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When author Michael Pollan spoke at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in
mid-October, it’s a safe bet his hosts didn’t offer fresh cherries to
the “local foods” advocate.
As a locavore — someone who tries to eat only food grown within a 100-mile radius of them — Pollan would have likely reacted to cherries like a vampire reacts to garlic. At this time of year, any fresh cherries in northern California would most likely have come from orchards in Chile, roughly 6,000 miles to the southeast.
Yet, when Pollan was handed the microphone he probably did not turn to David Wehner, Dean of the college hosting the event, and ask, “By the way, Dean – Where did the electrons powering this thing come from?”
Maybe he should have.
At least some of those electrons had just completed a 1,000 mile journey. The energy was converted from wind to electricity at the Klondike generating facility just south of the Washington-Oregon border. The electrons traveled over power lines down the entire state of Oregon, then traversing three-quarters of the length of California to arrive at the microphone in Pollan’s hand at Cal Poly.
But, to state the obvious: electrons are not cherries. So does it matter that these particular electrons began life 1,00o miles from the microphone they powered? That question is at the heart of the report, “Energy Self-Reliant States,” published in October by the New Rules Project. The 37-page report shows why “local energy” matters and then looks at the renewable energy potential of each state.
It concludes:
All 36 states with either renewable energy goals … or mandates could meet them by relying on in-state renewable fuels. Sixty-four percent could be self sufficient in electricity from in-state renewables; another 14 percent could generate 75 percent of their electricity from homegrown fuels.
Indeed, the nation may be able to achieve a significant degree of energy independence by harnessing the most decentralized of all renewable resources: solar energy. More than 40 states plus the District of Columbia could generate 25 percent of their electricity just with rooftop PV.
The New Rules Project is part of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), a Minnesota-based organization that has advocated “going local” on a wide swath of issues since 1974.
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