From the Plain Dealer Forum page on July 26, 2006
A chance to define the future of energy
Region should be a hub of the power business
By Ronald B. Richard
If you've driven by the Great Lakes Science Center recently, you probably noticed the newest addition to the Cleveland skyline: a wind turbine.
What's that doing there?
The short answer: It's generating electricity. The turbine should supply roughly 7 percent of the energy requirements of the science center.
But the organizations that partnered to install this turbine had bigger ideas in mind than generating a few kilowatt hours. For the Cleveland area to rebound to prominence, we must spawn several new industries and create tens of thousands of new jobs. We believe that advanced energy could become one such industry.
It's increasingly clear that we face an enduring energy crisis. Prices for gasoline and natural gas have more than doubled since 2000 and very well could continue their climb. Globally, oil demand is soaring, but supplies of petroleum are not keeping pace, and remaining reserves are increasingly concentrated in the Middle East.
If that weren't bad enough, global climate change is becoming a more urgent concern. Burning oil, gas and especially coal causes climate change, yet we continue burning these fossil fuels with impunity.
Weaning modern society from our dependence on oil and decelerating climate change represent two of the biggest challenges the human race has ever faced. But they also represent huge economic opportunities.
Globally, more than $4 trillion is spent each year on "conventional" energy. This industry must be replaced by a multitrillion-dollar "advanced" energy industry, which must be invented largely from scratch.
Although advanced energy opportunities are being pursued aggressively worldwide, no one place has much of a head start. In other words, no region is coming to define advanced energy, as Houston represents the oil and gas industry.
We submit that Cleveland should aim to become one of the world's leading hubs of activity in advanced energy, an aspiration that requires concerted regional efforts spanning decades.
Locally, we have tremendous strengths essential to success. Our academic institutions and industrial corporations offer deep expertise in solving technical and commercial challenges.
If we succeed, we can create an industrial cluster employing tens of thousands of area citizens, generating billions of dollars in economic activity. And we can lose our self-imposed rust-belt image and recapture our civic pride.
We didn't install the wind turbine at the science center merely as a hopeful first step toward an offshore wind farm on Lake Erie. Rather, it's a symbolic display to excite citizens and children, inventors and entrepreneurs about the real possibility of becoming the primary American supplier of wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells, clean coal and whatever other new advanced technologies will supply the ever-growing demand for energy in an enduring fashion.
The Cleveland Foundation is playing a lead role and investing heavily in catalyzing advanced energy activities in the region. Recently we hired Richard Stuebi, our new BP fellow for energy and environmental advancement, to spearhead these efforts.
We are not alone in our commitment to advanced energy: Dozens of organizations and scores of people have joined us. But we need more help.
We need government leaders at all levels to address the energy crisis and stimulate advanced energy solutions. We need local corporations to step up in developing advanced energy products and services. We need utility companies to be open to embracing innovation. And perhaps most important, we need you to participate in the political process by voicing your concern, pushing for change and supporting advanced energy.
The lone wind turbine at the science center is but a symbol of our vision for our region. It's time for Northeast Ohio to transform itself. The answer is blowing in the wind: We're pressing for a move to advanced energy as an imperative for national security, local economic security and a healthier planet. Won't you join us?
Call Richard Stuebi at the Cleveland Foundation to get involved: 216-685-2011.
Richard is president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation.
