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More Power to Us Editors, The Oregonian - February 3, 2001

Energy planners and policymakers can transform the West Coast energy crisis into an opportunity for changing the way we use electricity, generate it and deliver it. All it takes is visionary thinking.

The energy crunch in California has seen natural gas and electricity prices skyrocket beyond the ability of many consumers to pay. It has led that state's biggest utilities to the verge of bankruptcy and threatens, now, to saddle taxpayers with incredible, unreasonable debts just to pay current energy bills.

Yet this short-term crisis also presents opportunities to alter the conventional course.

Instead of investing in massive, central generating power stations and the transmission systems to support them, for example, the crisis offers the opportunity to accelerate the development of fuel cells in homes and businesses. This budding technology could ultimately wean us off finite and polluting fossil fuels -- coal, oil and, yes, natural gas.

Fuel cells -- which can be the size of an office copier -- essentially are batteries that don't go dead. They function on oxygen and hydrogen and produce enough power to take care of all of the electricity needs of the average home and then some.

To create the needed financial incentives for fuel-cell demonstration programs, the Northwest congressional delegation should work to amend the National Energy Security Act of 2001 to include them in the funding package.

That is one of a list of suggestions that we believe would secure a stable future energy supply for the Northwest. Some other ideas worth a look are:

• Pushing the federal hydroelectric system aggressively to squeeze as many megawatts as we can from it.

For example, the Northwest could get an estimated 1,170 average megawatts -- about one-third of the extra power we need to meet current demands -- by not providing extra flows or spills for migrating spring chinook salmon.

The most recent scientific studies suggest that there is no relationship between adding extra water to the river in April and May and spring chinook survival. So why do it? The Bonneville Power Administration would have to obtain an exemption from the National Marine Fisheries Service's biological opinion, but it would be worth pursuing.

• Getting more energy from the non-federal hydropower in the West. Approximately 45 percent of that hydro capacity in California, and 73 percent in the Northwest, faces relicensing in the next 15 years. With proper financial incentives, another 8,800 megawatts of new capacity could be developed without building a single new dam.

To make sure that the region doesn't retire some of these older dams, Congress should approve hydropower licensing reform legislation aimed at promoting new capacity through efficiency upgrades or by adding turbines to existing dams.

Within that group are 25 dams targeted for retirement because fish passage is likely to be an issue in their relicensing. The changing energy market should make it possible for Northwest utilities to afford saving some or all of those dams by making investments to make them fish friendly. Those dams collectively can produce 2,615 megawatts of electricity.

The current energy crisis is real, but not fatal. With the right mix of strategies, the Northwest can rebuild its supply and make consumption more efficient, without harming the region's economic potential.

The keys are simple. We need to be visionary and, above all, not overreact.