Tell us about Ozarks New Energy Inc.
I was actually not here the semester it got started ... in (2007). Dan Chiles and (Inno) Onwueme had (what they thought would be) a small meeting at Drury University ... with five or 10 people, and 40 or 50 people showed up. From the response, ... Chiles got the idea that we should actually start an organization to address alternative energy.
What are the major energy issues ONE is focusing on?
There is sort of this disconnect. There are businesses in the Ozarks that are offering cleaner, alternative-energy products, and there are consumers who would like to purchase them. ... What we're trying to do is bridge that gap between people saying, "I'd do it if I knew about it," and then the businesses going, "I'd offer it if I knew people wanted it." An easy sort of organizational statement is that conservation is part of energy solutions.
Who are some of the major presenters at this year's ONE conference?
(Mark) Templeton, he's the new director of (the Missouri Department of Natural Resources). We have Mike Abbate (co-founder of GreenWorks) and he has a new book ("Gardening Eden"). ... We have (Frank) de Jong; he's the head of the Green Party in Canada. We're bringing someone down from Ameren to speak about nuclear power. On the same panel will be someone from the Missouri Environmental Coalition, who is very opposed to nuclear (power). The speaker I'm bringing in is Debra Rowe (of the U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development).
When did you get involved in sustainability?
I grew up in upstate New York in the Adirondack Mountains. Right about the time that they were discovering that sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions from the Ohio River Valley were acidifying lakes in the Adirondacks ... I was a kid fishing in the Adirondacks. ... I could go out with people who had lived in the Adirondacks, and we would go to lakes, and they would say, "There used to be fish in these lakes, and now there are none."
What do you do for ONE?
I am acting as the president this year. It's an interesting group. There's a lot of not-for-profits in Springfield, and we're slightly different in that (it) really isn't our mission to become this organization where we have this paid staff and a building. We meet ... once a month. ... We're not selling alternative energy; we're not entrepreneurs in this venture, but alternative energy is the future. Some people say we have 300 years worth of coal. Well, fine, but we have to have alternative energy at some point. There's a lot of really smart people out there, and we just hope that this (group) facilitates them coming to the table.
Does ONE have any legislative goals?
It's a very generic goal. We're not pushing a bill. I think that it would be fair ... to say that we think that there should be legislation.
City Utilities and the counties need to realize that the building codes need to match the technology. If I want to put a solar panel on my house, ... that's not really in the building codes. We think our legislators should be saying what they support and don't support and how they're going to address building codes.
What do you see as the Ozarks' most promising source of alternative energy?
It's going to have to be a combination of wind and solar with a mix of biofuels, and for the short term, coal. They're building a coal-fired power plant, so I don't think they're going to tear it down. We aren't in a place where we can have 100 percent wind or 100 percent anything.
Interview by Jim Versemann, editorial intern. He may be reached at intern@sbj.net.
