Energy Exchange

Top 10 Clean Energy Stories Of 2011

By Marita Mirzatuny / Published: January 5, 2012

Although we have said goodbye to 2011, the advances and achievements in clean energy last year have propelled us into 2012 and will only become more widespread and successful with each passing year. As Steven Lacey at Climate Progress points out in his “Top 10 Clean Energy Stories of 2011”, it was an “odd” year for the clean energy sector, but with great successes. While public demand favors a move to a clean energy economy and environmental sustainability necessitates it, some politicians and their corporate cronies are doing their best to demonize and stall the inevitable leap forward. The reasons why there is obstruction are obvious but it still is a pretty bad calculation and ultimately they are on the wrong side of history. My colleague Colin Meehan responded just a few weeks ago to Grover Norquist’s ill-informed rant against renewable energy. But once we break through the noise and distraction, the reality of what the future holds becomes encouraging. While deniers love to isolate the Solyndra scandal as their defining proof that we must keep and accelerate fossil fuels, it hardly defines the activity and achievements on the ground. In fact, as Lacey articulates, there are much better parameters to judge the new energy revolution:

1. Renewable Power Investments Top Fossil Fuels for First Time

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, “electricity from the wind, sun, waves and biomass drew $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal.” And they project that renewable energy investments will “double over the next eight years and reach $395 billion per year.”

2. Cost Reductions Make Solar PV Competitive

While complete grid parity will be more of a phased process than a singular result, according to Tom Dinwood, CTO of SunPower, Dan Shugar, CEO of Solaria, and Adam Browning, Executive Director of Vote Solar Initiative, “solar PV is no longer a fringe, cost-prohibitive technology, but rather, a near-commodity that is quickly becoming competitive with nuclear, natural gas, and soon coal.” Solar power is quickly becoming more than cute.

3. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) Is A Success

As the aforementioned deniers (in this case the Koch Brothers front group Americans for Prosperity) cried wolf about the RGGI, claiming it would “inflate bills 90% in New Jersey,” the reality of the situation was much different –“RGGI generates greater economic growth in every one of the 10 states that participate than would occur without a carbon price.” This is from a new report, which found that “America’s first mandatory, market-based carbon cap and trade system added $1.6 billion in value to the economies of participating states, set the stage for $1.1 billion in ratepayer savings, and created 16,000 jobs in its first three years of implementation.

4. Pension Funds & Large Companies Invest Big in Energy Efficiency

Further proving you can bet on energy efficiency projects to pay off, two of the largest US pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTERS announced in September they would invest $1 billion toward efficiency projects. In June, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers announced over $150 million in similar investments, which utilize product retrofits that have over 90 percent of the content made right here in the USA. “If we retrofitted just 40 percent of the nation’s residential and commercial building stock, we would mobilize a massive amount of domestic labor— more than half a million (625,000) sustained full time jobs over a decade. This would generate as much as $64 billion per year in cost savings for U.S. energy ratepayers. That’s means $300 to $1,200 in savings for individual families.” These are wise investments that “out-perform investments in new oil and gas exploration as a form of job creation or economic stimulus by a factor of 3-to-1.”

5. Geothermal Potential is Massive

Texas’ own SMU recently released a map that shows how much “potential [geothermal] energy is locked beneath America.” While there is still a lot of ground to cover, so to speak, in realizing this resource, we at least know that under our feet lies a huge source of impending power.

6. Green Jobs Reach 2.7 Million

While much of the economy has declined and stagnated over the last few years, green jobs have actually increased, with the “clean economy growing by 8.3% from 2008-2009 — almost double what the overall economy grew during those years.” Not only is this providing jobs in the sectors of energy, transport, building, etc. they are better paying jobs as well at “$7,727 more than the median wages across the broader economy.”

7. Google Phases Out Clean Energy R&D in Favor of Deployment

(credit: www.thinkprogress.org)

While it was reported that Google was abandoning renewables, the media failed to accurately depict the situation. The truth is that Google is “now shifting its focus to project financing rather than R&D, citing the need for more sophisticated research on CSP technologies beyond Google’s scope, and the rapidly changing economics of solar PV switched.” This includes investing more than $850 million in renewable technologies.

8. America is a $1.9 Billion Exporter of Solar Products

Despite the notion that China is outperforming the U.S. in this field, a report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association found that the U.S. has a $247 million trade surplus with China. Here is a great chartto illustrate:

9. What Free Market? Subsidies Have Always Been a Big Part of Energy Industry, New Report Shows

This one is pretty self explanatory and frankly, states the obvious. I don’t think we needed a study to tell us that the fossil fuels lobby on Capitol Hill has a pretty good ROI. But it’s always nice to have backup. There is really no clearer depiction of hypocrisy than with the false outrage, served with a little red herring on the side, associated with the Solyndra scandal (as mentioned above). While railing against subsidies for clean energy, these same politicians are not only all too willing to subsidize fossil fuels but prior to politicizing it, were keen on renewable energy monies as well. As Lacey points out, “apparently, many in Congress have forgotten about the last 100 years of government investments in oil, gas and nuclear — all of which have far outpaced investments in renewable energy like solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal and wind.” To be clear, “energy industries have enjoyed a century of federal support. From 1918-2009, the oil and gas industry received $447 billion (adjusted for inflation) in cumulative energy subsidies. Renewable energy sources received $6 billion (adjusted for inflation) for a much shorter period from 1994-2009. There is a striking divergence in early federal incentives. For example, federal support for the nuclear industry overwhelms other subsidies as a percentage of federal budget, but equally striking is the support for oil and gas which was at least 25% higher than renewables, and in the most extreme years 10x as great.”

10. Being Anti-Clean Energy is Bad Politics

Despite all the findings listed in this blog, for some reason those with a vested interest in maintaining the fossil fuel polluting status quo just don’t get it! Americans want to be free of fossils and want to embrace the new energy revolution. According to a poll by the non-partisan Civil Society Institute, “77% of Americans— including 65% of Republicans surveyed — believe ‘the U.S. needs to be a clean energy technology leader and it should invest in the research and domestic manufacturing of wind, solar and energy efficiency technologies.’” And as a segue from number 9 on the list above, the poll found that, “Americans support subsidies for renewable energy over fossil energy 3 to 1. When asked to choose between only subsidizing clean energy or fossil energy, 38% of respondents said they’d choose renewables, while 13% would choose fossils.”

2012 is going to be an intense year. February brings us a leap on the 29^th, politicians will be battling each other leading up to November, and then a new sun begins, according to Mayan tradition a month later on December 21^st. Let’s hope that the clean energy momentum continues and that the will of the people and the condition of the environment that sustains us all is truly at heart. The future looks so bright!

Also posted in Climate, Energy Efficiency / Read 1 Response

A Response To Attacks On Renewable Energy

By Colin Meehan / Published: December 19, 2011

Grover Norquist asks us to “rethink” renewable energy, and I think he may be right. But we differ on the best way to do that.

He seems to think that Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and similar policies that level the playing field and create markets for renewable energy are “unfeasible,” as opposed to the current subsidies and rules that heavily favor fossil fuels. In his op-ed, Norquist manages to wax poetic about free markets while dodging the billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuels and numerous impartial analyses that illustrate how renewable energy saves money for customers and adds much needed revenue to state budgets.

Obscuring the Facts
A recent analysis found that the five states with the highest amount of renewable energy (states that are encouraged by the policies Norquist asks us to rethink) have lower electric rates than the states with the least amounts of renewable energy. In 2009 the Texas PUC declared that the state’s national leadership in wind energy, driven by their RPS, “has had the impact of lowering wholesale and retail prices of electricity.” The Texas State Comptroller said, “After the RPS was implemented, Texas wind corporations and utilities invested $1 billion in wind power, creating jobs, adding to the Texas Permanent School Fund and increasing the rural tax base.”

The story is similar in Colorado where, according to the American Wind Energy Association, the state’s RPS supported a total of 5,000-6,000 direct and indirect jobs, generating $7 million in state revenue and $4 million in leasing revenue for landowners who benefit from the policy. Still, Norquist chooses to focus on a report – not yet released at the time of this writing – by the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative group founded by Republican politician Ray Shamie, to support some rather speculative claims.

“Choose Your Own Free Market”
Much like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” children’s books, the fossil fuel industry would very much like to choose their own free market, one that gives fossil fuels an unfair advantage over all other resources. Leaving the discussion there would simply perpetuate the junk science cycle that benefits the fossil fuel industry and their attempts to distract from the massive amounts of federal subsidies that these companies claim they need to continue operations. A discussion on their terms would ignore the very real health impacts fossil fuel use has on infants, pregnant women, the elderly and the general population.

Fossil fuel use directly impacts human health and we subsidize fossil fuels heavily through increasing health care costs and other expenses. A recent report from Harvard Medical School found that these unwitting subsidies cost us $345 billion annually in emergency room visits, health impacts, loss of life and loss of tourism income among other impacts. A true free market is one in which industry takes responsibility for the costs it imposes on society. In this sense, the fossil fuels industry has failed miserably.

Growing Faster Than the Rest of the Economy
While fossil fuels have increasingly clear health costs, the ways in which clean energy production helps the U.S. economy are becoming clearer as well. According to a study from the non-partisan Brookings Institute, renewable energy jobs – and clean tech jobs in general – have grown at a much faster pace than the rest of the U.S. economy, driven largely by state policies like the RPS (the only exception being hydropower). Solar jobs alone have doubled in the U.S. to 100,000 since 2009; many of these local installation and service jobs cannot be exported. Last year alone, U.S. solar energy installations created a combined $6 billion in direct value, $4 billion of which was accrued to the U.S. Furthermore, Jackie Roberts, Director of Sustainable Technologies at EDF, recently wrote that the U.S. was a significant net exporter of solar energy products when the entire value chain is accounted for, with total net exports of $2 billion in 2010.

A Non-Partisan Issue
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking on Norquist’s part, but he certainly knows about renewable energy’s long history as a non-partisan issue – one where nationally recognized conservative Republicans like Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback have publicly supported the same policies that Norquist decries. Polls across the country show strong voter support for renewable energy, reaching across political ideology and party lines. In fact, the most recent Republican President and the previous Governor of Texas created the most successful Renewable Portfolio Standard in the country and reportedly consider it one of their proudest achievements in Texas. Speaking in Dallas last year at the American Wind Energy Association’s annual conference, former President Bush noted that “when we diversify our energy supply, we create jobs.”

Mr. Norquist asks us to rethink renewable energy, and I think he may be right. Recently, fossil fuel industry-funded attacks on renewable energy have grown, which makes me think they are beginning to feel the pressure from cleaner renewable energy with no fuel cost. Pseudo scientific claims like those found in Norquist’s op-ed make front page news while the incredible growth rates of renewable energy projects and jobs in the U.S. barely make the back page, which leads me to believe that the media is more focused on reporting controversy than facts. The public remains committed to clean energy, while public officials waver, seeking to catch the political wind. All of this makes me think that we need to recommit to a cleaner energy future with less pollution, healthier children and more local jobs.

The Solyndra Panic

By Jackie Roberts / Published: September 20, 2011

Source: Solyndra / BusinessWire

Bad news from Solyndra has set off a bit of a panic around everything from the future of solar in the U.S., the role of government in supporting innovative technologies, and prospects for clean energy jobs. Caution is advised and perspective is needed lest we walk away from a pivotal new global market. Let’s start with the big picture on solar. I believe it is critical that we focus on the full value chain for energy and environmental solutions to better understand the economic growth inherent in the clean energy market. In the case of solar, an analysis released last month by GTM Research examined the entire value chain – from raw material inputs and capital equipment needs to panel assembly and installation and maintenance. The results show that the U.S. has a trade SURPLUS with rest of the world AND with China in the solar sector defined across the entire value.

Let me highlight some of the key findings:

The U.S. was a significant net exporter of solar energy products with total net exports of $1.9 billion in 2010.
The U.S. solar industry had a positive trade balance with China with net exports of $247 million – $540 million.
The largest solar energy export product is polysilicon, the feedstock for crystalline silicon photovoltaics, of which the U.S. exported $2.5 billion in 2010.
2010 U.S. solar energy installations created a combined $6.0 billion in direct value, of which $4.4 billion (75%) accrued to the U.S.

This is a good news story, and not surprisingly to me as over the past several years we’ve heard positive stories from companies like Komax Solar, an equipment supplier. Six years ago, Komax took a risk and transitioned itself from medical technology and electronic machines to supplying the equipment needed in the assembly plants for solar panels. Komax is exporting, has tripled its workforce, and has leveraged its expertise in precision machining to move into new solar markets.

What role the government played in the larger solar story is hard to pinpoint, but many solar companies had real and critical capital needs during the recession that the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) filled. Project Sunburst, a Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) initiative that benefitted greatly from the ARRA funding, created demand for solar panels installation on public buildings and triggered $36 million private investment. In addition, while the primary goal was making it easier for public entities to go solar, “It had an additional goal or larger goal to encourage the growth of solar energy generation in the state as a resource,” MEA spokesperson Ian Hines said. The investment helped give the industry the extra push that put it over the tipping point as a maturing industry in Maryland.

This leads me to believe that ARRA has indeed been an important ingredient. The government has also taken a portfolio approach that includes companies like Nanosolar, which received almost $44 million as a 48C tax credit (one of the ARRA programs) and is currently hiring. This is a company whose prospects excite me.

At the end of the day, experience shows that the private sector is better at picking winners and losers, and the government is much better at “setting the table” – for example, investing in core, enabling innovations such as developing a well-designed, open-platform smart grid that enables new entrants such as solar power to compete with old electricity providers (the value chain for smart grid solutions, by the way, is extremely promising for US firms and job creation). And, equally as important, the government must put into place energy policies that provide a level playing field and ensure that the full costs to society of energy products and services are accounted for, policies that ultimately put a price on carbon.

Also posted in Grid Modernization, Washington, DC / Tagged Solar, Solar Energy, Solar PV | Read 1 Response

Jobs For Today AND Tomorrow

By Jackie Roberts / Published: September 13, 2011

The President’s response to the call for jobs now is necessarily focused on short-term triggers. But, we must simultaneously seed the jobs for the next two to five years, or we will just keep putting ourselves back into the same hole. These so-called “medium term jobs” must come from growth sectors in the global economy where the U.S. has skills and ideas to offer. To me, the most promising of those sectors are health care and clean energy & resource management.

Source: Veterans News Now

It is in the latter area that the U.S. needs to, as David Brooks recently described, “set the table” with policies that create customers for the many small to large businesses that are striving to participate in this new sector. In our survey of clean energy businesses, 73% are small businesses with less than 50 employees. Of these, according to market research by Frost & Sullivan, one third believed that the failure to pass clean energy legislation last year had an effect on their business and 7 out of 10 thought their sales would increase if the U.S. passed new policies to reduce greenhouse gases.

When business of all sizes know that they are going to have customers – not just today from a short term stimulus or other plan, but customers derived from a long term commitment by our country to move to clean energy and less air pollution – they can hire permanent employees. In California, where the state has been slowly but steadily setting the table with rules for cleaner vehicles, a renewable portfolio standard, the Global Warming Solutions Act and energy efficient building codes, the clean energy sector is a growing source of jobs. For example, according to Next 10 report from May 2011, jobs in manufacturing of clean energy and resource management activities grew 19% between 1995 and 2008 while total manufacturing employment in the state dropped 9%.

Without creating customers, “clean energy jobs” workforce training programs become a bridge to nowhere, the promise of clean energy jobs falters and businesses remain faced with lots of uncertainty and a natural reluctance to permanently hire new people. The National Infrastructure Bank and rebuilding schools will hopefully create customers for some of these firms. But what businesses really need to hire people is the prospect of customers over the medium-term. We need Presidential leadership on federal clean energy policies to help deliver a steady-stream of customers and seed the jobs of tomorrow.

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, Jobs, Washington, DC / Read 2 Responses

Does Rick Perry’s Texas Have Room For Solar Power?

By / Published: August 22, 2011

Running on Energy

Source: Texas Tribune

One of the fundamental propositions of Rick Perry’s presidential run is that energy policy in Texas has been successful in de-carbonizing our grid. The claim is a pretty big stretch, considering that we still generate more carbon dioxide than any other state and, as far as it relates to our successful renewable energy mandates, he may have something to brag about. Perry has been eager to take credit for their success in boosting wind energy, although he’s not always the first to point to the mandates that lead to such unprecedented wind growth. It’s been easy for Perry to support wind power, after all, success has a thousand fathers, and the most meaningful legislation was assembled without much involvement from him or his office.

Perry’s support for solar, however, has always been a trickier issue even though it’s incredibly popular with voters across the political spectrum. Even though voters want to see Texas go solar, it’s anathema to some of his biggest fundraisers and allies such as homebuilder Bob Perry, who worked to weaken homeowner’s rights to install solar on their own roofs, and the Koch brothers, who have opposed clean energy in other states. So far, Perry has managed to walk a tightrope with his typical political savvy – pointing to legislation he signed or supported while working behind the scenes to undercut the movement towards a real solar industry in Texas.

Walking the Political Tightrope

Perry signed legislation in 2005 establishing a 500 MW non-wind renewable energy mandate and in 2007 strengthening that same mandate. His appointees at the public utilities commission (PUC) and Perry himself have been slow on doing anything meaningful with the legislation, leading to uncertainty for businesses wishing to grow in Texas. Most people in the industry saw this legislation as a way to push solar development in largely the same way the original mandate pushed in wind development. Now, in an article in the Texas Tribune, it sounds like Perry’s spokesman, Mark Miner, wants to pretend his boss never signed those laws. In fact, it sounds like he doesn’t think Texas has any real potential as a state for solar development [emphasis mine]:

“If you mandate a specific technology, you run the risk of getting stuck with high costs, and such mandates have failed to pass the Legislature in the past. The state making a decision based on its own conditions is different than forcing a one-size-fits-all approach on the whole nation. For example, South Dakota, Texas, and other states in the Plains have great potential for wind because of the climate and geography; other states have good potential for solar, but that is not the same for every state.”

As Miner notes, the original mandate for wind that Perry signed into law was less than ten percent of peak demand, making it so small as to have no significant impact to consumers and, therefore, a reasonable goal for the state of Texas. By comparison, the 500 MW goal Perry did sign into law – though his appointees at the PUC failed to act on it – would be less than one percent of total peak demand, having an even smaller impact than the original wind mandate. It is now quite apparent with his recent appointment of Commissioner and outspoken renewable energy opponent, Donna Nelson, as Chair of the PUC that Perry wants to ensure that Texas never reaches the goal he signed into law though.. This results in the likely killing of any renewable energy progress at the PUC, including future legislation, should it pass.

Maybe the Sun Doesn’t Shine on Texas

It’s as if Perry and spokesman Miner think Texas doesn’t have any real solar potential, which makes me wonder if they’ve read their own reports on renewable energy, showing solar power could supply Texas’ energy needs many times over. His claim that Texas chooses not to provide incentives based on technology is laughable in the face of Texas’ $1.2 billion/year “high cost” natural gas tax exemption.

Maybe Perry needs to make a trip to San Antonio where they recently increased their solar goal to 400 MW after seeing how cheap solar proposals are today. This is in addition to about 44 MW they’ve already installed or contracted, in other words almost the entirety of the 500 MW non-wind mandate that Perry signed into law but refuses support. Some of Perry’s funders and allies argue that solar is too expensive, but the largest municipal utility in the state (and country) with some of the lowest electric rates in the state, just decided to invest in solar in a big way for two reasons that fit right in with Perry’s ideal energy policy: San Antonio wants to keep electric rates low and solar will help them do that; it also wants to grow jobs, a key outcome to their clean energy strategy. Perry has been touting himself as the “jobs governor” since he started running as a nominee for President, so you’d think the smart jobs policies of cities like San Antonio, Houston, and Austin centered around clean energy would be the perfect message.

Unfortunately Perry seems uninterested, either because the corporations and people who have funded him are opposed or because he just doesn’t think Texas has the potential to be a real solar state. Either way it’s disappointing, and I’m sure that the solar industry would agree. For the first time this fall, the solar industry is bringing its largest business conference to Texas. Thanks in part to Perry’s solar equivocation, industry (valued at over $38.5 billion globally) may not be sure if Texas is ready for the big time, despite the fact that voters want to see solar in Texas. For a jobs governor being on the wrong side of businesses that want to bring jobs to Texas and voters who want to see solar power here, it sure seems like a bad place to be, especially when unemployment in Texas is the worst it’s been in 24 years.

Also posted in Texas / Read 5 Responses

Is Government Getting Out Of The Clean Energy Business?

By Andy Darrell / Published: August 5, 2011

Source: Front Page Magazine

Tuesday’s debt deal makes one thing clear: whatever it is that you may want government to spend money on, there will likely be less money to go around in the future. That said, I think it’s time to rethink government’s role in the clean energy marketplace. Whether or not it has money to spend, governments at all levels can do a lot to build a robust American market for clean energy. Here are some suggested ways forward:

First, engage the private sector. Our government is highly skilled and effective when it comes to enabling clean energy research, which in turn leads to high-risk investments in emerging clean technologies, but it cannot pay for everything. This is not the era of the New Deal, and we’re not China. We are, however, a nation of innovators with the ability to mobilize private capital second to none. So let’s get innovators, entrepreneurs and regulators in a room together and begin to work on projects that establish what economists have been telling us for years: clean energy and efficiency will make and save money. In some places, government can be a convener – for example, cities across the country (and the world) could work with their real estate and banking communities to aggregate efficiency upgrades at a scale large enough to attract major investment from institutional investors and other sources of capital. Government could basically be a source of data and the initial step in drawing parties together to help broker deals

Second, lead by example and cut waste. From energy needed to fuel our troops on the front lines to the air conditioning used for government officials in Washington and state and local capitols – there’s a huge amount of money to be saved and strategic advantage to be won by running our government’s own energy use more effectively. In fact, EDF’s Climate Corps Public Sector is currently engaging in this type of exercise in its efforts to reduce the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) energy use by more than 45 percent. These types of energy efficiency efforts should appeal to all sides of the political aisle: government will do more with less; we’ll send less money overseas for imported oil; we’ll pioneer new technologies through smart energy applications; and Americans will be put to work upgrading government buildings with less wasteful technology. If there’s a role for money here, it’s to finance upfront costs that get replenished out of energy savings – possibly a mix of private and public capital.

Finally, open the energy marketplace to truly fair competition. America’s utilities are governed by an arcane mix of rules that get in the way of innovation and tend to favor traditional fossil fuels. Our grid is a long way from a smart grid. Don’t even get me started on subsidies for oil and coal companies. Rules that shape the energy market and grid are set at the federal, regional and state levels. It’s time for a national effort to make it easier for households and businesses to use renewable sources of energy like solar and wind, as well as enable drivers to plug in their electric cars. Homes and businesses should be able to sell extra solar electricity into the grid easily and without limit. There should be a simple way to aggregate the benefits of efficiency; for example, consumers should be able to sell saved energy to compete with new power plants and this cleaner energy should be valued by regulators on par with new supply. Consumers should be able to charge electric cars at off-peak times, which could end up costing as little as about three cents a mile to operate. We can have all this – if we get the rules right at Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) across the country.

The role of government would change. It would become a source of data, culled from public sources like demographics and building department filings. It would help ensure that information is disclosed, like the SEC requires disclosure of information to investors on the stock market. It would change the rules to remove barriers to clean-energy investment inherent in our current electric grids and markets. It would use its bully pulpit not to harangue, but to create the negotiating table around which unlikely partners come together. It would enforce rules clearly and consistently to protect health and environment. It would use its own buildings, agencies, vehicles and supply chain to test and develop technologies – to be out front and demonstrate what works. And where possible, it could be a source of grants or loans, but that role would be overshadowed by the value of the vibrant private energy market that it would support by doing all of these other described duties.

If the government commits to moving ahead in this way, America will leap ahead in the clean energy sector – and we’ll be moving so fast that its citizens will barely have time to lament the relatively smaller amount of government spending.

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, Washington, DC / Read 1 Response