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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 4/1/15

How Ohio's Energy Economy Became a Radioactive 19th Century Relic

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Back in early 2010 Ohio stood at the cusp of a modern 21st century technological revolution. It had won a new federal-funded rail line to finally re-join Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

Tesla electric sales networks were moving into the state, bringing full player status in the spread of the world's most advanced automobiles.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich tilts at Solartopia.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich tilts at Solartopia.
(Image by John Bailey / freepress.org)
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And we had adopted a forward-looking green energy package poised to bring billions of new investments along with thousands of new jobs.

Then the 19th century re-took control.

Today Ohio's fossil-fueled, landlocked capital city is the western world's largest with neither internal commuter light rail nor access by passenger train service from anywhere else.

After trying to ban them altogether, Ohio has strictly limited sales of advanced electric Tesla cars.

And after being at the cusp of major solar and wind power advances, the state has all but killed the prospects for any large new green energy projects. The state may now miss one of history's biggest and most profitable technological transformations.

Meanwhile Ohio's three largest electric power utilities are demanding billions from the PUCO in bail-outs for obsolete fossil and nuke burners that are fast being abandoned elsewhere around the world. If that money goes for these relic generators, investment in advanced energy in the state will disappear, and Ohio's fossil/nuke dinosaurs will give new meaning to the terms rust belt, global warmers and technological bankruptcy.

What happened?

Let's count the ways.

With the coming of John Kasich in 2011, $400 million in federal grants won by decades of hard grassroots efforts to restore north-south passenger rail service were flung back at Washington with a nasty note. With neither public hearings nor open debate, Kasich made clear his contempt for those who worked decades to re-connect central Ohio by rail to the rest of the world.

There have been no passenger trains in or out of Columbus since 1979. But the prospect of score of jobs restoring and maintaining the lines meant an enhanced future for the cities being reconnected and the towns along the route.

It was unclear how many Ohioans would regularly commute between the state's major cities. But both Cleveland and Cincinnati are tied to the Amtrak network, and the connectors to Columbus and Dayton would mean travelers could come here by rail from all over the country.

Now they can't. The development money and jobs are gone. Columbus and Dayton remain isolated backwaters. Their prospects for future large-scale conventions etc. are diminished. The money went to Florida, whose Governor Rick Scott is generally to the right of Kasich. What once would've connected the 3C's now helps you get from Tampa to Orlando.

Ohio lawmakers have also assaulted the electric car. These self-proclaimed defenders of the "free market" came to the defense of auto dealers who fund them by worrying that Teslas would have an "unfair advantage" because their internet sales operations would not provide similar service being given gas-fired cars.

But electric cars have far fewer moving parts and can be much more easily maintained than the old fossil burners. They are, in short, the automobiles of the future " just not in Ohio.

Tesla did get permits for a couple of showrooms in the state (there's one at Easton).

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Harvey Wasserman Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Harvey is a lifelong activist who speaks, writes and organizes widely on energy, the environment, election protection, social justice, grass-roots politics and natural healing, personal and planetary.He hosts "California Solartopia" at KPFK-Pacifica and "Green Power & Wellness" atprn.fm. (more...)
 

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