Energy summit: old and new energy sources both needed

Sue Major Holmes

Associated Press Writer

A three-day North American Energy Summit held in Albuquerque, N.M., concluded that renewable sources will provide more energy in the future, but the old standards of oil, gas and coal will be the backbone of energy for years to come.

The summit, sponsored by the Western Governors Conference, brought together some 700 people from state, tribal, provincial and national governments in the United States, Mexico and Canada as well as representatives of industry, consumers and environmental advocates. It ended April 16.

Those attending also concluded that fuel efficiency in cars, buildings and utilities is the wave of the future, and that consumers need to be educated about the benefits of conservation and efficiency.

The summit shows that a united West, at least as far as energy issues, may not be all that hard to achieve, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, chairman of the western governors, said in a closing news conference.

“We can, in fact, unite around the goal of creating a diversified energy supply,” he said.

U.S., Canada, Mexico represented

The gathering came up with numerous recommendations, which Richardson labeled “roadmaps, frameworks, for achievable results.”

The Western Governors Association will consider the recommendations in trying to develop an energy plan at its annual meeting June 20-22 in Santa Fe. However, Richardson also noted energy will be only a part of that meeting, along with other common interests such as water and forest issues.

Manitoba, Canada, Premier Gary Doer said the challenge will be “to go beyond the talk, talk, talk to action, action, action.”

The implications for the long term are to conserve and use efficient renewable energy as well as cleaner fossil fuels, Doer said.

“The old debates are over,” he said.

Achievements from the summit are hard to measure in the short term, said Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, vice chairman of the association. Owens, who headed back to Denver before the closing session, said he believed “thousands of discreet conversations” among various participants could push ideas forward.

“What we achieved was a hell of a debate,” Owens said.

Owens, a Republican who will take over from the Democrat Richardson as head of the association later this year, said he has not developed themes or plans for his upcoming tenure, but doesn’t see significant changes from the leadership of Bill Richardson to that of Bill Owens.

“We try to make progress incrementally instead of throwing bombs,” he said.

The summit’s final session was a rundown of more than a hundred separate recommendations from 18 workshops that ran the gamut from the role of nuclear energy and how to use hydrogen in transportation and electrical generation to developing coal for the 21st century and sustainable energy.

Several speakers for the workshops said they were surprised at how much agreement they developed considering the various, often competing, interests involved. Others acknowledged their panels did not come to complete agreement — including a panel on the future of natural gas which presented five recommendations but also showed a blank page labeled “areas of consensus.”