In this video from the ACORE policy forum held in Washington, DC last Wednesday (see here for a summary of the event), ACORE President Dennis McGinn (USN-Retired) summed up the day's proceedings. These were McGinn's main conclusions:
- Clean energy "enjoy[s] strong and growing public approval for what we do, evidenced by post-election polls conducted by ACORE in four swing states as just one example."
- "We are part of a maturing industry," as evidenced by the opposition of "[energy] incumbents...trying to throw rocks at what we are doing...in some misguided attempt to preserve market share." That, in McGinn's view, "is a good sign...they wouldn't be paying attention to us 5 or 10 years ago, but they sure are now and that's a sign of our strength."
- The "raison d'etre" of clean energy is that it does "something about three challenges: energy security; economic security; and job creation, and environmental security at the global, regional and local levels."
- If you do an "objective cost-benefit and risk analysis, including all of the externalities...we win every time and that's a good thing."
- "We cannot afford to continue as a nation in a business-as-usual path, so as Secretary Salazar said, we do need to turn skeptics into believers and we are...across America."
- According to McGinn, "utilities and power companies are not the enemy," which is why ACORE has been pursuing a "dialogue" with the Electric Power Research Institute, regulators, power companies large and small, financiers, developers, technology companies in renewable energy, "because we need to have those kinds of conversations; that is a form of being 'at the table' in the vein that Secretary Salazar told us."
- Clean energy, by "bringing very very good analysis, very very good facts to the table, will ultimately prevail."
- Finally: "Never let the people who say it can't get done get in the way of the people who are already doing it. We are already doing it."
