A San Francisco company made a presentation about ways to utilize renewable energy sources to Athens City Council Tuesday.

“The effects of global warming are not felt locally until it’s too late,” said Paul Fenn, founder and director of Local Power Inc., adding that a public works solution is the only answer to global warming.

Local Power Inc. works with cities to adopt Community Choice Aggregation networks, which allow communities to choose the source of their energy. Ohio is one of five states to have a CCA system. The company can be hired by a city to manage the CCA system, finding suppliers of alternative energy and allowing the city to choose those sources as their provider.

Using alternative energy sources would not be cheaper, but it would cost the same as traditional energy suppliers, Fenn said, adding that a potential carbon tax would cause Ohio “economic pain.”

“Ohio’s carbon footprint is Chinese-level terrible,” he said.

Using Local Power in Athens would be a “deal with the ‘forest now and trees later’ approach,” he said, meaning that Athens should focus on the switching first before worrying about operational setbacks or the reaction of state authorities.

“It’s cheaper to proceed with the big picture, and then when you hit that barrier you have the moral highroad because that barrier is blocking something everybody wants.”   

Fenn said Ohio University’s presence in Athens would create a challenging situation for switching energy suppliers because many of these suppliers require that energy use remain constant. With students leaving in the summer, the population decreases and energy use falls.

The presentation left the council with plenty to think about.

“I’m a little overwhelmed at this point,” said Nancy Bain, D-3rd Ward, who thanked Fenn for providing them with lots of information to consider.