Fuel Forecast 05.13.06 Press

Providence Journal

Fuel forecast looks bleak

Business Section, Page 1
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, May 13, 2006
BY TIMOTHY C. BARMANN
Journal Staff Writer

NEWPORT -- Energy experts see a dismal picture of the region's energy outlook during the next 20 years: rising demand, coupled with a declining source of fossil fuels, and higher costs.
"We're at the end of the era of cheap oil that has really characterized the U.S. energy situation in the last century," said Henry Lee, a public policy lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
Lee was among several speakers yesterday at the 30th Annual Conference of the New England Governors and the Eastern Canadian Premiers, held at the Hyatt Regency Newport.
 

The meeting, which continues today, focuses on issues of regional interest, including energy policy, oceans and the environment, as well as trade between the United States and Canada.
 

The meeting "represents a wonderful opportunity to develop a consensus and move forward on issues that go beyond the borders of our individual states and provinces," said Governor Carcieri, cohost of the conference, along with Pat Binns, premier of Prince Edward Island.
 

"Our agenda . . . builds on the success of last year's conference in creating more coordinated approaches to address our energy needs and our joint effort to protect the environment," Carcieri said.
The discussions were held in both English and French, and attendees were provided with headphones and a small black radio, the size of a deck of cards, in which they could tune in to a translation in the language of the listener's choice.
 

Yesterday afternoon was devoted to energy. Several speakers advised the leaders to adopt policies that would lead to more conservation and a shift to free resources, such as the wind and the sun.
In simplest terms, the energy problems we face today and in the immediate future boil down to growth in demand exceeding growth in supply, the attendees said. For example, half of the oil that is expected to be needed in 2020 has yet to be discovered, said Daniel Bienvenue, deputy minister of Quebec's Ministry for Natural Resources.
 

Over the next 20 years, about $10 billion will be sucked out of the New England economy to pay for the anticipated increases in the cost of electricity and natural gas, said Samuel P. Krasnow, a policy advocate and a lawyer for Environment Northeast.
 

One of the solutions, Krasnow said, is to invest more in conservation programs, such as those run by utility companies for residential and business customers.
 

He suggested that policymakers should think of conservation as if it were a new source of energy, and to invest accordingly. He said that natural-gas conservation programs in Connecticut, which cost customers about $11 million, resulted in an overall savings of $43 million.
 

(The Rhode Island General Assembly is considering legislation that would create a new natural-gas conservation program.)
 

"There's a huge opportunity" for savings with conservation, Krasnow said. "Let it compete, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, with traditional supply. The economy of the region will win, keeping dollars at home."
 

A coalition of consumer and environmental groups held their own news conference at the event to call attention to an issue that wasn't on the agenda: reducing pollution-causing emissions, such as those from automobiles and electricity plants, believed to cause global warming.
 

The governors and premiers are falling behind the goals they set in 2001 that called for emissions to be lowered to 1990 levels by 2010, and 10 percent further by 2020, the coalition said.
 

"Over the past five years, the states and provinces have adopted some strategies to reduce global-warming pollution," said Matt Auten, a coordinator for the New England Climate Coalition. But "none of them are on track to hit the 2010 reduction goals," he said.
 

The group said that states and provinces need to do more to encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, lower vehicle pollution by offering incentives for purchase of more efficient cars, invest more in public transportation, and to push the electricity generation sector into using cleaner energy sources.