SOLAR FREEDOM WIND POWER CRIST/ Schwarzenegger

Florida: Hermann Scheer Receives Standing Ovation--Pushes Feed-in Tariffs at Governor Crist Climate Summit
Posted on Thu, Jun. 26, 2008
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com Schwarzenegger lauds, criticizes climate efforts . . . . . .
Speaking at the closing luncheon of Crist's second summit on climate change in Miami, Schwarzenegger listed all the elements, some serious, some not, that California and Florida shared. . .
. . . With an estimated 800 persons gathered at the Hotel InterContinental in downtown Miami . . .
. . . During an international panel, the most applause was received by Hermann Scheer, a member of the German Parliament and a leading expert in solar energy. "The only real option is to change to renewable,'' Scheer told the audience. He said Germany now produces 50 percent of the world's wind power and is a leader in solar. He said countries pushing renewables need to do three things:
• Guarantee access to the grid for any producer of renewable power, no matter how small the amount of power might be.
• Make guaranteed payments to those providing renewable power.
• Don't cap the contributions of renewable power.
Scheer received a standing ovation.
The crowd of about 500, however, sat silently when Philippe Vinogradoff, the consul general of France in Miami, said his nation needed to retain ''the nuclear option,'' because nuclear was a key source of power in France.
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Foreigners give Crist energy reform ideas
By Zac Anderson
Published Friday, June 27, 2008
. . . "This governor is putting everything on the table and showing a lot of courage," said Jerry Karnas, with the group Environmental Defense.
Among the foreign representatives on the panel were consuls general from Spain and Germany, two of the global leaders on solar energy. Both countries require utilities to buy solar-generated electricity from individual producers at above-market prices, which led to an explosion in solar panel production and small-scale, distributed power generation.
"New players we need, not waiting for the energy companies," said Hermann Scheer, an expert on solar energy. "New players without vested interests in the old energy fields."
Crist kept smiling during Scheer's speech, but in the audience, representatives of big utility companies, which have given the governor extensive campaign contributions and helped sponsor the summit, might have been nervous. . .