Ask them about democratic electricity for Santa Fe!
The Sierra Club in Santa Fe is hosting a forum tonight (Tuesday, April 6th from 7-9 p.m.) for the candidates running for commission seats, and it should be a good venue for getting them to talk about the future of energy in Santa Fe. What kinds of questions would inspire candidates to forego their practiced lines about solar panels and instead talk about real issues like who’s going to own all this green energy stuff and who should be able to decide how it gets made and distributed?
Here are some of my ideas for questions...please feel free to steal them (it’s flattery).
The Buckman Direct Diversion will use banks of 900 horsepower pumps to push 15 million gallons of water a day (at full build-out) uphill through 15-miles of pipe. Electricity rates have risen four times in two years, and are slated to go up again this month. Do we know what it will cost to run the pumps two years from now if electric rates keep rising the way they have been? What about in four years?
Sales of electricity in Santa Fe County total more than $80 million dollars annually, all of which goes to a utility company owned by Wall Street investment houses. If that money were instead going into Santa Fe County’s coffers, what would you spend it on? Would it be enough – $80 million a year in perpetuity – to build a system that sourced all of its energy from local, renewable sources?
Biomass to thermal energy – or burning wood and other plant materials to create heat, is the by far the most used, most cost-effective renewable energy technology in the world. Is it appropriate here, and if so, what would you do to promote its use?
Are there any examples in the world of a community that made it a policy to purchase energy, to the greatest extent possible, from local, independent energy producers?
To hear the answers to these questions, come to the forum tonight at 7p at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 107 w. Barcelona Road in Santa Fe. It's free and open to the public!