Melina Laboucan-Massimo stands in solidarity with our mountain communities. Melina’s indigenous Lubicon Cree community has been devastated by tar sands extraction. In both Canada and the United States, she has been a key leader in the fight against the notorious Keystone XL pipeline. Melina will join us at I Love Mountains Day in Frankfort, where she will speak about the impact of fossil fuels on her community and the need to build a new, clean energy economy.

Melina says, “We have seen the destruction of our lands happen right before our eyes. Our water is being contaminated and we are seeing droughts throughout the region. My family used to be able to drink from our watershed, and now within my lifetime we can no longer do so.”

Get a sneak peek at Melina’s story and her inspiring work by reading this interview. You can also hear her powerful voice against damaging fossil fuel extraction, and learn about her vision for a clean energy economy, in this video clip.  And then join KFTC and Melina on Tuesday, February 14th at 12 p.m on the front steps of the Capitol in Frankfort for I Love Mountains Day! Register here.

KFTC members Tim Darst and Angela Lincoln have been working towards energy sustainability for quite some time. They care about it for many reasons – because of their faith, their commitment to social justice and their concern about global climate change and mountaintop removal coal mining.

Ten years ago, they began efforts to reduce their home electricity usage through lifestyle changes and energy efficiency measures. They built awnings to block excess sunlight, put lower-watt bulbs in their lamps and began using sunlight to dry their clothes, among other things.

“We looked into electricity in Kentucky and found out that more than 90% comes from coal – the dirtiest of all the fossil fuels,” Tim said. “We wanted to make some changes in our life and we started with electricity because it made the most sense.”

These efforts yielded a 70% reduction in home electricity use over time, he told a crowd of 25 at a KFTC gathering that he, Angela and neighbors Rus Funk and Amy Mudd co-hosted on October 18th. Once their usage was down, Tim and Angela invested in solar panels to provide most of their remaining electricity use.

The crowd saw Tim and Angela’s solar panel array and then toured Rus and Amy’s home geo-thermal heating and cooling system. Geo-thermal systems run water through pipes deep into the ground to keep it a steady temperature and then use a highly efficient indoor machine to heat or cool the water, which in turn heats or cools the air to the desired temperature.

Amy, Kiernan and Rus, in the process of having an addition put onto their home, explored the possibility of going to geo-thermal as a way of attempting to reduce their carbon footprint.  They said that the installation process was messy and loud, with lots of dust coming from the drilling process, but they feel like it was well worth it.

"We knew that Tim and Angela had gone solar and liked the idea, but knew that there was no way we could have afforded that option. geo-thermal was something we could work in the budget of our addition, and we'd get the money returned to us in savings much more quickly then we could have via solar."

Ron Neal, of Louisville-based Allgeier Air (pictured, right) – the company that installed Rus and Amy’s system - told the crowd that residential and commercial use of geothermal heating and cooling is really taking off in Kentucky.

“With a 7-to-10-year average payback, geothermal is catching on quickly.  A few years ago, we saw a steady 1-2% increase in our installations every year. In 2009, our business increased 20%. In 2010, 30% and 2011, 40%.”

He went on to describe the success that 50 Kentucky schools have been using geothermal systems. One school built a new building 4 times the size of the previous one. With efficiency measures and a geothermal system, energy bills in the bigger building are just ¼ of the school’s previous bill costs.

KFTC member Jane Walsh brought her two kids to tour the homes. “We were inspired,” Jane said. Her daughter, Mae Alice Harrell is a reporter for the Bloom Elementary "Bloom Report," a weekly program of her school's media club. She filmed the event to help educate her schoolmates about how families can use less energy.

The party raised both friends and funds for KFTC - thirteen new members signed up! And, the event motivated many people present to lobby their legislators in order to make these clean energy systems more affordable for Kentuckians.

“I love the idea of solar panel and geothermal technology. I would love to save money on my utilities and minimize my carbon footprint, but these projects are expensive for the average middle income household,” said participant and property manager Debbie Rosenstein. “This is why it is so important for us to contact our legislators regarding the Clean Energy Opportunity Act. Clean energy needs to be an affordable alternative for everyone.”

If you are interested in telling your legislator that you want affordable, clean energy solutions in Kentucky, contact nancy@kftc.org.

By Andy McDonald, KFTC member and director of the Kentucky Solar Partnership (an ally of KFTC through the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance)

In August, the Kentucky Solar Partnership hosted four days of trainings in Frankfort on solar photovoltaic system design and installation. Thirty two participants attended the first two-day class, “Introduction to Solar Photovoltaics.” Eighteen participants stayed for day three, “Solar Site Assessments and PV System Design,” and 14 people attended the final day, “PV and the National Electric Code.” The classes were taught by Chris LaForge of Great Northern Solar, a certified solar PV installer and instructor.

Instructor Chris LaForge with students outside KSP's Solar Trailer

Participants included electrical contractors, solar electric contractors, recent college graduates, engineers, and others exploring solar energy as a potential career path. Two students from the University of Louisville will use the knowledge they gained as they help design U of L’s entry in the international Solar Decathalon solar home design competition. Four participants will receive Continuing Education Units from the Kentucky Office of Housing, Buildings and Construction to support their electrician’s licenses.

Participants came from a wide geographic area, ranging from Paducah to Prestonsburg to the Cincinnati Metro area. One person came all the way from Missouri and another from Evansville, Indiana.

Andy McDonald discusses his home's solar PV installation

On the second day of the training the class made a field trip to my home to view my recently-installed grid-tied solar PV system. This five panel, 1.125 KW array is a ground-mounted, battery-free system that was sized to meet 100% of my family’s annual electricity needs. Participants also had a chance to view KSP’s Solar Trailer, which demonstrates an off-grid, battery-based PV system. The chance to view operational PV systems in real-world applications was a highlight of the trainings for many participants.

Chris LaForge explains how to use a solar pathfinder

Nine of our participants were able to attend thanks to financial support offered by MACED (the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development). MACED supports the development of small businesses in eastern Kentucky and has a special emphasis on supporting sustainable energy enterprises. In addition to financial assistance to attend ASPI’s workshops, MACED also offers financing for business development investments, “energy micro-loans” for energy efficiency and renewable energy investments for eastern Kentucky businesses, and technical assistance to building trade contractors. MACED also has a Certified Energy Manager on-staff to provide energy consulting.

Coming up in October, KSP will be hosting a five-day, hands-on installation training. Many of our participants from August will be returning to gain hands-on skills as we install an off-grid solar electric system on a mobile trailer. Registration for the October workshop is already full.

By Jefferson County KFTC member Dan Hofmann

I had such a great response to my recent commentary that I thought it would be worth the time to take an in depth look at the implications of such a massive undertaking. 

Now that we know it’s physically possible for solar photovoltaics (PV) to supply all of the electricity needs in Kentucky by covering only 1/5th of the land already cleared by mountaintop removal (MTR) with solar panels, I think it’s important to ask the following: How quickly could we make the transition from coal to solar? How much would it cost in the short and long term? How would this transition affect coal mining jobs and how many jobs would it create? Can our economy, and our environment for that matter, afford to stick with coal for the long term?

I think the only way to make a transition of this scale possible would be to spread it over many decades. In my previous assessment, I estimated that it would take a 69.1 GW solar array to provide all of the electricity needs in Kentucky today, but if this project is spread out over many years the size of the solar array would need to grow to match the expected increase in electric kWh consumption over time. 

Figure 1 below shows what I believe would be a feasible transition from coal-fired electricity to solar PV over the next 50 years. If we start by adding roughly 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar each year and increase that amount by 7% per year for 40 years, we could achieve a net-zero carbon economy by the year 2050; powered entirely by solar PV. It also shows the expected increase in electricity consumption from a total of about 90 terawatt-hours (TWh) today to about 240 TWh in the year 2060. This increased consumption is based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s data that shows an average annual increase of around 2% in electricity consumption in Kentucky from 1980–2005.


Figure 2 below shows the solar PV capacity that would need to be installed per year and the cumulative in direct current (DC) megawatts. There would be a drop off in year 2050 as we achieved net-zero. But, new panels would still need to be manufactured and installed as the industry standard 25-year warranty would expire on earlier solar panels, thereby providing long-term jobs. However, manufacturers claim that solar PV panels can function well past their expiration date, producing electricity for 40 or even 50 years.



Figure 3 below shows the jobs that would be created over the next 50 years. This projection is based on a University of California report that claimed that in the solar industry "20 manufacturing and 13 installation/maintenance jobs [are created] per installed megawatt." As you can see, the 20,000 coal-mining jobs (represented in red in the graph) in Kentucky would pale in comparison to the potential of solar PV. In fact, more than 30,000 jobs could be created in year one with the installation of 1 GW of solar, already matching coal-mining employment. These would not be temporary jobs either. The maintenance jobs would be needed indefinitely and the manufacturing and installations jobs would be needed as some solar panels are retired and replaced by new panels.



Figure 4 below illustrates the corresponding gradual decrease and eventual elimination of coal-mining jobs in Kentucky.

Starting with my estimate from my last commentary, Figure 5 below shows the decrease in the cost per watt DC of installing solar PV and energy storage over the next 50 years. This is based on the fact that the cost per watt to install solar has historically decreased by about 4% per year over that past decade. Energy storage would not need to be added until solar PV electricity production exceeded around 10% of the total, at which point the volatile nature of solar energy can present issues to a stable grid.



Figure 6 below shows the cost per year in dollars to install solar PV, install energy storage, maintain the massive solar array, and build transmission grid infrastructure to get the electricity to residential, commercial and industrial consumers in Kentucky. I used this estimate of $1.5 million per mile to build the high voltage DC (HVDC) transmission lines and estimated an average of 100 miles per line with a maximum of 2,000 MW for each line.  As you can see, the annual payroll for solar manufacturers, solar installers, and solar maintenance jobs could be close to $13 billion a year by 2060, providing much needed employment income to the commonwealth.

Figure 7 below shows the decrease in the consumer price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for solar energy over time. This cost includes the cost to install solar, install energy storage (beginning in 2020), maintain the solar array, and building the transmission infrastructure. While this decrease may not look like much at first glance, it’s much more desirable than the dramatic cost increases in Figure 8 if we were to stick with coal. 

Figure 8 below shows the expected increasing cost of coal-fired electricity, which is sharply different from the expected decreasing cost of solar PV electricity over the same time period. This projection is based on a the 5% per year increase in the cost per kWh in Kentucky over the past 10 years for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in Kentucky from empirical data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.


Figures 9 and 10 below show how costly it could be for Kentucky to ignore to potential of solar energy. While the annual cost of electricity during the transition from coal to solar could be similar to the cost of coal electricity by itself through the year 2030, the exponential increase in coal electricity could drain nearly $150 billion more per year than solar energy by 2060 with a cumulative cost of $1.78 trillion over 50 years. Kentucky has always used the cheap cost of coal electricity to lure business to the commonwealth, the same strategy could be used for solar electricity if we get a head start on competing states.

Figures 11, 12 and 13 show the environmental benefit of using solar PV electricity. It’s clear that solar energy is superior to coal-fired electricity in this department.

Imagine using solar electricity to manufacture solar panels right here in Kentucky!

About the author: Dan Hofmann is President of RegenEn Solar LLC, a solar panel installation company located in Louisville, KY. RegenEn Solar is also a member of the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance with KFTC.

By Steve Boyce, Madison County KFTC Member

Customers of Berea Municipal Utilities who want to invest in solar photovoltaic panels will soon have an opportunity to do so by choosing to participate in a program called Berea Solar Partners. 

"If this seems to go well in Berea, there may be other small towns around Kentucky attracted to establishing similar community-based efforts to move gradually toward greater reliance on clean, renewable sources of electrical energy. " 

The City is establishing the Berea Solar Farm, arrays of PV panels to generate electricity.  Customers will be invited to become Berea Solar Partners by leasing up to two 235-watt solar panels from an initial array of 60 panels.  The one-time lease fee of approximately $700 will cover a 25-year period.  In return, customers will receive credit every billing period for the electricity generated by their panels.

The Solar Farm is one of three projects supported by a $125,000 Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant to the City of Berea.  The purpose of the grant is to enable Berea to take small but critical first steps in a decades-long movement toward a better energy future. 

One of the other two projects funded by the grant will model improved energy practice in City operations by upgrading lighting in five municipal buildings.  The third project involves starting several energy efficiency programs at Berea Municipal Utilities (BMU) in hopes of making clear how such programs can return important value to the community.  With no history of energy efficiency programs in Berea, getting started in a way that demonstrates their potential value – to the City and its people - is as challenging as it is important. 

Getting back to the Berea Solar Farm, one of the major advantages of the program is that the utility will site, install and maintain the solar panels.  Participating customers will gain access to solar generation at less than $3 per watt, less than the typical installed cost of a home PV system after state and federal tax credits.   It is estimated that at current rates, one 235 watt panel will produce a little over $17 worth of electricity per year.  Assuming that Berea’s electricity rates increase 5% per year on average, the panels have estimated payback in the neighborhood of 23 years.

Steve Wilkins, a Berea KFTC member who plans to lease panels, says “The opportunity appeals to me in part because I’d like to reduce our carbon footprint through some solar PV generation, but we have a lot of shade all around our house.  So installing panels at home is not a possibility.  I also expect the price of coal-fired electricity to continue to sky-rocket, so I’m attracted to locking in 25-years worth of PV-generated electricity at today’s cost.  And I just like the idea of supporting Berea’s effort to make this kind of option available to its utility customers.”     

The program is ideal for customers who want local opportunities to invest in clean energy but have homes, apartments or businesses – owned or rented – not well suited for solar installations due to directional orientation or shade.  It also provides an opportunity for those who would like to invest in solar energy but can’t afford the relatively large cost of installing an entire system on their property. 

One of the exciting features of this Berea Solar Farm approach is the extent to which it is scalable, both for the City and for individual customers.  For the City, adding additional arrays to the 60-panel beginning can be done in small steps over time in response to customer interest.    The “pay as you go” model means that any future growth will be funded by customer participation.  Customers who choose not to participate will not be asked to subsidize those who do.

Some benefits of the Berea Solar Partners Solar Farm
•    Allows more people at all income levels to participate in solar energy options, regardless of site issues such as shade or directional orientation.
•    The program is self-sustaining and supported financially by only those customers who choose to become Berea Solar Partners.
•    Participants get peace of mind for supporting renewable energy and receive credit  for the energy their panels generate
•    The cost of participating is less than $3 per installed watt, less than the typical cost of installing home solar systems after state and federal incentives
•    For BMU to generate some of its own electricity means less money leaving Berea to pay wholesale electric bills to our multinational corporate wholesale supplier

For some customers, the scalability could take the form of budgeting over time to offset some percentage – possibly all - of their electricity use by periodically adding one or more solar panels.  To enable broad participation, customers are limited to leasing no more than two panels among the first sixty.  But beyond that, if additional arrays are added, customers will be free to lease as many as they wish. 

Another major benefit of this panel-by-panel leasing approach is the ease of transferring credit for the electricity generated by leased panels.  Since the panels are maintained in a central location, the electricity they generate need not be tied to a specific address.  In the event a participating homeowner or renter moves within BMU’s service territory, the electricity credits can simply be transferred to the new location.  If the move is to a location outside the BMU service territory, the leaser would need to sell or donate the energy generated by the panels to a BMU customer.  If such a move involves selling a house, the house value could be enhanced to the extent that the panels serve increasingly to lower utility bills as coal generated rates increase over time.  Some may find it attractive to support a local non-profit – a school or church, for example – by leasing one or more panels and assigning the billing credit to that organization.

Another aspect of this approach to solar generation that seems exciting is the extent to which it lends itself to local effort.  We are hoping, for example, that many people in Berea will share Steve Wilkins' interest in community members coming together to take greater responsibility for their own energy future. 

If this seems to go well in Berea, there may be other small towns around Kentucky attracted to establishing similar community-based efforts to move gradually toward greater reliance on clean, renewable sources of electrical energy.   

Kentucky has the fourth-most toxic air among states, a newly released report found.

Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States found that 77% of the toxins overall and 89% of mercury emissions in Kentucky air come from coal-burning power plants. The analysis was jointly released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and based on self-reported data from the polluters.

Exposure to toxic pollution from power plants, including hydrochloric acid, fine particulates, mercury and other metals, is known or believed to contribute to or exacerbate a wide variety of health conditions, the report reminds us, including one or more of the following:

• Asthma and other respiratory ailments,
• Developmental disorders,
• Neurological damage,
• Birth defects,
• Cancer, and
• Premature mortality.

The NRDC / PSR report is consistent with a number of other studies, including one released in March by the American Lung Association that concluded, “Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.”

Source: Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States, NRDC, 2011

By Steve Boyce

KFTC Chairperson

How many times have you heard “experts”—folks from the coal and energy industries, and even our own legislators—say that people supporting renewable energy may mean well but are misguided since renewables can’t provide “baseload power,” whatever that means. After all, the sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t blow all the time.

David Brown Kinloch has written what strikes me as an excellent and very important op-ed aimed at debunking “The Myth of the Baseload.” It’s well worth the read. Find it here.

Part of the reason I think it’s so good is that it explains in understandable terms some of the main challenges of generating and distributing electricity and why the traditional approach to addressing them—reliance on large centralized coal and nuclear generation plants for baseload—is not necessary. Along the way he makes clear the meaning of such terms as baseload, dispatcher and grid, and how current arrangements will have to change for distributed renewable generation to become a substantial part of the generation mix. Rarely if ever have I learned as much from reading an op-ed.

It’s the clarity of his myth busting that makes this piece seem so important. As Brown Kinloch concludes:

Clearly customer load can be met, hour by hour, primarily with renewables, without today’s baseload plants. … The problem here is not the nature of renewable resources or any technical hurdle, but rather it is getting utility planners and dispatchers to think outside the “baseload” mindset that they have been stuck in for so many years. … The need for large, centralized baseload capacity is not some requirement of the electrical power system, but rather a desire to continue to do things as utilities have done in the past, the way they know.

The transition to decentralized, clean power sources is crucial and feasible! And it’s coming! As I said, this op-ed is well worth reading.

As natural gas drilling becomes more and more abundant in Letcher County, the folks in that chapter have become as educated as possible on the issue.  Nitro-Fracking is the preferred method of fracking in the region, which has been more difficult to understand because most natural gas drills in America tend to use Hydro-Fracking.

Gasland, the documentary by Josh Fox, was recently nominated for an Academy Award and has really helped shine a light on the recent struggles that communities all over America are facing to keep clean water.  While the film is based around Hydro-Fracking, many of the problems are the same.  Much like other extraction industries, the natural gas companies have used fear to try to silence concerned citizens, and put money in the pockets of elected officials to turn a blind eye to what is happening.

Last Thursday, the Letcher County Chapter gathered for a screening of Gasland.  One member in attendance, Celeste Johnson lives in the community of McRoberts where natural gas drilling is quickly consuming the hillsides, leaving much of the community frustrated with the constant noise of drilling and fracking, not to mention fear over the safety of their water.  “I felt like it was scary, not knowing what the nitro-fracking is doing here, whether or not it’s destroying our water the same way as in the movie,” said Celeste.  Currently there are two gas wells within 100-200 feet of the community’s water plant.

A study just published this month attempted to quantify the costs that the coal industry and utility companies don’t have to pay when they use coal for electricity, such as the cost of destroying streams and the cost of treating illnesses that result from exposure to coal-burning pollution.  The study included some of the external costs of mountaintop removal mining.

Study authors conclude that the estimated costs of using coal for electricity add up to $345.3 billion, adding close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated from coal.

They acknowledged that this is an underestimate, as it is impossible to monetize all the environmental and societal costs of coal.

Among other things, study authors recommended a transition to cleaner energy sources, consideration of the true costs of all electricity fuels prices when determining energy policy, and an immediate end to mountaintop removal coal mining and reclamation of those lands and waterways, where possible.

The study, entitled “Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal,” was authored by Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard University and co-authored by KFTC member Beverly May.  It was published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences this month and is available online here.

During the same exciting period as Lexington Loves Mountains, Kentucky Rising’s weekend visit with the Governor, and an unbelievable I Love Mountains Day, were a couple of exciting events in the Northern Kentucky area aimed at helping end the destructive practice of mountaintop removal. The Friday before I Love Mountains Day, the Northern Kentucky Chapter joined with Ohio Citizen Action, Intercommunity Justice and Peace Committee, NKU ECOS, and Sierra Club members from northern Kentucky to Miami, OH to bring Mari-Lynn Evans to the University of Cincinnati’s MainStreet Cinema to present her documentaries Low Coal and Coal Country.   

The very next night, thanks to the hard work of a variety of area musicians, most notably those of Magnolia Mountain, there was a concert at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky. The concert split proceeds between KFTC and Ohio Citizens Action, featured a new CD to benefit both organizations, and limited prints from artist Keith Neltner!

Melissa English, of Ohio Citizens Action and Magnolia Mountain, was amazed at the success of the event, which she attributed to the success of advertising the event by the bands, the organizations, and local sponsors like Goodsleeve, WNKU, and Shake It Records. More amazing was the fact that the concert sold out less than two hours after the doors opened!

Asa Roberts, a new member who heard about the event from City Beat (a free local alternative paper in the Cincinnati area), described the event as a ‘godsend’ for giving him the opportunity to plug into the fight to stop mountaintop removal. Though already familiar with the issue, he described Jeff Biggers of the Huffington Post’s speech about the issue absolutely inspiring, telling other members he wished he could have had the event on DVD to watch it over again.

Jeff Biggers was not the only person to speak at the event. Melissa English spoke on behalf of Ohio Citizen Action, and KFTC member Ben Baker told his story of how he came to learn about the destruction in Appalachia. Each shared their experiences, but Ben’s unique story of discovering mountaintop removal while learning to fly was heartfelt, and many of the people in attendance heeded his call to join us at I Love Mountains Day.

Jeff Hampton, who spent most of his night helping with the merchandise table in the Parlor, said that for many of the people who spent their time outside of the Ballroom, “it was hard to actually ‘see’ any of the bands, but they all sounded incredible.”

While everyone enjoyed the music, there was no clear crowd favorite. Rick Traud picked Jake Speed and the Freddies, Asa Roberts picked The Tillers and Magnolia Mountain, but Melissa English picked Bob Dionisi and Mike Oberst for their live performance of Coal Creek March.

Everyone was surprised by the huge success, as no one expected the show to sell out before 10 o’clock. Some members heard the people at the door had to turn away over 100 people, and many attendees were keen on the idea of coming back to a similar concert.

While this may or may not happen, Jeff Hampton reflected that it was such a shame to turn away so many people who were willing to learn more about the issue of mountaintop removal, and that there is a clear desire in the community to learn how to stop this practice.