The panel that opened the big renewable energy conference in Anchorage Monday morning offered some good answers to skeptics who might ask, “Why get all hot and bothered about promoting renewable energy?”

Ron Lehr, a consultant to the American Wind Energy Association and a former utility commissioner in Colorado, pointed out it’s not a good idea to depend on one fuel source for 90-plus percent of your electricity. (Almost all of Anchorage’s electricity comes from natural gas, with a bit of hydro power thrown in.)

It’s impossible to predict what fuel prices will be, Lehr said. If you guess wrong, and they’re higher than predicted, you hurt people – utilities just pass the extra costs straight through to their customers. If you guess wrong, and fuel prices are lower – your alternative energy investments can be considered as insurance, or hedging, against higher fuel prices – a prudent thing to do when your business relies so heavily on a commodity whose price is so volatile.

Other interesting tidbits from the panel:

Steve Nadel, with the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, said the median cost of electricity “produced” by conservation investments is just 3 cents a kilowatt hour.

He posted a Power Point slide showing that electricity from thin film photovoltaic sources costs the same as nuclear power.

In ranking states for their efforts in promoting energy efficiency/conservation, Alaska came in at 37th. Could be worse, Nadel joked – Alaska could be 51st, which belongs to Wyoming (the rankings included Washington D.C. with the 50 states).

Dr. Dan Arvizu, director of the national renewable energy lab in Colorado said “Renewable energy is a $150 billion a year industry today – but it’s not in the U.S. It’s in other countries.”

Why?

“It’s driven by public policies in other countries. . . .It’s not a matter of technical potential. It’s a matter of national will and investment.”

He scoffed at predictions that renewable energy will maybe provide 10% of the nation’s energy by mid-century. “If that is our target,” he said, “why bother?”

That prediction is based on old-world economic models, Arvizu said. “It’s “like driving a car looking through the rear view mirror.”

His lab is building a research center for 1000 people, in Golden, Colo. that will produce as much energy as it uses. The “net zero energy” building will use only half as much energy as a typical building built to current codes. It will have 1.2 megawatts of photovoltaic electric power supply and a heating plant that runs on renewable fuels.

Best line of the morning, from Ron Lehr:

“You can’t expect Washington to do the right thing very often. They do stumble onto it occasionally.”

The conference, "The Business of Clean Energy in Alaska" continues through Tuesday at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in downtown Anchorage.

-- Matt Zencey