The State’s new Energy Task force met for the first time today, charged with developing ways the state can conserve electricity and ways to expand Tennessee’s role in the energy market.
The 12-member force will formulate several policy recommendations for the General Assembly to enact next year.
Jeffery Wadsworth oversees the management of the country’s national labs for Battelle, a non-profit research company. He’s also the former manager of Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, which is also on the task force. Wadsworth says Tennesseans have the highest per capita residential electricity use in the nation.
“I mean people have different natural resources available to them and I think in Tennessee, TVA has, you know, is a big supplier of electricity so it’s an easy form of energy to use.”
Wadsworth says the Tennessee Valley Authority makes power so cheap in Tennessee compared with other states that there is less incentive to conserve it.
State government has already started conserving electricity by using florescent light bulbs and using energy-efficient design methods for new buildings. Governor Phil Bredesen also set aside money last year for research into turning plant materials like switch grass into fuel. That program hopes to break ground on a refinery by the end of the year.
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