SEC Urges Senate Committee to Convene Conference on Renewables

0 Comments | Renewable Energy Today, Feb 24, 2005

The Sustainable Energy Coalition (SEC) recently announced that 27 of the organizations comprising the coalition requested in a letter sent late last week that the members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources convene a conference to examine the potential of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies to meet U.S. energy needs.

In the letter, SEC said the organizations suggested that as the committee convened a similar conference on natural gas issues in January and is planning a forum on coal in March, a venue on "the range and characteristics of renewable energy resources and the mix of sustainable energy and energy efficient technologies...would be very helpful to the committee in identifying both short-term and long-term actions that address our current fossil fuel shortages, our stressed electricity delivery systems and a number of environmental concerns."

"...[R]enewable energy presently provides about eight percent of the nation's domestic energy production while, on a percentage basis, technologies such as wind, biofuels and photovoltaic cells are among the nation's fastest-growing sources of energy supply," said the organizations in the letter. "Collectively, renewable energy sources contribute more to the nation's energy supply than do so-called clean coal technologies."

Additionally, while acknowledging that "a portion of the earlier Natural Gas Conference was devoted to looking at sustainable energy alternatives and that may be the intent for the forthcoming Coal Conference as well," SEC said the groups argued that "it is a great mistake to view energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies as being merely adjuncts or supplements to natural gas, coal, oil or nuclear."

Contact: Ken Bossong, SEC, phone 202-293-2898 ext 201, website http://www.sustainableenergy.org.

(EIN STAFF: 2/18)