An encouraging piece of news this week has emerged from Sacramento, CA but not for the first time it leaves me scratching my head as to how state policies are often far more in keeping with what I feel needs to be done than national policies. On the other hand the fact that California is raising the bar when it comes to renewable energy may perhaps encourage other states to follow suit when they see it’s possible.

The state Senate in Sacramento have acted more aggressively than predicted by requiring California utility companies to ramp up their use of renewable energy; whether it be via wind, hydro, solar or other sources with the goal of reaching one third of all energy supplied by the year 2020. I’m hoping that other legislatures both on a state-by-state or an international basis will follow the lead of Denmark (who are aiming for 100 percent renewable energy use by the year 2050 read more about that here at energymap.dk) or examples such as California in the very near future. Green power, despite providing obvious environmental benefits, will only grow more rapidly with the support of governments at either national or regional levels. California currently already requires that the state’s utility companies must source 20 percent of their power from renewable energy supplies, the increase to a third is seen as a benefit to both green concerns and the economy of the state which continues to struggle forward post recession. If approved it will make the state the leader in commitment to renewable sources of energy. The bill passed easily in the house although opposition was heard stating that increased dependence on green energy will only drive up the price of utilities. As I’ve written before that may be true in the short term but logic suggests changing the infrastructure now will always provide longer-term fiscal benefits than waiting for the need to grow even greater. Opponents to greener energy warned that a significant spike in energy costs would slow the economy and drive manufacturing jobs out of the state. Supporters of the bill argued that the initial campaign to reach 20 percent renewable energy was filled with warnings that energy costs would spike by as much as 15% although that has not come to pass.

Naturally the transition will take significant investment and time with the anticipated investment needed reaching $115 billion which in turn would generate some 100,000 to 200,000 new jobs in the state. When I was researching this story I realised that the cost estimates were comparable to the long-term predictions earmarked to make Denmark operate 100% on renewable energy but then accepted the fact that California’s population is over 37,000,000  compared with Denmark’s 5,600,000. I hope that both reach the goals being laid out for the conversion to greener energy.