Page 253 - BWA FEB 2013

February 2013 | Business World Magazine | 253
been slow to catch on to the fact that they
can profit from sustainable energy. “The fu-
ture is in clean energy,” Hadden says, adding
that the sooner they make the switch, the
better off they will be economically. “Several
years ago we were actually at a point in time
where there were 22 coal plants proposed
in our state. It was extremely excessive and
would have generated way more energy than
we needed.”
“We legally opposed many of those
reactors and over time it became clear that
there was a lot of public opposition, there
were regulations coming down the road,
and natural gas was cheaper,” she adds. “Sev-
enteen of those plants never got built, and
probably won’t. Some of our coal plants are
starting to shut down and retire.”
Looking ahead to the longer term,
Hadden wants to see massive increases in
energy efficiency programs that will create
more jobs and produce more retrofitted-
homes. Despite recent successes, the SEED
Coalition still has a long ways to go to help
the industry meet the state’s energy needs
due to Texas’ warm and dry climate.
“The summers here are typically bru-
tal, and we’re dealing with global warming
impacts,” she says. “That’s important when
it comes to energy because we need electric
generation that doesn’t consume vast quanti-
ties of water.”
“We’re hoping to see a massive transi-
tion away from coal, less use of gas andmove-
ment toward more efficiency and solar, wind
and geothermal energy,” she concludes.
Solar looks great on Texas rooftops.