Clean Energy

PENNSYLVANIA is struggling - like many states - to combat the recession, fill a large deficit and put people to work. The federal economic stimulus will certainly help. With this funding, Pennsylvania can invest in infrastructure projects that will create thousands of jobs fixing our aging roads and bridges. The construction projects will also require people to make asphalt, cement, steel and other products used in road, bridge and water system rehab. It's the right plan because it puts Americans to work rebuilding America.

President Obama is showing exactly the leadership this nation needs in forcing it to confront not just new economic challenges but some that have been around for decades. Arriving at this crossroads of history, Obama is saying now is not the time to be paralyzed by fear. Rather, he wants to use the economic crisis to bring about fundamental change on several fronts. Central to the goals he laid out Tuesday night are solving the long-existing problems of energy and health care.

Recently, Exelon Corp. funded the creation of a group with the misleading name of Affordable, Clean, Reliable Energy (ACRE) Coalition. The group is little more than a front for the nuclear industry. The timing of the group's launch is no accident. In the fall, Gov. Corzine will unveil an energy master plan that will detail New Jersey's energy future for the next 15 years. Exelon and PSE&G are working to ensure that the governor writes nuclear into the plan instead of taking the state toward a visionary new energy future.

IS PRESIDENT Obama's announcement Wednesday that he is reversing U.S. policy (and his previous position) to allow oil drilling off the Atlantic and Arctic coasts and in parts of the Gulf of Mexico a flat betrayal, as many environmental groups charge? Is it yet another case of Obama negotiating with himself, and caving in-as he did with health-care reform and financial reform? Just a month ago, the president authorized $8 billion in loan guarantees to build nuclear reactors (A Republican favorite)

HARRISBURG - In 2004, Gov. Rendell warned delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Boston of the growing energy crisis and said it was time for America to step up and lead the world in the production of renewable energy. Yesterday, Rendell made a similar pitch to a local audience. Standing in the Capitol Rotunda, he challenged business leaders, consumers and lawmakers to "step boldly into the future" and turn Pennsylvania into the leading producer of alternative energy in the country.

Inquirer left transgender student vulnerable The Inquirer made a serious error in judgment when it revealed far too much identifying information in an article describing the life of a transgender student in the Haverford School District ("School challenge: Transgender student is age 9," May 3). By introducing the name of the school and the neighborhood in which the subject lives, someone intent on harming this young person could easily find out her identity. Reporting that is done on victims of sexual abuse or violence reveals comparatively less identifying information to protect individuals' privacy.

Kevin Brown is cofounder of Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic (cleantechma.org) Philadelphia identifies with underdogs: Rocky, the Eagles, and now energy. When business people or policymakers think of Philly, they naturally jump to the Big Five: pharmaceuticals, higher education, legal, finance, and technology. Clean tech, or renewable energy, rarely makes the list. But that's about to change. We have the potential to be a full-fledged front-runner in one of the hottest growth industries.

New Jersey's first offshore wind farm took another step forward yesterday when a state agency awarded a $4 million grant to Garden State Offshore Energy to build a facility that, at its closest point to land, would be 16 1/2 miles off Ocean City. The company, a joint venture of PSEG Renewable Generation and the Hoboken-based Deepwater Wind, was selected from among five applicants that responded to a solicitation from the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) last fall. The project, expected to cost the firms about $1 billion, calls for a grid of 96 turbines to generate 350 megawatts of power - enough juice for 125,000 homes.

Linking the war in Iraq to the nation's reliance on foreign oil, Gov. Rendell yesterday made an urgent pitch to the legislature to pass his sweeping, but embattled, alternative-energy plan. Rendell opened his address to a special session on energy with a moment of silence for the 189 Pennsylvanians who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later quoted from Alan Greenspan's recently published memoir, in which the former Federal Reserve chairman says the Iraq war is largely about oil. "The decisions we make about energy affect almost every aspect of our lives," Rendell told lawmakers who packed the House chamber yesterday.

A golden opportunity is bubbling up beneath that undersea volcano of oil spewing thousands of gallons per day into the Gulf of Mexico. We have a chance to truly move our country, as BP says in its ad campaigns, "beyond petroleum. " Despite the spill's devastation, President Obama continues to claim that we must push forward with more offshore drilling - albeit with stronger safeguards - if we want to increase our energy security. I disagree. We wouldn't ever be secure, even if we drilled every well off our nation's coasts.