many dissenters in the environmental community, but only one on the city commission -- Allan Katz, a local attorney and Democratic National Committee member. Morally, Katz says he can't justify building something in someone else's backyard that he doesn't want in his own.
Moreover, he insists, the plant is unnecessary. He prefers buying power from other, cleaner coal-fired plants, combined with other alternative sources (burning wood and garbage, for instance) as well as what's called ``demand-side management'' -- bureaucratese for helping utilities and citizens make more efficient use of energy.
Swapping those light bulbs, for instance.
It sounds silly, but it's not. In the current issue of Fast Company magazine, Charles Fishman (author of ``The Wal-Mart Effect'') writes about a tiny, energy-saving miracle called the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL).
Improved, but not new, the CFL uses 75 percent to 80 percent less electricity than the classic incandescent bulb and lasts for about five years. Fishman predicts the CFL is about to change the world. Here's how: If all 110 million households in America replaced just one 60-watt bulb with a CFL, the energy saved would power a city of 1.5 million people.
Or save enough to shut down two power plants -- or skip building the next two.
What if Tallahassee handed out one free CFL to its approximately 80,000 households? I called Fishman to find out. He suggested giving 10 CFLs to each household at a cost of about $1 million. (CFLs cost slightly less than $3 each, but would sell for about $1 in such bulk, he figures.)
Given that one 60-watt bulb replaced saves 65.7 kilowatt-hours per year -- and a typical U.S. household uses 10,700 kilowatt-hours a year -- then Tallahassee would save enough power to light 4,881 homes. That's an energy savings of about 5 percent.
While 5 percent is a small savings in the grand scheme, it's a pretty good return on $1 million. Plus, that leaves plenty of saved money -- oh, about $399 million -- to direct toward other alternatives and innovations that don't involve producing more greenhouse gasses or polluting someone else's backyard.
Surely there's virtue -- and common sense -- in that. |