HELENA - A former utility executive and energy adviser says America can and should phase out coal-generated power and move entirely to renewable electricity within 30 years. S. David Freeman, who advised President Carter on energy in the 1970s and ran Los Angeles Water and Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority, says the conversion is not without its costs.
But when measured against the long-term environmental damage and geopolitical costs of continuing to burn coal, oil and gas, moving to wind, geothermal. solar and hydrogen power makes economic sense, he says.
"It all depends on whether you want to take out an insurance policy against the serious risk of global warming, and whether you care about ordinary air pollution, which is just shortening people's lives," he said in an interview this week.
Freeman, 82, visited Montana this week at the invitation of the Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Helena, and the Sierra Club, an environmental group.
He appeared Monday on a panel at the Burton K. Wheeler Center's annual conference in Bozeman and spoke in Helena and Missoula.
Freeman, who lives in a Los Ankles suburb, also has written a book, "Winning our Energy Independence," published last year.
The idea of renewable energy is gaining ground in the minds of the public, Freeman says. But its development is resisted by utilities and oil companies, and needs a push from policymakers and the government, he adds.
"When some smart-aleck comes along and says you ought to be building solar-power plants, (utilities) kind of resent it," Freeman says. "There's something in us that wants to keep doing what we're doing, because we know how."
Freeman says the country should ban new coal-fired power plants, phase out existing ones and invest in technologies and infrastructure that can deliver reliable solar, geothermal and wind power.
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