Craig Miller/KQED

Most Californians can't install rooftop solar panels.

California’s big utilities are working toward the goal of generating 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, but some people want more renewable power, sooner. And there’s a solution to that: generate your own. But for most Californians — those who rent, who live in condos, whose property isn’t suitable for solar or wind installations or who just can’t afford it — that solution isn’t really an option.

Senator Lois Wolk, from Davis, has written legislation with a new solution. If Senate Bill 843 passes, customers of one of California’s big three investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison or San Diego Gas and Electric, would be allowed to purchase renewable energy directly from small, independent producers. Those producers send energy into the grid, then customers get credits on their regular utility bills.

SB 843 Bill Summary, credit: Environmental Entrepreneurs

These offsite facilities could take a range of forms, solar arrays over parking lots, small wind installations or bio-gas facilities, but they can generate no more than 20 megawatts each (a typical nuclear plant puts out 50 times that much). And the total amount of energy generated in the state through the program can’t exceed two gigawatts, equivalent to about two nuclear plants. So in size and scale, they fall somewhere in between household-by-household rooftop solar and the giant installations being built in some parts of the state.

“They’re pooling the community resources in order to create an economy of scale, if you will, offsite,” Wolk said. “Schools or cities could do it, churches could do it, renters could do it. They could buy in to one of these facilities and receive a credit on their bill.”

The utilities aren’t united in their opinions on the program. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric have opposed it. Denny Boyles from PG&E said a concern for his company is how the program would affect utility customers who don’t participate in it.

“In an effort to increase renewables, you could drive up the costs for everyone else,” he said.

For example, the cost of building and maintaining transmission lines. But backers of the bill emphasize that those costs are built into the program, and non-participants won’t shoulder any extra burden.

San Diego Gas and Electric not only supports the bill, but spokesman Erin Koch said it’s an idea the utility had already considered.

“San Diego Gas and Electric strongly supports the concept of community solar, and we think there’s a way to make this work,” he said.

The legislation passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday, and now goes on to the Assembly floor. If it passes, the new program would go into effect January 1, 2013.

Craig Miller / KQED

Wind turbines in Solano County. 78% of Californians polled favor federal support for renewable energy.

Much has been made lately of Berkeley physicist Richard Muller’s recent “conversion” to the position that global warming is both happening and stoked by human activity.* But it turns out that the controversial scientist and author has been playing catch-up.

In a statewide survey released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), 60% of Californians polled said that the effects of global warming have already begun. Asking the question in a slightly different way, both the Brookings Institution and the Pew Center for People & the Press found that in 2011, 60% and 63% of Americans, respectively, believed that there was solid evidence that global warming is happening.

Californians took it a step further, however, with nearly three-in-four of the 2,500 participants responding that government should take steps to “counter the effects of global warming right away.” PPIC conducted the survey in July and it includes responses in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Interestingly, Californians’ acceptance of mainstream climate science has flagged slightly from its peak from 2006-2008 — about 65%. LIkewise for opinions about the need for immediate climate action, with 80% of people responding, “yes, right away” in 2008. That enthusiasm waned some over the next several years, as Al Gore’s groundbreaking warming documentary faded in memory and critics launched high-profile attacks on the science. The Brookings study indicates that people often connect global warming to the experience of warmer weather, so it may have helped that a severe heat wave has made national headlines this summer.

Californians for the most part favor policies that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Seven -out-of-ten respondents say they support AB 32, California’s law requiring the state to reduce its warming emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. And they support California’s tendency to go it alone, passing stricter regulations and laws than the national standards.

But don’t ask for too many details as a whopping 57% had never heard of cap-and-trade, the system of emission permits that can be bought and sold between companies. It’s the centerpiece of California’s strategy to comply with AB 32 and companies will begin trading permits in November. To be fair to the survey participants, once the policy was spelled out in the question, more than half the respondents said they favored cap-and-trade.

Let’s recap: for the most part Californians believe global warming is happening now, and something should be done about it now, including policies that would force emissions down. Some of the things favored include requiring greater energy efficiency in buildings, higher fuel economy standards in cars and trucks, and encouraging city planners to change land use and transportation strategies in order to reduce the number of cars on the road. The responses to questions about energy production, however, are a bit more mixed.

Nuclear power plants like this one at Diablo Canyon have fallen out of favor with Californians since the nuclear disaster in Japan. (Craig Miller/KQED)

Respondents were exactly split 48%-48% on whether to allow more oil drilling off the coast of California, and 63% oppose building more nuclear power plants. That number has gone up since the disastrous tsunami and nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant in March of 2011. Californians are also divided on “fracking,” the controversial process used to extract oil and natural gas from rock formations. Of those familiar with the term, slightly more oppose using the method in California (46-42%). Variations on the technique have been used for years in California’s oil patch. The current debate centers on using the method to wring natural gas out of shale formations.

On the question of renewable energy, Californians overwhelmingly favor of more federal funding to develop wind, solar and hydrogen technology, despite varying reports on the nation’s commitment to renewable energy.

*Hear an hour-long discussion with Muller, host Scott Shafer and Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller, on KQED’s Forum program.

By Kamal Menghrajani

Kaiser Permanente

Solar panels on the roof of Kaiser's hospital in Modesto will help the Oakland-based health care provider reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

All across California, people are looking for ways to be more eco-friendly: composting, recycling, driving less, and turning out the lights. Now it looks like hospitals in the area are following suit, as Kaiser Permanente announced new ‘green’ initiatives this week.

The Oakland-based health care provider is installing fuel cells and solar panels at its hospitals and clinics throughout the state. The huge non-profit is also turning to green building techniques for new construction projects and to save energy where possible in existing facilities.

The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, or a total of 264,000 metric tons, by the year 2020.

Health care activities take a significant toll on the environment, accounting for eight percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Kaiser, with its network of 36 hospitals and more than 500 clinics, is positioned to make a serious dent in emissions.

Kaiser’s Chief Energy Officer, Ramé Hemstreet, admits that it will be expensive to get the initiative underway, but he says the projects will pay for themselves over time. “You invest a million dollars in an energy conservation measure that returns $150,000 a year in energy cost reduction, and you have a project with a 7- or 8-year payback,” he said. “We think this will both benefit the environment and benefit our members in terms of our cost profile.”

Kaiser is the latest to come on board with environmentally conscious practices that have been spreading across hospitals throughout the Bay Area.

Stanford University Medical Center (SUMC) has been focusing efforts on waste reduction and energy efficiency. Within the last few months, managers there have taken steps such as switching from polystyrene to paper cups in patient care areas and providing biodegradable flatware with their to-go meals.

The efforts led to SUMC being flagged as a Partner for Change in April by health care environmental group Practice Greenhealth. Wesley Palmquist, Vice President of General Services for SUMC, says the Medical Center is now recycling more than 10% of its total waste stream.

UC San Francisco is trying to move toward a greener future by looking backwards, with  aggressive goals to scale back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels (also the benchmark for California’s centerpiece climate law, known as AB 32), and aiming for zero waste by the end of the decade.

All three hospital systems are seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for their new construction projects.

“Obviously some of the manifestations of climate change can have a deleterious impact on human health,” Kaiser’s Hemstreet says. “So we’re going to do our part to ensure that we’re reducing our carbon footprint.”

Craig Miller/Climate Watch

The partnership between the Department of the Interior and the state of California expedites the approval process for large-scale solar, wind, and geothermal projects.

The partnership originates from an agreement then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in 2009. Now Brown and Salazar are extending it, and broadening the scope of the agreement, to include not only energy, but also transmission projects. They signed a memorandum of understanding (pdf) at a solar project being built in Elk Grove this morning.

According to a press release from the state, the projects now being fast-tracked, which are the Bureau of Land Management’s seven priority projects, plus other projects on private land, will generate enough renewable energy to meet the state’s 33% by 2020 goal.

The MOU signed today doesn’t guarantee they’ll all be built, rather, it’s a move towards expediting the lengthy permitting process these large-scale projects require.

Craig Miller/KQED

A rooftop solar array on a home in Vacaville.

SolarCity’s announcement this week that the company is moving forward with a massive military housing solar project, may be more than just a boost for one company. It’s another indication that despite a turbulent few months, the solar industry is alive and thriving.

By itself it’s a big deal that SolarCity and Bank of America Merill Lynch are teaming up without a government loan guarantee. That isn’t traditionally how it’s been done. Private investors usually like the security of a guarantee before they get into a big, risky investment. But in an interview with KQED’s Lauren Sommer, SolarCity’s CEO Lyndon Rive says this investment isn’t actually very risky, “We’re selling electricity; the consumer needs it. It’s not like you are financing a car where they can skip on their financing payments. It is a necessity.”

“It’s exactly what the program was intended for,” says Rive, who sees the deal as a sign that the federal loan guarantee program is doing its job. “The government came up with the loan guarantee program about two and half to three years ago with the intent to get private capital to the market, so that private capital would finance solar systems after the loan guarantee went away,” he told Sommer.

That model has panned out for SolarCity. Originally, the firm was angling for a federal loan guarantee, but the firestorm around Solyndra’s collapse made it impossible for them to meet the program’s September 30th deadline. Rive says he always believed they’d find the financing somehow.

“When we started in 2010 the only way I was getting this done was through the loan guarantee. Through the year of hard work and not getting the loan guarantee there was no doubt in my mind that we would do this privately,” he asserted.

Private investment comes at price. Originally, SolarCity wanted to install panels on 160,000 units instead of the 120,000 announced. But Rive says the loan from Merrill is going to cost them a bit more, so they had to scale back. He remains optimistic, saying that losing the federal guarantee wasn’t all bad news. “The loan guarantee comes with a lot of restrictions on it,” said Rive. “The plus is low cost of capital. The minus is all the restrictions,” he admitted.

The federal loan guarantee has been an important way for solar firms to attract investors. Another crucial tool that renewable energy companies have used to weather the recession — and the lack of liquidity and investment dollars that came with it — is a tax provision known as “1603” for the section of federal law that authorized it. It allows companies to take a cash grant instead of the 30% tax credit that they’re entitled to under tax law. The provision is set to expire at the end of the year. Without it, renewable energy companies say they’ll have a lot more trouble coming up with the cash they need to finance new projects. A coalition of 750 businesses and organizations sent a letter to Congress this week, asking them to extend the provision.

For now, SolarCity’s contract with private military housing companies represents a ray of hope for solar. Rive claims that only 180,000 solar systems have been installed across the country in the last 30 years. The 120,000 announced will almost double that in five years’ time. “Right now we are at less than one-percent penetration in the US, but that’s not even close to where it needs to be. We need to get to 10-20% penetration in the US. before we get true economies of scale. Once we get to that point we’ll be able to make solar work without incentives,” concluded Rive.

Craig Miller

Wind is one of the few energy sources that requires virtually no water.

The Gordian knot of interdependence between water & power (not the political kind — that’s another story) has been getting a lot of attention lately as the “water-energy nexus.” A new report from Oakland’s Pacific Institute warns that as population grows and a changing climate further wrings water out of the West, “These trends will intensify water resource conflicts throughout the region.”

Oh, goody. Just what the West needs; more water conflicts.

Matthew Heberger / Pacific Institute

The Intermountain West

Defined by topography and climate, rather than political boundaries, the report focused attention on a region that takes in all of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, and portions of seven other states, including a narrow vertical slice of California.

The authors calculate that power plants throughout the region “withdrew” (note that this doesn’t mean “consumed”) more than 1.1 million gallons of water each day to keep running, or about twice the amount that the City of Los Angeles uses in a year.

They further reckon that:

“Under current trends, by 2035, water withdrawals and consumption for electricity generation in the region are projected to increase by 2% and 5%, respectively, over 2010 levels – but water availability is already affecting power plant operations and siting in the Intermountain West.”

The report also catalogs how water is slurped up by the use of fossil fuels in particular, in extraction, refining and transportation.

The authors suggest that the way out of this conundrum is to move aggressively toward less water-intensive renewable energy, while pushing for more advances in energy efficiency.

Tillson Burg / iStock.com

Energy production casts a long shadow over an already-thirsty West. Steam-generating power plants like this one use the most water.

It’s worth mentioning that with the exception of wind power, most renewable energy requires some water — even photovoltaic solar “farms” have to be watered, so to speak, if only to wash the dust off the panels.

It’s also worth mentioning that the problem goes beyond just the anticipation of scarce water for cooling “thermal” power plants, which includes coal, natural gas, nuclear, and so-called solar-thermal facilities. The authors also point to more subtle pressures on the energy-water nexus:

“Warmer temperatures reduce the efficiency of thermal power plants and of transmission and distribution lines. More power will need to be generated, and more water withdrawn and consumed, to offset these efficiency losses. Likewise, reductions in hydropower generation and increases in electricity demand associated with warmer temperatures will increase demand for additional power generation and as a result, likely increase water withdrawals and consumption.”

In its 66-page report, the Institute concludes that “these alternative strategies can permit increases in electricity production with a significant reduction in total water demands, reducing pressure on scarce and over-allocated water resources.”

The research, by Heather Cooley, Julian Fulton, and Peter Gleick, was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Gretchen Weber

The Navajo Generating Station is coal-fired power plant in Arizona, just outside the Grand Canyon National Park. It's one of two coal plants that supplies more than 40% of Los Angeles' power.

Here in California, you hear a lot about our “green” reputation.  We have one of the most ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals in the country, and the state is certainly a hotbed for new solar and wind energy investments and installations. We also have a law that says electricity providers have to get 33% of their power from renewable sources by 2020.

So… you might be surprised to hear that coal — that’s right, dirty ol’ coal — is still very much a part of the power supply in parts of Southern California. If you’re one of the 1.4 million residents of Los Angeles who gets power from the city’s Department of Water and Power, about 40% of your electricity comes from coal.

But how’s that possible?  Here in California, we don’t have much in the way of coal deposits, and no significant coal power plants. But we do have several public utilities that own portions of out-of-state coal power plants, and that entitles them to lots of less-than-clean, coal-fired energy.

There are five out-of-state coal plants providing power to California, and according to the Sierra Club, two of them — the Four Corners Power Plant and the San Juan Generating Station, both in New Mexico — are the two top mercury-emitting power plants in the United States. Here’s the lineup:

1. Navajo Generating Station – Arizona
Total Capacity: 2,409 Megawatts (MW)

• The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power owns 21.2%of the plant (510 MW). The contract expires in 2019, but LADWP General Manager Ron Nichols told KQED QUEST reporter Lauren Sommer that the utility is looking into ending the contract as early as 2014.
• According to the Sierra Club, the plant was, as of 2004, the fifth-largest emitter of CO2 in the nation (among power plants), and uses eight billion gallons of water from Lake Powell each year for cooling.

2. Reid Gardner Generating Plant – Nevada
Total Capacity: 612 MW

• California’s Department of Water Resources owns more than 67% of this plant (183 MW).  According to the DWR, Reid Gardner supplies more than 18% of the agency’s power. Its contract expires in 2013, and DWR has said it will not renew the agreement.
• In 2007, the Environmental Integrity Project rated Reid Gardner Generating Plant as the nation’s dirtiest coal plant in terms of CO2 emissions. (3,500 lbs of CO2 emitted per megawatt-hour, compared with an average of 2,000 lbs.)

3. Intermountain Power Plant - Utah
Total Capacity: 1,640 MW

• Several California companies, primarily LA’s DWP, own rights to 96% (1,574 MW) of energy generation.

4. Four Corners Power Plant – New Mexico
Total Capacity: 2,070 MW

• Southern California Edison, which supplies power to approximately 14 million Californians, owns 48% of this plant (786 MW). The utility has applied to sell its share by 2012.

5. San Juan Generating Station – New Mexico
Total Capacity: 1,848 MW

• Two of the plants four units are owned in large part by California cities, towns, and agencies.
• As Sommer reported in her radio piece, PNM, the parent company of the San Juan GeneratingStation, “has struggled to meet air quality standards and the Environmental Protection Agency ordered the plant to install new pollution control equipment.”

Here’s a map from the Sierra Club showing where the coal plants that supply California are located.

View California Coal Plants in a larger map

Listen to Lauren Sommer’s radio report about California’s struggle to quit coal.

Solazyme Inc.

A Riverine Command Boat running on a 50/50 blend of algae-based and traditional fuel.

Thirty years ago, the idea of a military-alternative energy partnership might have raised some eyebrows, particularly among solar entrepreneurs here in Northern California. But in the wake of Solyndra’s crash and burn, the Pentagon has become one of clean-tech’s strongest remaining allies in Washington. Leading the charge is Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, whom I interviewed last week for my radio report on KQED’s Quest.

According to a recent study from the Pew Charitable Trust, the military has tripled its investment in technologies like biofuels, solar panels, and electric vehicles over the last four years. Today, it spends $1.2 billion a year on alternative fuels. That amount is expected to reach $2.25 billion by 2015. Mabus says he wants to see the Navy and Marine Corps getting at least half of their fuel from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.

Right now, clean tech needs all the champions it can get. Last week, Solar City announced it’ll miss out on $275 million in federal loans from the Department of Energy, thanks to the “Solyndra effect.” Some conservative lawmakers have questioned whether the US Government should be investing in alternative energy at all. But Mabus says he’s standing firm on his commitment to clean tech.

How did the US Military become interested in alternative energy?

If you’re a military organization, you look at potential or actual adversaries’ vulnerabilities, and you try to see where they’re vulnerable.You’d better do the same thing for yourself. So we looked at vulnerabilities for the Navy and the Marine Corps, and one of the ones that rose right to the top was our dependence on fossil fuels.

There are several reasons for that. One is that we buy too many fossil fuels from actually or potentially volatile places on Earth. Two is the that worldwide market for fossil fuels is incredibly volatile and vulnerable to price shocks. In the last two years, the price of oil has gone from a low of $72 a barrel to a high of $116, and today it’s at $105. Every time the price of oil goes up a dollar a barrel, it costs the Navy $31 million [per year] in extra fuel costs.

So we’ve had over a billion dollars in additional fuel costs in the last two years. The only place we have to get that is from our readiness account. So fewer flying hours, less training. And we’ve got to find a way to dampen down those sorts of price shocks.

And finally, tactically, if you think about getting a gallon of gas to a marine front-line unit in Afghanistan, it’s incredibly hard and very expensive, both in terms of dollars, but also in terms of lives. For every 50 convoys of gasoline or water – those are the two things we import most into Afghanistan – we lose a marine, either killed or wounded. And that’s too expensive.

It also keeps marines who are guarding these convoys from doing what they’re supposed to do, what they were sent there to do, which is fight, engage, rebuild. So from a big-picture standpoint, there were lots of very compelling reasons why we need to move off fossil fuels to the maximum extent that we can.

I want to ask about Section 526 – the President George W. Bush-era provision that prohibits the federal government — including the military — from buying fuel with a carbon footprint any greater than traditional oil resources. There have been calls from conservative lawmakers to remove the provision. Where do you stand on that?

I think 526 is good law, requiring that any fuels or energy that the military buys be equal to or less in terms of carbon emissions. That’s a good thing to have happen, to lower carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s not the main reason we’re doing this. It’s a side effect. The main reason we’re doing this is because it makes us better war fighters.

But having said that, [the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions] is a good side effect. And I think it’s a worthwhile goal.

If 526 were eliminated, wouldn’t the military have a harder time justifying its clean-tech investments? After all, you’d have a domestic, North American source of fossil fuel energy from the tar sands, for example, that you could be taking advantage of.

Well the short answer is I don’t think it would be a harder case to make.

Primarily because whether we even could get all the fossil fuels [we need] from the US and domestically — that’s an iffy proposition. But even if we could, the prices for fossil fuels are set on a worldwide basis. They’re not just set in the United States.

The biggest price shock we’ve had was during the events in Libya, which is a big oil producer, but not the biggest one. The disruption in Libya caused the price of oil worldwide to go up almost $30 a barrel. And so you would still be very susceptible to these price shocks, even if you were getting all your fossil fuel energy from domestically-produced sources.

In the wake of Solyndra, the Department of Energy has been heavily criticized for its investments in clean-tech. What’s different in the way the Department of Defense approaches these decisions? And are you at all concerned that some of that political heat might start focusing on the military?

Secondly, and I’ll speak in terms of this biofuels initiative that the president has passed. We’re doing this in a very deliberate way. We’re doing this in conjunction with a lot of participation by industry. It’s a very competitive process. There’s going to be a long period where we do a lot of due diligence, where we require industry to put up at least dollar-for-dollar, matching us. So [private investors’] money is going to be at least as much and probably more in the game than ours. That’s been our charge and that’s been the way we’re approaching this.

To learn more about the US military’s investments in clean tech, listen to Amy’s Quest radio story:

By Chris Bauer

A dreamer stares up into the sky, watches the clouds slowly pass by and ponders what could be. From da Vinci to Newton to the Wright brothers to the little kid down the street, sometimes there’s a fine line between the day-dreamer and the visionary. And now a group of innovative thinkers are looking at those same passing clouds in a whole new way.

Looking up at the jet stream, Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist from the Carnegie Institution of Global Ecology at Stanford University says, “We find that there’s more than 100 times the power necessary to power civilization in these high altitude winds.” 100 times the energy to power the world is going to get people’s attention.

The global need for clean energy is pushing scientists and engineers to search for new, untapped sources of energy. “To solve this problem we need a real revolution in our system of energy development,” continues Caldeira, “We need huge amounts of power, and the things that can provide huge amounts of power include fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas; nuclear power, solar power and wind.” The strongest and most consistent winds are found in the jet stream as high as 30,000 feet above the earth. But how do you harness the wind power from that high? Now the race is on to find the answer to that question.

It may seem pie-in-the-sky, but over 20 companies around the world are now working to develop technology to tap the strong and consistent power of high altitude wind. One company we profiled here on QUEST, Makani Power in Alameda, California, has received a $15 million grant from Google to build a wing concept that would autonomously fly in high circles, capturing energy with small turbines and sending the power down its tether. Other companies are exploring the use of kites, parachutes, balloons and other fanciful flying machines.

There is no shortage of skeptics and there are plenty of obstacles to hurdle before true high altitude wind energy can get off the ground. But still, it’s fun and interesting to stare up at the floating clouds and dare to dream.

Gretchen Weber

Gov. Jerry Brown with Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

In his keynote address at this week’s National Clean Energy Summit, Vice President Joe Biden said America is at a crossroads when it comes to energy, and that the choice is clear.

“If we shrink from deciding that we’re going to lead in the area of alternative energy, renewable energy, then we will be making the biggest mistake this nation has made in its entire history,” he said.

The Vice President was joined by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, California Governor Jerry Brown, and other political and industry leaders at the summit, which is in its fourth year and is sponsored by several entities, including the Center for American Progress and Nevada Senator Harry Reid.

“If we don’t lead in this new energy technology, we’re going to follow, and I’d hate like hell to be trading the importation of oil, for the importation of new technologies,” said Biden. “Neither is very acceptable.”

Biden said that the last two years, the United States has fallen behind China and Germany in domestic clean energy investments.

In his address, Energy Secretary Steven Chu laid out a road map for the United States, saying that if the nation wants to lead, it needs to invest in research and education. He also recommended creating a clean energy development agency and a federal clean energy standard in order to spur private investments.

In an interview after his speech, Chu said that California’s renewal portfolio standard of 33% by 2020 does just that.

“Manufacturers of wind and solar can actually make this — they know they have a market, that utility companies will actually buy this, and that stimulates investments in those areas,” he said. “The government necessarily has to put money into research, but you also need a market draw, and that market draw is ultimately going to be driven by a price on carbon. But in the meantime, you need things like renewable or clean energy standards for that market draw.”

Governor Jerry Brown told summit-goers that the policy is working for California.

“California’s 33%-by-2020 goal has stimulated real investment, real money is coming in, by the billions, and they know that we’re committed, we’re going to make it happen. If the United States had a similar goal, it would be good.”

Brown said the state granted permits for 5,000 megawatts of new solar and wind power last year alone, with 15 times that amount currently in the permitting process.