FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 25, 2014
Contacts: Shelly Baron, 501-537-0190 or shelly@arkansasadvancedenergyfoundation.org
Steve Patterson, 501-537-0190 or steve@arkansasadvancedenergyfoundation.org
LITTLE ROCK – In comments submitted this week at the request of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), AAEA predicted “unprecedented economic development and job growth” with advanced energy technologies leading the way if the state achieves its full clean power potential.
Following the first meeting on June 25 of the Arkansas stakeholder group organized by ADEQ and the Arkansas Public Service Commission to respond to EPA’s Clean Power Plan guidelines, stakeholders were invited to submit comments about the plan by July 21.
Other comments were provided by Southwest Power Pool, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, Midcontinent Independent System Operator and Arkansas Electric Cooperative Association.
AAEA said it supports EPA’s clean power guidelines and cited the rule’s flexibility for states to achieve their respective targets through a combination of advanced energy technologies such as heat rate improvement, energy conservation and greater use of natural gas and renewable energy.
The business trade association representing more than 80 Arkansas companies and a sector that employs more than 11,300 Arkansans also said that the comparatively high carbon reduction target set for Arkansas by the EPA was justified.
“Charts and diagrams presented at the June 25 stakeholders meeting showed that while other southern states were reducing their carbon emissions during the same period, Arkansas’s electric generation and carbon emissions increased 27% and 39% respectively from 2005 to 2013 in spite of state retail electric energy sales rising only 1 percent,” according to AAEA’s comments. “These data confirm that Arkansas’s electric generation units were largely built to serve an out-of-state market with cheap, coal-powered electricity.”
The next public meeting of the state Clean Power Plan stakeholder group is scheduled at ADEQ headquarters on August 28.
Arkansas Advanced Energy Association is a business group dedicated to growing Arkansas’s economy by expanding our energy workforce and manufacturing base through the increased development, manufacture, and utilization of advanced energy technologies. www.arkansasadvancedenergy.com
The Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation is the educational affiliate of the AAEA. The Foundation promotes greater public understanding of advanced energy in Arkansas through research, public education programs and economic and workforce development. The Foundation is dedicated to informing the energy policy debate with well-researched, fact-based data on the advanced energy economy in Arkansas and by providing a public forum where state leaders can address Arkansas’s energy challenges for the future. www.arkansasadvancedenergyfoundation.org
Report Shows Global Economic Impacts of Advanced Energy
A report released in January 2013 by Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) shows that advanced energy was a $1.1 trillion global market in 2011, larger than pharmaceutical manufacturing worldwide. Read the full report here: http://arkansasadvancedenergyfoundation.org/files/dmfile/AEEIEconomicImpactofAdvancedEnergy-Final.pdf
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