Columbia voters will weigh green energy option

Columbia voters will be asked on Election Day to move the city toward green energy, a feat the state of Missouri so far has been unable to accomplish in law.

The green energy initiative on Tuesday's ballot -- known locally as Proposition 3 -- would require the city of Columbia to begin using electricity from renewable or "green" power sources, and build on that momentum every five years until 2022.

Under the measure, wind power, converted landfill gas and other renewable sources would be an increasingly larger part of the city's current energy mix of coal, natural gas and nuclear energy.

If approved, the initiative would require the city to derive 2 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2007; 5 percent by 2012; 10 percent by 2017 and 15 percent by 2022.

The measure includes a 3 percent cap on possible rate increases from the switch to green energy.

"We wanted to make sure consumers did not pay any more than they have to," said Chris Hayday, a supporter of alternative power. If the cost exceeds 3 percent, "then it means the city should do as much as it can," he said. "This is a commitment to do something."

Organizers are hopeful of passage, and say the initiative could set an example for the rest of the state.

"We have tremendous capacity to pass this," said Carla Klein, director of the Ozark chapter of the Sierra Club. "It's one of the easiest initiative petitions we've worked on. Everyone thinks it's a good idea to diversify our energy sources."

With oil futures sometimes soaring above $55 a barrel and natural gas doubling in price in the last two years, renewable energy is looking a lot better to many -- not just on environmental merits, but on price.

Sixteen states have adopted "renewable portfolio standards" that require utilities to buy a certain share of their electricity from renewable sources. Missouri is not one of them.

State Rep. Jenee Lowe, D-Kansas City, has sponsored a bill the last four years that would require Missouri electrical energy suppliers to generate or buy a percentage of their electricity from renewable energy sources. The bill never got a vote at committee level.

The city of Columbia has a municipal power plant, is part owner of two additional plants in Missouri and Kansas, and has a contract to buy power wholesale from AmerenUE.

Dan Dasho, director of the city's Water and Light Department, said he could secure ample amounts of landfill gas and wind energy, for the first phase, at prices well below what the city currently pays for energy now.

The ability to tap larger amounts of green energy in the future would depend on improvements to the lines that transmit electricity from wind energy in Kansas and Oklahoma. Dasho said he expects that work will be done.

He said Columbia also is looking at tapping its own landfill gas to produce renewable energy and investigating the possibility of collaborating with other partners to generate wind energy.

The cost of buying conventional energy rose in June, and that increase was passed along to consumers Oct. 1, he said.

Dasho said wind farms in Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and "other places where the wind resource is good," will make the commodity more cost effective in the future.

He foresees renewable energy as providing for a larger piece of the energy whole.

He said gas from St. Louis area landfills already is collected, burned and run through a gas turbine to produce electricity that is sold to municipalities.