Last week tested our patience and our economy. Storms disrupted our busy lives and reminded us all just how powerful nature can be. Let’s face it, we take turning on the lights for granted individually, and we certainly take for granted the commerce that reliable energy enables.
Reliable energy is required to manufacture, move, and even finance the things we all consume each day. A great advantage as a country is that the power is pervasive and relatively inexpensive. This inexpensive energy lights up everything from rural school houses to Times Square billboards. In other countries entire areas are without access to the modern advantages enabled only by electricity.
The outages across the country also exposed our reliance on energy as a weakness that can greatly disrupt commerce worldwide. Just a few days without the ability to run our machinery or easily power our cellphones causes such a disruption that greatly impacts economic development. The utilities’ role in economic development cannot be overstated. The active involvement of companies like Columbia Gas, Buckeye Power, AEP, First Energy, and municipal utilities are critical to the growth of the Columbus Region, the State of Ohio and this area of the country.
Business and government both rely on energy at a low cost delivered with great certainty and predictability. It is therefore imperative that utilities play a large role in planning for growth and be encouraged to constantly invest and innovate in the business of power generation and delivery. Their active role in economic development matters and reliable, low-cost energy matters. Let us not take this for granted, and let’s work together to enhance this great strength.
One Columbus Update
The attraction team is preparing trips to D.C., St. Louis, COSMOPROF Conference as well as a trip to China. Deb Scherer and Matt McCollister will be traveling to China in two weeks to meet with a variety of stakeholders and associations in preparation for a larger mission in September.
-Kenny McDonald