A few months ago, we began to see signs of a backlash against a 25 percent national renewable portfolio standard (which was proposed in the draft American Clean Energy and Security Act), as some southern states feared they would not be able to effectively produce 25 percent of their electricity from renewables. Some Senators had suggested that such a standard would be unfair to certain states in the south where they simply don't have they same renewable resources you might find in states like California, Nevada or Texas.

This argument certainly caused some on the Hill to possibly reconsider the standard, or at least provide alternatives for states lacking the necessary renewable resources. But last month the World Resources Institute (WRI) released the report, Southeast Energy Opportunities, which offered some promising conclusions.

According to the authors' regional assessments, which drew on recent government and regional studies, the southeast has sufficient renewable energy resources to meet 25 percent of the southeast's electric power needs within the next 15 years.

Here's the breakdown...

• Biomass - Biomass resources in the region include sawdust, forestry scraps, energy crops (woody shrubs or grasses), and gas from landfills, sewage treatment, food processing, and animal waste.
• Wind - There are sufficient wind recourses to spin turbines in various parts of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
• Low-impact hydropower- There are various locations in all southeast states where small, non-intrusive power systems can tap energy from moving water in rivers and large streams - with lower environmental impacts than hydroelectricity from large dams.
• Solar - Solar thermal applications are available throughout Florida, and rooftop PV opportunities are available through the southeast.

The WRI assessment also identified energy efficiency, solar water heating systems and combined heat and power to round out the list of potential power generation alternatives.

And to add more support to a national renewable portfolio standard, the Energy Information Administration released an analysis last week which concluded that increasing the nation's reliance on renewable energy to 25 percent by 2025 would likely have little impact on ratepayers' cumulative electric and natural gas bills. They would actually range from a marginal cost of 0.2 percent to a slight savings of 0.1 percent.

Jeff