By: Isaac Pischer
Renewable energy is the way of the future, and that is what delegate Grace Alberts of the Door County Delegation hopes to address in her bill. Delegate Alberts says that she wrote this bill after becoming interested in renewable energy on a trip to Denmark, where she was able to climb a wind turbine. Alberts’ mother’s boyfriend is an energy professor at NWTC, and has been helping her on this bill from the get go.
The Renewable Portfolio Standard is a law that many states adopt to increase usage of renewable energy sources. including wind, solar, biomass and geothermal sources. Delegate Alberts says that the current statute was for a 2015 goal, and wants to update and increase the limit by 50% in order to increase the usage of the sources. Renewable energy is also the cheapest form of energy, and energy providers are required to use the cheapest form of energy. “Fortunately, progress is already being made,” Alberts added.
The bill is an accumulation of 3 years of hard work, which according to Alberts, was done because it was needed. “Renewable energy is the future. The sooner we switch, the more steps of progress we will be taking,” says Alberts. Billions of dollars is also spent on out of state exports for fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources, and Alberts mentions that her bill will cut down on costs, freeing up cash to be used “elsewhere”
Alberts also says that she finds a bunch of Nuclear energy fans, which she makes a point to mention the fact that this will coincide alongside nuclear energy, with it not even being included in the bill. Alberts calls them friends, not enemies.
When asked about storage options, Alberts likes to rebut that, “We have the storage. If we make it a priority, we can hire [the] engineers who can make it a priority.” Getting to the moon in 7 years is also compared to when talking about the goal.
“No [energy] is perfect. As long as we’re humans and have the demand we will be taking from the environment in some way. [it’s just] We have to do the lesser evil, which right now is renewable energy. It’s not as much as the coal, or nuclear energy sources,” says Alberts.
Delegate Alberts bill was passed in both the Senate and Philips Assembly, and was waiting on the Governor’s approval.