PUBLIC FORUM: Shift to Clean, Renewable Energy

Superstorm SANDY has a message:
Clean, Renewable Energy Now! 

The League of Women Voters and the Sierra Club-Niagara Group are presenting a forum to offer a plan, in the aftermath of Sandy, for how we can use FITs *(Feed-In Tariffs) to transform our energy system from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energies right now and creates good jobs in the process.

TIME:   Wednesday, November 14, 2012; 4:30 pm – 6:15 pm

PLACE: Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo.

The event is free and open to the public.

PROGRAM: The forum will explain how FITs work, and why, in the aftermath of Sandy, they are the best method for rapidly bringing new business and new jobs to a region along with promoting clean, renewable energy. 

Bill Nowak, a member of the Sierra Club Energy Committee and author of the Clean Fit Report, will present a PowerPoint on FITs to kickoff the forum. A panel with representatives from labor, business and environmental groups will follow.
   

Panelists include Peter Black, Director, Brant Renewable Energy, Ontario, CA; Thomas Fleckenstein, Co-Founder, Niagara Wind & Solar, Niagara Falls, NY; and Frank Hotchkiss, United Steelworkers, District 4; Representative and Political Coordinator. A demonstration project for a FIT in Western New York, as proposed by the Sierra Club Niagara and the United Steelworkers, will be discussed as well.

Parking is free in the adjacent Burchfield Penney lot, and in the Psych Center lot next door, which is accessible from Elmwood.

For additional information about the program, contact the Sierra Club c/o Lynda Schneecloth, email: lhs1@buffalo.edu; or the LWVBN c/o Sandy Chelnov, email: chelnovs@gmail.com.

*A FIT, or Feed-in Tariff, provides a fair, long-term price for renewable energy production, providing a stable market for investment in the renewable energy business and industrial supply chain.  The fixed price reflects the cost of producing the energy plus a reasonable rate of return. The resulting long term market stability has proven to generate good jobs in over 80 jurisdictions worldwide. In 2009, a FIT was successfully implemented in Ontario and to date has created more than 22,000 jobs and attracted more than $20 billion in investment.  A FIT provides an incentive for anyone - from homeowners to farmers to schools to large energy producers - to invest in wind, solar, biomass, biogas, hydro and/or geothermal.