Posted on 10/19/2014 6:48:24 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Debbie Dooley is not a tree-hugger -- in fact she bills herself as a radical right-wing grandmother, and she is a founding member of the national Tea Party and a leader of the Atlanta Tea Party group.
But Dooley is also an outspoken proponent of distributed solar generation and other forms of renewable distributed energy. She will be the featured speaker next week at the Wisconsin Solar Energy Industries Association’s Solar Social Speakers series -- as advocates in the state say solar is under attack by elected officials, regulators and major utilities.
While in Wisconsin, Dooley will also visit a farm using manure digesters -- another form of distributed renewable energy that she thinks would be embraced by many farmers in her home state of Georgia.
Dooley is a founder of the Green Tea Coalition, a conservation-minded wing of the Tea Party, and she has made numerous media appearances on outlets across the political spectrum. She works as an IT administrator and a grassroots consultant, and she served as vice chairman of the Gwinnett County Election and Voter Registration Board.
Dooley spoke with Midwest Energy News before her trip north to Wisconsin.
Midwest Energy News: How did you become interested in renewable energy?
Dooley: I’ve been a political activist off and on since 1976. I was one of the twenty-two national founders of the Tea Party movement. I’m very active with the Atlanta Tea Party, I serve on the board of directors of the Tea Party Patriots, which has not and is not taking a position on solar.
I began to get interested in energy with a fight we were carrying on with Georgia Power. They’re a monopoly here in Georgia. They were not acting in the best interest of ratepayers in regards to some of their policies. They were building two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, and the utility customers were paying for that in advance. There were massive cost overruns expected, and yet they were making a guaranteed profit on the cost of the two reactors and the cost overruns.
I began to take a closer look at energy for that reason. I’ve always been a free-market conservative. I began to realize a monopoly is not a free market; a monopoly violates free-market principles. Solar is a way to give monopolies very much needed competition. It also provides consumer choice.
I founded the Green Tea Coalition, and I recently founded in the past week Conservatives for Energy Freedom. That’s what I’m advocating for -- energy freedom and energy independence.
Have you been working directly on the issue of third-party-owned solar installations?
Yes, in Georgia we are trying to allow that. Georgia Power is giving us a fight on that. They want to control it. Solar empowers the consumer and the individual. These giant monopolies want to take away that consumer choice unless they can control it. They are looking at their profit margins, not the best interests of ratepayers.
This is about the freedom to choose and create your own electricity. I think [policies that inhibit third-party-owned solar] are a blatant attack by these giant monopolies who at every turn have to construct a power plant, and make a profit off the construction of the power plant.
[If] they have to buy some power from out of state, they pay fair market value -- so why shouldn’t they buy their power from within the state and create jobs for Wisconsinites or whatever state they are in? If we open up the market for solar, there would be little need for them to have to construct more power plants.
The third-party solar that we’re talking about, it is really good for the consumer because that means you don’t have to go out and construct a power plant, it makes the fuel cost simpler, and the utility companies are compensated for the times that solar customers pull power from the grid.
Is it strange for you being so outspoken on this topic since solar and distributed generation advocates are usually seen as liberal or environmentalists?
A lot of companies with fossil fuel interests try to spin it that way. It’s totally ridiculous. If you can’t discredit the message, you go after the messenger.
This is not a liberal issue; it has become a national security issue for our country. The grid can be attacked. Look at the Silicon Valley attack -- they opened fire on some of the substations with AK-47s, took them down, and they just vanished into the night. Our grid is so centralized that it’s a national security issue.
When I started doing research and seeing what We Energies is trying to do in Wisconsin, I was appalled. Here you have a giant utility trying to protect their profit margin by taxing the sun and taxing manure. You can call it whatever you want to, it is a tax. I think that is totally ridiculous.
Do you think your support of solar has extra significance since you are a high-profile conservative activist?
I do. I believe conservatives who believe in the free market would be receptive to the right message. If you go out and say we need solar because of climate change and you hate coal, that’s the wrong message. If you go out and hold elected officials accountable for supporting these monopolies, that’s something conservatives will respond to.
Do you have solar panels or would you like to get them?
I went through a divorce two years ago so I’m renting a house, but you can bet when I purchase a home it will have solar panels. You would be really surprised about conservatives, how many are asking me about solar panels. It empowers the individual and it’s good for the environment. To me, conservation is conservative.
How do you feel about wind energy, since much wind is generated by these large companies?
I would support wind energy as well, though wind does not empower the individual like solar does. You can put solar panels on your rooftop, and as long as you have daylight and a battery, you can power yourself. It’s harder for the individual to do that with wind.
I was at the gym yesterday, watching TV on the treadmill, looking at a report on the History Channel that talked about sugar cane in Hawaii that was used to generate electricity. Anyway we can be energy-independent, I’m all for it. An all-of-the-above approach.
Does Republican opposition to taking action on climate change complicate your mission with this message?
It does. I don’t believe in excessive regulation, like all these regulations we’ve seen with EPA the past few years. I would prefer to allow energy to compete in the free market on a level playing field and let the consumer decide what is best.
I fully believe energies that hurt the environment should be taxed. I don’t believe in a carbon tax; I believe in a cleanup fund like with the BP spill in Gulf.
I’ve advocated from the beginning to cut out massive subsidies that all energy forms have received. Some of the same conservatives that point a finger at Solyndra...failed to point out the massive subsidies coal and nuclear have been receiving since the 1930s. That smacks of hypocrisy. If you’re going to complain about subsidies for wind or solar, why are we still subsidizing nuclear and coal? Subsidies are government’s way of picking winners and losers.
How have such statements been received when you talk to Tea Party or conservative audiences?
I talked at the Tea Party convention and said government should stop picking winners and losers. I got thunderous applause. People are really receptive to the right message when you lay the facts out.
I’ve been attacked by Koch brothers-affiliated groups. [Some] said I was a fake Tea Party person. I just laughed. I am a conservative. There is no way they can paint me as a liberal, even as a moderate -- I am a right-wing conservative.
But I’m extremely passionate about alternative energy. I’m a grandmother, I became a grandmother in 2008 with the birth of a grandson who is the light of my life. I want him to have a clean world, I want him to have parks and green space. I don’t want him to have to worry about terrorist attacks. I want him to be able to breathe clean air. I want him to be able to generate his own electricity if he so chooses.
If he says, “I want to generate my own power and be self-sufficient,” I want him to have the ability to do it.
***
Kari Lydersen is a Chicago-based reporter, author and journalism instructor. She covers energy for Midwest Energy News. This article was originally published at Midwest Energy News and was reprinted with permission.
Debbie Dooley will be appearing at Marshall Auto Body in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sept. 16 from 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m., and at SunVest in Pewaukee, Sept. 17 from noon-1 p.m.
Fresh Energy, where Midwest Energy News is based, provided communications support to the Wisconsin Solar Energy Industries Association for Ms. Dooley’s visit.
“founding member of the national Tea Party”
There is no “Tea Party” just a lot of opportunists who tried to either quickly amass money or political power when they saw a movement.
TEA is basically leaderless, and revolves around stopping runaway government and its spending.
Unsubsidized solar makes sense to a lot of us. Given the responses I’d say there is a difference of opinion. Then again, when the automobile industry was just starting people objected ‘cause buggys and the buggy whip industry would be harmed.
The problem is that while there is daylight, we are going to school or working. Solar requires us to sell our power back to the government on pennies on the dollar. We can’t save the energy, the technology just isn’t there yet.
But this article may help http://www.tweaktown.com/news/40554/next-gen-lithium-ion-battery-charges-20x-faster-lasts-20x-longer/index.html
If we can charge a battery 20 times faster and have it last 20 times longer, that may be a game changer.
The only forms of energy that should be considered are those that are unsubsidized and economically feasible. Everything else is a drain on our money.
I believe if you have a grid connected system the utility not the state buys your excess power.
Given Dooley does not have solar panels or wind turbines on her rented home, she loses some credibility with me.
Solar panels are not yet economical for the homeowner. The payback period is NEVER after you pay for installation & maintenance.
I’d like to get her opinion after she spent a year on the roof cleaning the panels. Dirty or snow/leaves/bird crap covered panels don’t produce much electricity. Going up on a snow covered, steep, slick roof to remove this stuff from the panels is not for the faint of heart. Now, do that every other day forever. Is it really worth risking your life? How do you factor that into the cost/benefit comparison?
Safely maintaining a bank of batteries is no picnic, either. Battery fumes are both explosive & poisonous. Keeping them in the house is dangerous, so you will need a well ventilated outbuilding. Batteries don’t do well in the cold, so some heating will be needed to keep them in optimal working order. All this will take some considerable wiring by a qualified electrician. Your insurance company could increase your premiums to cover this potential hazard, or they may not cover you at all.
So, if you’re thinking of installing solar panels, then sitting back & watching the money flow from the sun, I hope you have previous experience at high rise window washing & serious electrical skills. Otherwise, any money saved from “free” energy will be spent on the electrician & panel cleaner.
Well you are right there is nothing wrong with the alternative energy sources and we should have been doing more to incorporate them into individual homes all along.
I have long been an advocate of incorporating solar into all new homes that are built as a standard feature. At least in states that have a lot of sun.
In Georgia where we are I believe you are required to be hooked to the grid if its available so you can have a grid tie solar system but you cannot have an off grid system and uncouple from GA Power. We are putting in an off grid system in our mountain retreat and keeping it for backup as we are pretty certain the grid is going down somewhere along the line and it will be a moot point anyway.
But back to the point even a grid tie system in every new home would save untold amounts of money and the need to build new power plants. There is nothing wrong with these kinds of ideas.
“Coal and oil are under attack; jobs and the U.S. economy are being squeezed and this “Tea Party” person is getting in bed with the green environmental movement?”
I’m on your side, and admittedly I don’t know what her exact position is, but in my view it is definitely a good idea to keep working on developing viable alternative energy strategies.That doesn’t mean we shut down coal and oil at this point, or any point in the near future, but eventually someone will find workable alternative solutions (e.g. - if we ever get fusion to work in a practical way). I hope that someone is us.
Eventually workable alternatives will be found
Ditto. Solar power is a good thing. Just because Leftists advocate something doesn’t mean it’s utterly evil. Renewable energy is good, not relying on others once configured. Self sufficiency is a worthy goal. I low having an EV and would like to have ability to charge it off the grid.
Cronyism isn’t a left / right thing, it’s an abuse of power.
The twist is the govt subsidies
Either Debbie Dooley has not done ALL her homework and left herself with some half truths on energy issues, or she is knowingly exploiting some half-truths to support her own position.
On subsidies:
(1) The statements that harp on what are called the high “subsidies” for nuclear energy or fossil fuels - in attempts to promote subsidies for solar energy, focus on whole dollars. That makes for a huge factual error. If I gave Jack a $1million discount for traveling one million miles, and only a $100 dollar discount to Jill for traveling ten miles, have I cheated Jill? No. In fact, Jill got $10 dollars for every mile, but Jack only got only $1 dollar for every mile. If you consider energy equivalents in the various modes of energy produced, solar is one of the most highly subsidized forms of energy produced, on a unit of energy equivalent basis.
(2) The advocates of “solar is not as subsidized as nuclear or fossil fuels” also use the “green energy” advocates’ own methods of what a “subsidy” is, and many of the so called subsidies they include for nuclear and fossil fuels are their own projections of what something about nuclear or fossil fuels “indirectly costs society”, yet most solar subsidies are not theoretical at all but direct either to the solar energy, or solar equipment producer or the consumer.
Ms Dooley also appears to think it O.K. that a grid-energy producer that WANTS to buy more energy than they are producer can go into the wholesale energy distribution market to get it, at wholesale, but, under many state laws, whether the grid producer wants or needs your rooftop solar panels’ electricity, they are required to buy it, and they are required to pay retail. The difference between the wholesale cost and the retail cost amounts to (a) a solar subsidy paid by the power company to the home owner and (b) lowers the revenue and the ROI of the power company, which, as state after state has seen, raises the likelihood their state utility will grant them a rate increase to keep ahead of their costs.
A factual misunderstanding about an electric grid energy producer is the myth that if you “save” electricity in how you manage your home, the power company’s power plant will produce less electricity and the cost of operating the plant will be less too. It doesn’t work that way. An electric power plant runs 24/7 producing what it is capable or producing, sending it into the grid, whether or not many of you turn out your lights. The power is there in the power-line network (regardless of how much of it is “used”), and the operating costs for the plant have not changed. This fact makes it very difficult for lower rates to automatically follow consumption efficiencies of the electricity consumer. Yes, on the margins - not in the main - a power company may buy less extra power on the grid produced by others, if conditions allow permit. But for a supplier-producer with their own power plants, those adjustments are a minor part of their annual costs compared to the power plant costs they have, and the power plant costs - their main costs - are not affected by retail consumer’s household efficiencies.
Frankly, I am all for “the end of the grid” and “energy self-sufficiency” AS SCIENCE AND THE ECONOMICS OF PRACTICAL ENERGY ENGINEERING PERMITS. But, subsidizing solar at this point in time, by many methods and particularly by forcing power plant producers to pay retail for energy they can buy wholesale, is not the right way to go.
There are situations when intermittent power is OK like running desalinization plants or pumping water.
Absolutely. I would love to use solar products, but all the money is in “big solutions” funded by yours truly. When will they come out with an affordable solar lamp or fan that works, and when the sun ISN’T shining (duh, at night when you NEED them!) - simple things that people would actually use, save money using, and then demand more products? But no one wants to fiddle with the little stuff. There’s no milking the taxpayers, so it’s not worth it.
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