TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist wants Florida to take on a California-style environmental mission to cut greenhouse gases.
But it will take a gargantuan financial investment, possibly a court fight, and more nuclear power to meet deadlines Crist unveiled last week.
Crist's executive orders signed Friday call for curbing all greenhouse gas emissions from power plants to their 2000 levels within a decade, and to only one-fifth of their 1990 levels by 2050.
That equates to eliminating about 260 million metric tons of the 298 million tons of carbon spewed annually into the air. Such cuts would have to occur even while Florida's population is expected to double, and homes, businesses and industrial sites continue to ramp up their electricity needs.
While the 2050 goal doesn't bother utility officials, the earliest deadlines could force existing plants to close if they're deemed too pollution-prone.
"It's like saying we have to knock down your house and build a new house when you still have a mortgage to pay" said Florida Municipal Electric Association Executive Director Barry Moline.
“If you look at (the long-term) goal, that’s 43 years from now. You could do anything in a generation. The interim goals are a little more difficult.”
Tommy Boroughs, an Orlando land-use lawyer, who heads the Florida Energy Commission which is charged by the Legislature to draft its own energy plan by the end of the year, agreed.
The commission is set to discuss Crist’s orders at its monthly meeting today in St. Petersburg. Boroughs called Crist’s initiative an “ambitious” agenda, but wasn’t confident its soonest deadlines were realistic.
“I don’t know how they figured they can get there that quick,” he said.
"We can’t compare ourselves to California. They’re an entirely different state than us, and are way ahead of us in curbing their greenhouse gases.”
Energy executives attending last week’s forum in Miami were also clear the goals couldn’t be met without building new nuclear power plants.
“I think we can go further on nuclear,” Jeff Lyash, Progress Energy president and chief executive, said last week. “The support for it is tremendous.”
Florida Power & Light spokesman Mayco Villafana also said meeting Crist’s goals “will be dependent on the energy mix that is decided upon.”
“If nuclear is not part of that energy mix in the future, it certainly would be a challenge meeting some of those goals,” he said.
One of the governor’s executive orders asks the state Public Service Commission to require utilities to provide at least 20 percent of their power generation from renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass.
Crist’s head of the Department of Environmental Protection, Mike Sole, said the governor supported nuclear power as part of the broader plan to lower greenhouse emissions, but not as a way to meet the 20 percent renewable energy sources threshold.
“Nuclear is without question a great solution to powering Florida without creating greenhouse gas emissions,” Sole said.
But Anthony De Luise, a spokesman with the PSC, said the agency would take a look at whether to include nuclear power in any future toughening of the state’s renewable energy requirements placed on utilities.
The PSC has a July 26 workshop scheduled to discuss renewable energy standards. “It is important to listen to the service providers as to some of their thoughts,” De Luise said. “Ultimately, they’re the ones that are going to have to meet that requirement.”
Florida could also join California in a legal fight this fall to force the federal government to approve tougher tailpipe emissions for vehicles built after 2008.
The California standards call for a 30 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2016. Crist wants Florida to enact the standards.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency if it doesn’t approve the standards by October. He repeated the threat in a taped CBS interview that aired Monday.
“Come October, we’re going to sue. There’s no two ways about it,” Schwarzenegger said.
Crist, also featured in the interview, repeated his pledge from last week to join the legal challenge.
“We will partner with our friends from California and get this done,” Crist said.
Ultimately, the Legislature would have to implement any kind of cap-and-trade or carbon tax system to give incentives to lower emissions.
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