Solar industry to play hardball in D.C. to get tax credit

Posted by Martin LaMonica |

NEW YORK–The solar industry’s trade group is borrowing political tactics from the oil and gas industry to try to extend a tax credit that it considers vital to continued growth of renewable energy.

Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), said Wednesday that his group has created a lobbying coalition of utilities, homebuilders, and environmentalists to pressure Congress to pass a law to extend–and improve –an existing tax credit for renewable energy investments. The group has also formed a political action committee to ensure that Congress members who voted against the renewable energy tax credit are not re-elected, he said.

“We talk about the green revolution…It’s not a revolution until some blood gets spilled,” said Resch, who spoke at the Piper Jaffray Clean Technology and Renewables Conference here Wednesday.

Resch added that the investment tax credit has become a political football. “There’s going to be a lot less grand-standing in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

He noted that a tax-credit bill needs to be passed by the end of the first quarter.

An existing federal tax credit for renewable energy projects is set to expire at the end of 2008. An extension of the tax credit was narrowly defeated at the end of last year during the creation of the 2007 Energy Act, and an economic stimulus plan was passed without the extension earlier this month.

Resch said that the solar industry is abandoning its strategy of pushing for a repeal of a tax break for oil and gas manufacturers in order to pay for the solar tax credit. The solar industry will favor a broader lobbying push instead.

The industry is seeking an eight-year extension of the existing investment tax credit and a more generous credit, which is now 30 percent of the total cost of commercial renewable-energy projects.

Resch said that the industry has already started to see “significant sales drop-off” because of the uncertainty surrounding the investment tax credit, particularly for large-scale solar projects.

He said he’s optimistic about the passage of a law this year.

Next year is shaping up to be much more supportive for the renewable-energy industry because all three top presidential candidates are very strong on addressing climate change, Resch said.

Solar City to Rise in Persian Gulf; Why Not Arizona?

By Andrew C. Revkin

The push to find ways to build not just buildings, but communities — even small cities — with low environmental impacts is under way, although mainly outside the United States, it seems. Ever since I stumbled onto the fascinating Web site www.inhabitat.com, I’ve been assembling a list of large-scale projects designed for negligible fossil-fuel use and emissions of greenhouse gases, access to mass transit, and other environmental and social attributes.

Nearly all seem to be somewhere other than the United States, although I’d happily be pointed to examples I’ve missed. I have a story in this week’s Science Times on Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City — a 2.3-square-mile complex that by 2016 should, if plans hold, house nearly 50,000 people working on next-generation energy technologies. No cars. Solar cells for electricity and solar-thermal arrays for the energy needed for air conditioning. Local agriculture. Waste fully recycled.

The community and the research institute at its core are part of a $15-billion advanced-energy initiative rolled out over the past two years by the government of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There’s added cash coming from outside investors under the “clean development mechanism” of the Kyoto Protocol, which allows industrialized countries to get credit toward their greenhouse-gas targets by paying for non-polluting development projects in developing countries (the Emirates included).

Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive officer of the overarching Masdar Initiative, told me that the goal is to use the wealth accrued over a half century of oil extraction to help shift the economy slowly toward exporting renewable or non-polluting energy technology.

Some experts in urban planning and related matters are cautious about such initiatives, particularly given the marketing appeal of “green” these days.

Ellen Dunham-Jones, the director of the architecture program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told me the project potentially signaled a real shift in the Persian Gulf, which until recently has been focused more on architectural flamboyance than energy efficiency and the like.

“While it’s easy to poke fun at the U.A.E.’s use of spectacular architecture to attract investment, tourists, and a more diversified economy for its post-oil future, the reality is that it certainly is in their interest to develop energy-sufficient systems,” she said. “I just hope that Abu Dhabi is indeed committed to it and not just latching onto it as a ‘theme’ to distinguish their flashy building/city from those of Dubai.”

Those involved with the project insist its goals are real, and say the project will be open to outside monitoring.

It’s notable to see someone somewhere looking beyond fossil fuels, just as Thomas Edison recommended in 1931 when he told Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

Perhaps Abu Dhabi, at least, isn’t waiting.

In the meantime, where’s Nevada, or Arizona?

Where’s the federal government? Have a look at President Bush’s proposed energy budget for 2009, particularly the parts dealing with energy efficiency, solar investment, and the like.

For sharply contrasting views, try the Heritage Foundation and Joe Romm

Dial in your driving and see what it really costs. You don,t want to miss this one.-Tim
(Click on picture)

By Solar Nation

January 4, 2008On the energy and environmental front, anyone following the presidential primaries today can make some fairly safe predictions about our sustainable future without even picking a winner from the thirteen major candidates. In its 2008 Voters’ Guide, the League of Conservation Voters has compared and tabulated the energy policies of all the presidential hopefuls (see tables below). The League doesn’t over-editorialize, but it’s clear from even an unbiased reading of their positions that the country will go in a diametrically different direction in 2009 depending largely on the party of the 44th president.

To compare the competing Democrats, one would think they were vying to establish which of them is the greenest one of all. And while this could be construed as one-upmanship at this point in the race, it’s also a good indication of how seriously each of them takes ‘green’ issues. They have all published detailed, thoughtful plans on how they would deal with the issues of energy independence and climate change, and what’s most encouraging about them is the extent to which they see the twin issues as interdependent. Here’s a simplified summary of their positions:

Issues	Clinton	Edwards	Kucinich	Obama
Mandatory cap & auction of pollution permits	Supports, with 100% auction	Supports, with 100% auction	Supports cap	Supports, with 100% auction
Carbon emission reduction	Supports 80% reduction by 2050	Supports ≥80% reduction by 2050	Supports 80% reduction by 2050	Supports 80% reduction by 2050
Fleetwide fuel efficiency	40 mpg by 2020, 55 mpg by 2030	40 mpg by 2016	40-45 mpg by 2017	52 mpg by 2026
National renewable electricity standard	25% by 2025	25% by 2025	30-40% by 2020	25% by 2025
Energy efficiency improvements	20% by 2020	15% by 2018	10% by 2020	50% by 2030
Emissions from coal plants	Supports phased-in carbon capture in new plants	Opposes new plants without carbon capture	Supports phaseout of all coal power & mining	Would consider banning new plants
Liquid coal development	Supportive if carbon pollution reduced by 20%	Opposed	Opposed	Supportive if carbon pollution reduced by 20%

For the most part, Republicans also talk up a storm on energy independence, but somehow miss the connection to climate change mitigation. This leads them to interpret our energy future mostly in terms of new nuclear power plants, old coal, clean coal, liquid coal and business-as-usual in Detroit and the oil states. Examining their positions on the same seven issues listed above, we see a wider spectrum of responses, ranging from mildly supportive to insouciant to frighteningly hostile:

Issues	Giuliani	Huckabee	McCain	Paul	Romney	Thompson
Mandatory cap and auction of pollution permits	Opposed	Supports, with no position on auction	Supports, with no position on auction	No stated position	Supports cap if enacted globally	No stated position
Carbon emission reduction	No stated position	No target specified	Supports 65% reduction by 2050	No stated position	No stated position	No stated position
Fleetwide fuel efficiency	Opposes mandatory action	35 mpg by 2020	General support, no targets	Opposed 33 mpg in 2005	Opposes as stand-alone measure	Opposed 35 mpg in 2002
National renewable electricity standard	Opposed	Supports 15% by 2020 (inc. nuclear & clean coal)	Supports state & local, not national, standards	No stated position	No stated position	Opposed 10% & 20% standard in 2002
Energy efficiency improvements	General support, no targets	General support, no targets	General support, no targets	No stated position	General support, no targets	General support, no targets
Emissions from coal plants	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal	Supports carbon capture in new plants	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal
Liquid coal development	Supports liquid coal	No stated position	Will support liquid coal if pollution capture/control improves	No stated position	Supports liquid coal	Supports liquid coal

As can be seen, Governor Huckabee and Senator McCain lift themselves somewhat above their competitors with support for fuel efficiency and carbon emission limits, but with these exceptions noted, the Republican candidates seem to be sharing a generally reactionary platform. Candidate Ron Paul’s position on energy is perhaps scarier than most, as he does not appear to have given much thought to the seven major issues measured; on fuel efficiency and coal plants he has shown himself no friend to clean energy or the environment, while on the other five issues he hasn’t recorded any position whatsoever.

Giuliani’s and Thompson’s records show opposition to virtually everything beneficial to the environment, and support for continued use of coal in any form. And the campaign promise of the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, to bring large-scale clean energy technology to market, clashes with his public opposition to the nation’s largest proposed offshore wind project off the coast of the Bay State.

Overall, the impression given by the campaign literature of GOP hopefuls is that the energy/environmental debate has not been worthy of serious thought, nor has it featured in their spoken rhetoric as much as immigration, healthcare or the Iraq war. Compared with some of the Democratic candidates’ meticulously crafted plans with their targets, pricetags and deadlines, the Republican contenders seem to be paying lip service to an issue they know does not excite the general public. And so far as government support for clean energies such as solar is concerned, most of them mention it only as afterthoughts to ideas for increased use of coal, drilling in the ANWR and building more nuclear plants, measures that may offset some fossil fuel imports but will exacerbate environmental problems already approaching crisis levels.

So in this exercise in crystal ball gazing, you could probably get just as accurate a result with a two-dollar snowglobe. With Huckabee and McCain, and to a greater extent with the six Democrats, there is a sense of recognition of the comparative importance of the energy issue. It’s the recognition that whereas we can survive not finding a perfect solution to some of the more emotionally charged issues in politics today, we can’t survive a failure to address effectively—and on a national scale—the interrelated issues of energy and environment.

It’s also difficult to escape the conclusion that, in the event of a candidate in the mold of Giuliani, Paul, Romney or Thompson being sworn in next January, the brotherly relationship between the oil & gas industry and Government that characterized the Bush Administration will become, if anything, measurably cozier.

The rush to build power plants slows as worries grow over global warming, building costs and transportation.
By Judy Pasternak, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — America’s headlong rush to tap its enormous coal reserves for electricity has slowed abruptly, with more than 50 proposed coal-fired power plants in 20 states canceled or delayed in 2007 because of concerns about climate change, construction costs and transportation problems.

Coal, touted as cheap and plentiful, has been a cornerstone of President Bush’s plans to meet America’s energy needs with dozens of new power plants. Burned in about 600 facilities, coal produces more than half of the nation’s electricity.

But urgent questions are emerging about a fuel once thought to be the most reliable of all. Utilities are confronting rising costs and a lack of transportation routes from coal fields to generators, opposition from state regulators and environmental groups, and uncertainty over climate-change policies in Washington.

“Coal projects need more regulatory certainty before any new ones are going to get built in the near future,” said David Eskelsen, a spokesman for PacifiCorp, which serves more than 1.6 million customers in six Western states. “The current situation does make utility planning very challenging.”

Just a few weeks ago, PacifiCorp dropped plans for two coal-fired power plants in Utah, citing the many unknowns in assessing the costs and objections on global warming grounds from a major customer: the city of Los Angeles. PacifiCorp said in filings with the state of Utah that it hadn’t found a substitute for production that it will need to bring online in 2012 and 2014.

The setbacks have energy regulators jittery about the prospects for meeting America’s ever-increasing hunger for electricity. They say that any delays in building new capacity — coal-fired or otherwise — add pressure to an already strained electricity infrastructure, raising the prospect of shortages or sharply higher prices.

Energy planners say coal needs to be in the mix because the other mainstay fuels for generating electricity also have serious drawbacks. Natural gas has proved volatile in both price and supply. Nuclear power plants are costly and take much longer to build — and the problem of radioactive-waste disposal remains unsolved.

“We’re very close to the edge,” said Rick Sergel, who keeps a close eye on the grid as chief executive of the quasi-governmental North American Electric Reliability Corp. “We operate under tight conditions more often than ever. We need action in the next year or two to start on the path to having enough electricity 10 years from now.”

This fall, regulators in Kansas and Washington state denied applications for coal plant permits because of concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.

After Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said in October that he wasn’t a “fan” of coal, utilities postponed plans to build coal plants in Tampa and Orlando.

Xcel Energy has told Colorado officials that it plans to close two coal plants and add 1,000 megawatts of wind and solar power, in addition to a new natural-gas plant. The company wants to cut its carbon dioxide emissions 10% by 2015.

In Nevada, Sierra Pacific Resources delayed construction of a coal plant and moved up the schedule for a natural-gas-powered plant instead.

The Tennessee Valley Authority decided in August to add a $2.5-billion unit to a nuclear power plant rather than construct a new coal facility — the other main option — because of the uncertain economics.

Altogether, 53 coal-fired plants were canceled or delayed in 2007, according to Global Energy Decisions, a private consulting firm that tracks power plants for the Department of Energy.

In the near term, coal clearly will remain a part of the American energy picture. Even as the postponements and terminations pile up, plans for new coal-fired power plants continue to advance in New Mexico, Mississippi and Indiana.

Although TXU Energy canceled eight coal-fired power plants it had proposed in Texas, the utility is going ahead with three others.

Last month, an energy industry consortium announced plans to build a government-subsidized power plant in southern Illinois to demonstrate low-emissions coal technology. But the ballooning cost of the FutureGen plant — now projected to be about $1.8 billion, nearly double its original estimated price tag — has drawn criticism from the Department of Energy, which could delay or kill the project by withholding funds.

The growing push in Washington to do something about global warming is a major factor that affects the cost of burning chunks of solid carbon, by far the dirtiest way to manufacture power.

A recent study by the industry-funded Electric Power Research Institute projects that coal power will cost more than nuclear power or natural gas by 2030 if coal’s carbon dioxide problem is solved the way most experts envision. Still unproven, that method involves separating carbon dioxide from the gas stream before it heads out of the stacks, collecting the vapors and then storing them underground. That would also require a new network of pipelines to move carbon dioxide from the power plant to a geologically sound site.

There is a time and place for everything.

This is the time and place for American to make a global difference.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration.

http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/JOHNDOERR-2007_high.flv

Green Energy the Next Frontier

Great piece by Declan Butler in Nature on the new venture capitalism in Silicon Valley. Green energy, folks. California gold. Butler reports how the venture-capital industry in the US spent $2.6 billion on clean-energy technologies in the first three-quarters of this year. Up from $1.8 billion in 2006, and $533 million in 2005. Google joined the game last week, committing millions more to solar, wind and geothermal, seeking a technology patch to make renewables cheaper than coal. A few weeks earlier, Al Gore’s London-based Generation Investment Management partnered with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park—the green-energy investors that nurtured Amazon, Google and Genentech—to fund global climate solutions.

For the fast-moving entrepreneurs of the [Silicon] [V]alley… the next frontier is the roughly US$6-trillion energy market, where the dinosaurs of power-generation utilities have traditionally invested a pittance in research and development. “Venture capital is exactly what we need to try new things outside the bounds of what the traditional energy companies think is worth doing,” says Vinod Khosla, a veteran entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Microsystems and now heads Khosla Ventures in Menlo Park, one of the most prominent clean-energy venture-capital firms. “There is almost no technology risk-taking in any of the energy companies.” Khosla predicts that within five years there will be a green form of electricity that is cheaper than coal, and cleaner fuels that are cheaper than oil.

Butler also notes that although the US lags far behind Europe’s leaders, Denmark and Germany, in renewables, its venture-capital investments in clean tech now more than double those in Europe.

California scooped $726.2 million of this year’s US clean-tech venture funding, followed by Massachusetts ($292.6 million) and Texas ($149.4 million). Almost $1 billion of US investment went abroad, including a $200-million investment in Brazil’s Brazilian Renewable Energy, which produces ethanol, and a $118-million investment in China’s Yingli Green Energy Holding Company, which makes photovoltaic solar systems.

This is the reason I refuse to surrender  hope.

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones’ environmental correspondent. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.

Greens need to learn how to celebrate their friends and their movement

Posted by David Roberts 02 Dec 2007

I’ve run into a lot of sentiment along the lines of this comment thread — harumphing about how weak and insufficient the impending energy bill is — and it seems crazy and wrongheaded to me.

I urge you to check out this post by Josh Dorner on the post-2000 history of energy bill negotiations. Remember what it’s been like.

Since I started at Grist, I’ve been writing about a Republican president and Congress trying over and over again to pass energy legislation focused on drilling, mining, and doling out subsidies. Their greed and overreach were such that they bungled it again and again, until the 2005 Energy Act, which was a slightly scaled down version of the same old thing.

That act was part and parcel of what energy policy has been in this country more or less since Ronald Reagan walked in the White House: a monomaniacal focus on extraction and supply coupled with generous corporate welfare.

In just over a year, Democrats, with a small majority in the House and a knife-edge margin in the Senate, have pulled together an energy bill that contains:

1. The first CAFE boost since 1975. Even if you don’t think CAFE is crucial energy policy (I don’t), it ain’t nothing, and it is of extraordinary symbolic significance. It’s going to be the headline.
2. A 15% Renewable Energy Standard — a clear statement of support for a new energy direction, echoing and amplifying state-level efforts.
3. Billions in subsidies for clean energy.
4. Boosted energy efficiency and green building standards.
5. Yes, yes, a massive, horrendous boost in biofuels, but even on that front there are environmental safeguards attached that were absent in early negotiations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Photo: speaker.gov.

The distance between this bill and where were were a year ago is remarkable. And it is a credit to the leadership.

If you’re determined to think that all politicians are craven simps, go ahead, but it’s hard for me to see what would count of evidence of boldness and commitment on Nancy Pelosi’s part if this doesn’t.

Don’t think she’s been tiptoeing around. Sen. Pete Domenici, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, is so pissed off at her he’s pulling out of the energy bill process. He’d gotten the impression that the RES (aka RPS) was off the table, but Pelosi’s pushed it back on. Says the irritated and possibly soon to be steamrolled Domenici:

RPS may not be the only deviation from the negotiated bill text, as the Speaker appears willing to take advantage of the lack of a formal conference committee process and institute other changes in the bill as she sees fit.

You’ll recall that when they were in control, Republican leadership regularly pulled procedural shenanigans that made this look like patty cakes. But still, Pelosi isn’t playing by Queensbury Rules. She’s throwing elbows.

It wasn’t just leading Republicans Pelosi had to outmaneuver. As this NYT story makes clear, she’s also gone head to head with Rep. John Dingell, one of the most powerful committee chairs in recent history, and pulled him in line:

Mr. Dingell said that all sides had compromised to get a good deal on the energy bill, and he took credit for safeguarding the interests of the auto industry. In a telephone interview, he praised Ms. Pelosi and said his disagreements with her had been useful.

…

Outside observers, however, said Mr. Dingell had capitulated after realizing he could not win, especially given high oil prices. “The speaker basically took him on and won,” said Dan Becker, an environmental consultant.

Pelosi’s been fighting hard and smart, and she’s done so out of what everyone who knows her describes as a genuine passion for renewable energy.

Please explain to me why the first reaction to this should be grumbling about how it’s not enough. What kind of political message does that send? What incentive does that give anyone to follow Pelosi out onto this limb?

You know what nobody likes? Nobody likes people who do nothing but judge and condemn and enforce in-group purity and piss on everyone’s shoes, including their friends’ shoes. Nobody wants to make any effort to please those people. Nobody even wants to get stuck in an elevator with them.

Of course this bill is not enough. Nothing will ever be enough, I guarantee you. But it’s a victory, and you know what people do like? People like winning. They like being on the winning team. They like winners. They want to hang around the winners, and act like them, and date them, and name drop them.

So please, take a moment for some strutting. Take strength from this victory, and give strength. Hand out some props for a job well done. Make politicians feel like there’s social and political capital to be gained by going green — if you do that, they’ll be back for more.

The arc of history is bending in our direction. Celebrate it.

Tell everyone you know about it. Tell them about this