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Look No Further Than The Clean Energy Economy

By Jackie Roberts / Published: July 14, 2011

The micro-economics of sustainability are big and important: according to The Brookings Institution, the “clean economy” employs 2.7 million workers, which compares favorably to fossil fuels at 2.4 million jobs.  That figure represents 57,501 firms in the U.S. directly involved in the clean economy.  Of course, I continue to believe many important clean economy jobs in the supply chain are missed in these types of studies.  For example, Shuttleworth in Indiana diversified its customer base from solely electronics customers to now having roughly 30% of its business from solar customers.  While it may be near impossible to capture these nuances in standard Bureau of Labor Statistics data, such examples illustrate even more how the clean economy provides added value for U.S. job retention and creation (see the The Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness report for more information on the diverse firms in involved in the supply chains for many clean energy solutions).

Source: Brookings

Most encouraging, however, are two other key findings: the high growth rate for the clean economy sub-sector related to clean energy – 8.3% from 2003-2010 which is essentially double the growth rate for the entire economy during the same period (4.2%).   Secondly, the report documents the export strength of this sector of the clean economy versus the overall economy:  $20,129 versus $10,390 per job.  To bring us out of the recession and reduce the deficit, we need economic activity that enables us to grow fast and export more.  Look no further than the clean energy economy.   The growth rate validates an earlier study by the Pew Charitable Trusts published in 2009 characterizing the Clean Energy Economy which found a growth rate of 9.1% from 1998-2007.

So, what do these companies need to fulfill their promise?   More than anything, they need a predictable stream of U.S. customers.  So, every time a politician talks about the need to create jobs, reduce the deficit and grow America again, ask him or her what they are doing to create policies that deliver customers to these firms.

Posted in Renewable Energy / Tagged | Comments are closed

The State Of Texas’ Renewable Energy Policy: Good Grief!

By / Published: July 8, 2011

Big (REALLY Big) News In San Antonio

Earlier this week I posted a few of the great clean energy stories throughout Texas, with a glancing reference to the exciting work going on in San Antonio.  Almost as soon as the post went up San Antonio’s electric utility CPS Energy (CPS) made an announcement that is truly astounding: because of the increasingly lower costs of solar power and rising costs of fossil fuels, they have increased their bid for a solar power plant from 50 MW to 400 MW.  I’ll let that sink in a little, but I’ll just say this: they mean it.

It’s been fascinating to watch this historical shift over the last several years at CPS (the largest utility of its kind in the nation) from a conventional utility with conventional power plants to a national leader in wind and solar.  It’s a story that is probably worth several blog posts in its own right, and unfortunately we don’t have the space to go into it today.  While cities like Houston, Austin & San Antonio are leading the way on clean energy, the state of Texas is still falling behind.

Charlie Brown And The Football

Source: PBS

When the state legislature wrapped up their session with little help to offer the solar industry and other forms of renewable energy, there were few opportunities left for a stable regulatory framework for renewable energy in Texas.  The best hope was for the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to enact the goal for non-wind renewable energy in the state set by the Texas Legislature in 2005, which expires today with the deadline to consider the rule proposed in January.  It’s no surprise that the wheels of commerce turn faster than the gears of government, but it’s taken seven years for the PUC to come close to finally enacting this goal and it looks like they’re going to drop the ball again. 

When it comes to clean energy in Texas, it reminds me of Lucy and the football from Charlie Brown: every time the state gets close to creating a market for solar power, they yank the football away again.  The PUC proposed this rule back in January and has apparently decided to back out of it.  Senator Troy Fraser, historically a champion of solar power filed his bill that came very close to passing last session but failed to bring it up for a hearing this session despite being Chair of the Committee the bill sat in.  Governor Perry has championed Texas’ leadership in wind energy as proof that Texas can create good clean energy policy, but sent mixed signals this session, leaving open the question of whether or not he supports solar power or other renewables as he does wind.

Will Texas Be The Clean Energy Capitol?

Businesses can’t operate under that kind of uncertainty, and the solar industry is the fastest growing industry in the U.S.  A handful of Texas cities, like San Antonio, Houston and Austin, are working hard to capitalize on that growth by creating new jobs locally, but without a stable statewide policy, businesses won’t come to or stay in Texas.  Just last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $4.5 billion in loan guarantees for solar projects.  Unfortunately, none of the projects are in Texas, though, because the business climate is too uncertain in our state to get solar projects of the scope and scale needed to attract that kind of business. 

In my last blog post I mentioned a company, AETI, with a long history in Texas’ oil and gas industry that has begun to move into the world of renewable energy.  Their CEO, Charles Dauber wrote in May about the need to look forward and not only backward in the search for jobs.  I think his conclusion bears repeating: “While our dominance in oil and gas was dictated largely by location and good fortune, the economic boom that comes with our new energy economy is not guaranteed. We will either be reaping the rewards of the tens of thousands of jobs brought to Texas from renewable energy industries or be importing parts and services from California, New England or locations outside of the United States, including Europe and China.”

Also posted in Texas / Comments are closed

Clean Energy Advances In Texas On Several Fronts

By / Published: July 5, 2011

In just the past two weeks there have been some exciting announcements from clean tech businesses across the state:

Old Dog Learns New Tricks

First up on the list of new TX success stories is actually a company that’s been established in the oil and gas industry for almost 70 years.  AETI was founded in Beaumont, TX to provide what they call “power delivery solutions” – basically the electrical products, technologies, and services used to connect power generation sources to the users of that power. 

Last Monday, AETI’s Integrated Solar Inversion Station (ISIS™) crossed the final hurdle needed before it can be used by utility-scale solar developers.  The ISIS is the first 1000 volt, 1megawatt (MW) solar inverter approved by a certified test laboratory for use with distributed energy resources.  AETI is a company that, after 60 years in the oil and gas industry, decided to diversify into renewable energy to grow profits and stabilize their business.  To me that sounds a lot like Texas: almost one hundred years after Spindletop, a wind rush started in the state which helped keep electric prices low in the face of rising fossil fuel costs.  As their CEO, Charles Dauber wrote in the Houston Chronicle in May: “I believe that just as my company found strength in realizing its role in our nation’s energy future, so too can the state of Texas.”

Industry Leaders Join Pecan Street Project

AETI isn’t alone: Last week the Pecan Street Project announced the formation of its Industry Advisory Council.  With such household names as Best Buy, Intel, Sony, LG and Texas Gas Service, the formation of this council shows that industry players across the spectrum want to be involved in a cleaner, more secure energy future.  In fact, as these companies will often say, they need to be involved to make sure they stay profitable as the energy industry continues to move in new directions.

Come On In, The Water Is Fine!

Next on the list of exciting announcements (but certainly not least in terms of size) is Baryonyx, a Texas based offshore-wind energy company that took their first step into Texas waters (pardon the pun) by applying for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  Baryonyx is leasing the state-owned sites from Texas’ General Land Office (GLO), providing much needed income for the state’s Permanent School Fund.  Earlier this week I had the chance to meet with GLO Commissioner Jerry Patterson who feels confident that Baryonyx will have the first offshore wind farm built in the U.S.

(The Best Kind Of) Leadership Struggle

Finally, followers of Texas clean energy industry have known for some time that Austin isn’t the only town vying for Texas’ clean energy crown and the jobs that come with it.  Already the state’s leader in solar with 14 MW and another 30 MW on the way soon, San Antonio recently announced some more great news in the form of not one, not two, but five clean technology companies partnering with the city to bring jobs and clean energy.  Not one to sit on the sidelines as the energy industry continues its shift towards clean technology, Houston continues to attract national attention as a growing hub for clean energy.

For old manufacturing companies and the Silicon Valley set, for cities steeped in oil or just looking to attract new jobs, the clean energy economy seems to be the natural choice to grow a business.  And Texas, America’s oil and gas capital for the last hundred years, has a chance now to be our clean energy capital as well.  Companies like Baryonyx and AETI, and forward-looking city efforts from San Antonio, Houston and Austin’s Pecan Street Project are making sure that Texas is in a position to do just that.

Also posted in Texas / Read 4 Responses

Put My Tax Dollars Into A Growth Market, Please

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 23, 2011

Guest Blog Post By: Jackie Roberts, EDF’s Director of Sustainable Technologies, National Climate Campaign

Two efforts to repeal tax breaks for oil and gas companies – Senate Bill S.940 and the Administration’s budget proposals to eliminate subsidies in FY 2010, FY 2011, and FY 2012 budgets – should receive bipartisan support for no other reason than re-directing those subsidies can be an engine of job creation.  University of Massachusetts at Amherst economic researchers developed employment estimates for various energy sources, including energy efficiency strategies.  Their data show that investments in energy efficiency creates 2.5 to four times more jobs than that for oil and gas development and renewables create 2.5 to three times more jobs than that for oil and gas development.

These jobs are dispersed throughout the U.S. as shown with our LessCarbonMoreJobs mapping, and bring particular benefits to the hard hit Midwest manufacturing regions.

Large government subsidies might, just might, be justified if “Big Oil” was using profits to invest record amounts in transitioning to clean energy.  But, that is far from the case.  A Center for American Progress analysis of Big Oil investments reveals that the big five oil companies invested just four percent of their total 2008 profits in renewable and alternative energy ventures.  There are no signs that this level of investment has increased at all in the past several years. 

Clean energy will be a major new market – by some estimates the market for renewables alone will range from $1.7 trillion per year to $2.3 trillion by 2020, depending on different government policy scenarios.  Having already slipped from first to third in terms of investments in this sector, the U.S. needs to play catch up.  Government dollars should be used to help the U.S. transition to clean energy and to do so in a way that we have significant market share in as many clean energy solutions as possible.  First mover advantages are critical with new markets and worth every penny we can devote to creating strong clean energy innovation and manufacturing here in the U.S.  Such investments will also translate into cheap, homegrown energy sources in the medium- to long-term – the supposed purpose of the oil and gas subsidies.  Put my tax dollars into a growth market, please.

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, Washington, DC / Comments are closed

Clean Energy: Getting Past Cute

By Andy Darrell / Published: May 13, 2011

Source: Wired Business Conference

Did Bill Gates just call the solar panels on my house cute?  “If you’re interested in cuteness, the stuff in the home is the place to go” was the line most often quoted from his talk at the Wired Business Conference in New York City.  Headlines declared that Bill Gates thinks clean energy is ‘cute’ and Gates seemed to suggest that people who were serious about energy should be looking to innovation in nuclear and other technologies. 

That set off a firestorm of responses among clean energy advocates who point out, correctly, that the cost of renewables is coming down, the clean energy market is growing, and many countries are leaping ahead of the US in terms of public investment and incentives. 

According to a UN report released May 9, renewable resources are plentiful and could provide as much as 77% of the worlds’ energy by 2050.  According to the report, renewable energy investments globally could be in the trillions of dollars by 2030.  The brake, according to the UN, is not technology.  It’s governance and policy that stand in the way.  To get beyond cute, we need advances in policy that create an energy market friendly not just to fossil fuels but to renewables too.

But what does it mean for policy to support clean energy?  A couple of weeks ago, Deutsche Bank released a report that says: “there has been a very substantial growth in [clean energy] investment in China, and something of a shift away from Europe and the US as the centers of clean energy investing.”  The implication is that America is being left behind.

But here’s the kicker.  Deutsche Bank then says: “clean energy private investment is still dominated by the US.”  To me, that’s America’s ticket to leadership in the trillion-dollar market of the future.  Create the rules of the game that allow clean energy to compete and innovation has a shot at taking clean energy well past cute, all the way to super-model status. 

Today’s rules of the game make it hard to plug renewables into the grid on parity with fossil fuel sources.  Buildings can waste nearly half of their energy – yet utilities aren’t rewarded for “buying” efficiency.  We can produce electric cars that cost less than three cents a mile to drive (compared to more than 13 cents for a gasoline-powered car), but where do we plug them in?  How many households and businesses can easily figure out their energy run rate – and the most cost-effective steps to cut bills?  Shouldn’t there be an iPhone app for that?

It’s time to take private investment in clean energy to scale.  For that to happen, government has to rewrite the rules of the game so that:

  • Clean energy can plug into the grid, both for distributed sources (which work really well in some places, like cities) and for utility-scale renewables (which could work well in other places, like deserts).  No need to disparage one or the other – let them compete fairly and openly for market share in different places.
     
  • Information is transparent and accurate.  Make it easy for buyers to see the energy footprint of homes and CFOs to track energy usage floor by floor.  Yes, there ought to be an iPhone app for that too – not just an opaque monthly bill.  Map the pollution created by power plants.  Disclose hydraulic fracturing fluid.  Hidden information kills free markets.
     
  • Efficiency has a market.  Let utilities “buy” efficiency just like they “buy” new power plants and innovators will find ways to aggregate efficiency across cities and real estate portfolios to meet that demand.
     
  • Cars can be electric – and be “batteries.”  Electric vehicles can be batteries for intermittent renewables like solar and wind.  They can also be the least expensive cars on the road today.  If we could easily plug them in, who wouldn’t want that?
     
  • Subsidies give way to rules that create a level playing field.  Governments currently dole out massive subsidies to the oil and gas industry.  They subsidize renewables too, but comparatively less.  Worldwide, some reports suggest that governments pay over $300 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels and a mere $55 billion for renewables.  Frankly, waiting for more and more subsidies alone is a losing strategy, especially in times of fiscal constraint.  What if we focused instead on getting the rules right, so that renewables could plug in and compete on more even footing?  And what if we focused on getting information into the marketplace so that local and regional renewable opportunities were clear to end-users? 

How important is it to get this right?  By 2030, the global population will reach 10 billion people – that’s a billion more than originally expected.  Most will live in explosively growing mega-cities, especially in fast-growing economies in China, South Asia, and Latin America. 

Can we provide so many people an economic future without destroying the planet?  Only if we take down the barriers to private sector innovation and rewrite the rules of the market to let clean energy in. 

Here’s something else Gates said: “If we don’t have innovation in energy, we don’t have much at all.”  If we don’t have innovation in policy, we won’t have enough innovation in energy.

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

Thinking Long Term On America’s Energy Future

By Elgie Holstein / Published: April 1, 2011

On Wednesday, President Obama, speaking at Georgetown University, set out a multi-pronged approach to boosting America’s energy security.  We agree that America “cannot keep going from shock to trance on the issue of energy security, rushing to propose action when gas prices rise, then hitting the snooze button when they fall again.”  President Obama’s goals to leverage alternative fuels, increase efficiency, and invest in smart grid technology, advanced vehicles, high speed rail, and public transit are critical steps toward a truly clean energy economy.

The core objectives of our Energy Program are to help accelerate the deployment of large-scale, clean technologies into the nation’s energy system and remake the market for efficiency and innovation.  Our goal is to reduce the environmental impact of energy production, delivery, and use.  Why?  Because investments in clean technology will bring about the clean energy revolution we need by greatly reducing our use of dirty fuels and improving air quality and, thus, the health of millions of Americans – especially children and the elderly. 

We can improve our energy independence and end the economic hardships imposed on American families by spiking energy costs while preserving our air, land, and water for future generations.

As important as the energy, environmental, and public health outcomes are, this revolution also benefits our economy and creates jobs.  American workers have tremendous opportunities related to energy efficient and clean technologies, which are creating well-paying jobs and helping companies compete in the global market.  

One of EDF’s main areas of focus is on smart grid technology.  President Obama’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) funds projects that will help modernize our antiquated electricity system.  A smarter grid can adjust demand, reducing the need to build costly, new power plants.  It will enable extensive new wind and solar energy to integrate into an upgraded grid so that we can rely far more on clean, renewable, home-grown energy.  The result:  less environmental damage, more jobs, and a more efficient, reliable, and resilient electricity system.  A smart grid will also facilitate the switch to electric vehicles, making it possible to “smart charge” them at night so they can be ready the next morning for commuters who will no longer be paying for gasoline.

Another key point that the President made was on responsible development practices for natural gas.  Natural gas can play a significant role in achieving our clean energy future – but it needs to be developed safely and in an environmentally sound manner.  Protecting citizens’ health and the environment will require that we “get it right from the start.”  That means putting rules in place to guarantee that our water and land are protected from contamination and ensuring that leakage of harmful air pollution is minimized.

The President’s call for increased transparency in the use of hydraulic fracturing chemicals is a necessity.  The natural gas industry is engaged in a public perception war that it is not winning.  Participating in the development of transparency within the industry is the first step necessary in attempting to rebuild public trust.  A balance between creating a sustainable market for business and ensuring the health and safety of the public should not be a source of division, but instead our common ground. 

While Congress is negotiating the federal budget, members would do well to recognize the essential need to make long-term investments in a 21st century clean energy economy that will reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and put Americans back to work.

EDF commends the President for his willingness to look to the future.  If we can do that, we will all benefit from a stronger economy, energy security, and a cleaner environment that protects our public health and maintains our quality of life.

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