The wind, solar and geothermal industries have wasted no time pressing the incoming Obama administration to implement an alternative energy agenda to spur investment and create jobs.
During a conference call Thursday, the leaders of the Solar Energy Industries Association, American Wind Energy Association and other trade groups lobbied for a plethora of legislation and policy initiatives. None of these proposals are new, but given Barack Obama’s campaign promises to promote alternative energy and the strengthened Democratic majority in Congress, the industry has the best chance in many years of seeing this wish list made real.
- A five-year extension of the production tax credit for the wind industry (it currently has to be renewed every year) to remove uncertainty for investors.
- A major infrastructure program to upgrade the transmission grid so wind, solar and geothermal energy can be transmitted from the remote areas where it is produced to major cities. Obama advisor Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google (GOOG), recently joined with General Electric (GE) chief Jeff Immelt to launch a joint initiative to develop such smart grid technology as well as push for policy changes in Washington to allow the widespread deployment of renewable energy by rebuilding the nation’s transmission system.
- Impose a national “renewable portfolio standard” that would mandate that utilities obtain a minimum 10% of their electricity from green sources by 2012 and at least 25% by 2020. Two-thirds of the states currently impose variations of such requirements.
- Mandate that the federal government – the nation’s single largest consumer of electricity – obtain more energy from renewable sources.
- Enact a cap-and-trade carbon market.
“If the administration and Congress can quickly implement these policies, renewable energy growth will help turn around the economic decline while at the same time addressing some of our most pressing national security and environmental problems,” the green energy trade groups said in a joint statement.
No doubt those measures are crucial to spurring development of renewable energy and creating green collar jobs. But the major obstacle confronting the alt energy industry right now is the credit crunch that is choking off financing for big wind and solar projects and scaring away investors from more cutting-edge but potentially promising green technologies.
A focus by President Obama and Congress on restoring confidence in the financial system will most likely do the most for green investment as well as restore luster to battered renewable energy stocks like First Solar (FSLR), SunPower (SPWRA) and Suntech (STP).
Green Wombat 
All of these EXCEPT CAP AND TRADE! Cap and trade doesn’t work. Look at Europe. IT DOESN’T WORK PEOPLE. All it does is raise prices. You are fixing the economy from the ground up, you have to fix pollution from the ground up too. New investment in infrastructure, retrofitting, and efficiency is the most expedient way to bring down energy costs!
Just like an oil engineer to be a naysayer of a good idea regarding alternative/renewable energy. I think the American people have woken up to the crap that the oil industry has been trying to feed us.
Alternative energy developmet for this country should be the top most priority because it would kill five birds with one stone:
> Be energy independent for national security
> Reduce out-flow of our national wealth
> Create jobs
> Replace our aging electric power infrastructure
> Reduce our carbon emissions
How many projects could give us this kind of leverage?
Substitute CARBON TAX for cap & trade. Pollutions cost on healthcare & the environment needs to be accounted for.
Cap and trade will hurt the middle class, with the burned of carbon taxes pushed down to the consumer. Some consumer energy rates could escalate over 150% in some states.
It about time we get some action on these issues so we can get to work rebuilding America.
With a suitable cap and trade system – entrepreneurs like myself can get to work.
We need the carbon leverage™ to bring large polluters to the negotiation table. When the economics don’t pencil out, why invest in alternative energy projects? We need carbon leverage™.
We have leased 20,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space in New York State with equipment on site waiting for investment capital to launch two pilot projects to reduce carbon in coal firing operations. You’d think we have the money – nada.
Before – we give away billion of dollars to Van Jones for training, let’s create the markets for those workers to find jobs.
The renewable energy industry is being stolen from entrepreneurs by the same big corporation that have been highjacking our other energy assets.
We spend weeks in Pennsylvania talking with land owners about T. Boone Pickens Plan and his crew of Land Man. How come – one land owners gets $50.00 per acre for a 10 year lease and his neighbor $2,500. T Boone and his pals have sent well-dressed thugs in to the Penn Hills to secure land. The landowners have been taken for a ride.
How did we let T. Boone Pickens and his Plan, control the debate and become everybody’s rich Uncle or Granddaddy at the same time.
It’s truly unbelievable to attend the largest biofuels seminars in New York State for the past 4 years and see speakers from the largest universities and corporation all have complete opposite opinions, all working in different directions, two exceptions – Dr. Cross at Morrisville College, entrepreneur and visionary and Cornell’s Larry Walker, bright cookie. New York State needs Change!
Add a name to Obama’s team on biofuels research, Larry Walker at Cornell University.
Tax the polluters – give the incentives to the Entrepreneurs, create jobs rebuild American.
Watch these ideas at work, get organized locally – http://www.otoyk.com
Did any of these advocate groups suggest how we should pay for these programs?
This is actually very similar to the Auto makers. Both industries have uncompetitive cost structures compared to alternatives, and both want the government to protect their interests and support inferior cost models.
So maybe the money for the green industry will come from TARP as well.
I would like to see Obama mandate that all vehicles sold within the United States must be Flex Fuel E85 ethanol capable. I had read during his campaign that President-Elect Obama was all for this.
E3-Bonds — Energy, Economy, Environment
United States Energy Bonds
United States Energy Stamps
United States Energy Backed Financial Instruments
These revenue bonds would be the safest financial instruments available, because they would be fully backed by the energy goods, services, and systems they help create. Think real wealth creation! Sun light to energy to money to booming economy!
These instruments would be sold to the public.
The fund created from their sale would be kept separate, by law, from all other Federal monies.
The money in this fund could only be loaned ─ to individuals, businesses and municipalities at a modest interest rates(5%) for the development of renewable energy facilities, equipment and or systems.
Examples of projects the loans would fund.
Weatherization and insulation loans for home owners;
Money for solar heating systems;
Car loans for high 50-100mpg autos;
Money to build plants to manufacture solar power panels or solar water and air heating equipment or any other energy generation, or storage applications;
Money to build municipal solar or wind power generation facilities;
Money to redevelop an electric transmission line;
Anything that saves energy or produces new energy from a renewable source.
The money from energy saved or energy created and sold would pay back the principal and interest on the bonds, when the loans are repaid.
In this way, a trillion dollars a year could be raised apart from tax revenues and apart from the existing commercial credit market.
After several years the fund would amount to several trillions of dollars. When it is no longer needed to establish America’s new energy infrastructure, it might be used to fund social security, which by then will be seriously under funded.
Money raised in this way would immediately super charge the deployment of the new energy infrastructure and the economy, creating and recreating perhaps fifty million jobs over the next fifteen years.
Economically, think 1999-2000 tech boom times one hundred, spread over fifteen years.
America needs E3 Bonds and what they can do for our nation, right now!
James Flaherty, Guilford Ct
None of the “alternative” or “renewable” energy sources come close to covering even growth in demand for electricity. If we want green energy, we need to build more nuclear stations, period. Yes, they need to be safe, but they are the only option we have if we want electricity to power the country, and not just loads of cool-looking solar panels that barely cover their production cost over their whole lifetime…
For all you people who love the cap & trade & think it will not substantially raise your energy rates listen to Cramer talking to the Duke energy CEO last week. Any cost from Cap & tarde will be passed on directly to the energy user and will not effect the companies profits at all.
There is only about 70-years of known uranium reserves in the world if we build all those plants…almost all of this resource also Outside the USA (like oil)…. So don’t tie up all my money on another none sustainable energy source like dangerous nuclear plants.
I think they should mandate Solar on all new construction, I put Solar on my house and it covers 95% of all electricity and with the Green energy credits I can sell, I’ll get my money back in 3-5 years. Yes it’s allot of money up front but when that 3-5 years it up, the electricity will be FREE for me. System come with a basic warranty of 10 years, and panels 25 years. I’ll get my money long before they will need to be replaced. Please need to look at the cost over the years, not the initial outlay.
Traditional energy production introduces negative externalities, in the form of pollution, that consumers SHOULD be paying for. These externalities are only likely to increase in the future and the cost of energy needs to include this component. Cap and trade is a way to properly assign these costs.
While renewables are not a short term solution, they are the ONLY solution in the long term. Oil will run out. Why not, as a country, take a strategic viewpoint and be a leader in providing the technology for the future.
Absolutely correct. Given the big Depression was solved by 1) creating infrastructure
jobs like the WPA and the like
and 2)WWII, our lesson from history should be that when Americans work, they also spend. Money made is money spent. Money left idle in bank vaults does no one any good. When using the lender of last resort, the government, as the lender to build new, creative energy producing and distribution systems across our landscape, with little interference to our green environment, watch what happens next on Wall Street. It will be a gold rush the likes of which have never been seen. To boot, our taxpayer dollars are investing in our own work ethics, and returned to us with healthy interest not only in dollars but in our future for our children as well. Successful, hard working, common sense billionaires like Buffet and Pickens know where the next money rush is going to be, and it definitely will be in energy. Follow their lead and you will be greatly rewarded ! The future looks better and brighter every day with our newly elected President !
The problem with nuclear power and coal is the need for water for steam and cooling.
The advantage of wind energy is there is no need for water, just an oil can for a little lubrication, and really big stilts for the oiler.
The advantage of solar-cell energy is again no constant need for water, just a little to wipe off occasional bird droppings.
Out in more rural areas, these two power-generating means will help reduce the rural areas’ need for power and hence reduce their load on the grid, so more power is available to the city people, especially those like Dilbert who work in cubicals in towers, or the apartment dwellers. They have no way to use this technology.
But suburbanites can, they can cover their big ol’ house roofs with solar cells and reduce their dependence, especially in Texas on sunny days, hence reducing demand in the summertime. And since many people have “Do-It-Yourself” skills the credits will provide some incentive for them to do so, after which the spouse will express “I-Told-You-So” skills to judge the quality and reliability of the installation.
Those who don’t have those skills will have to rely on “I-Tell-You-How-To-Do-It” skills and contract it out to licensed installers, due to the electrical hazards the panels might present.
Anyway, you can look at the magazine Homepower
website:
http://www.homepower.com/
for the little-guy’s way to make use of appropriate-to-scale small power sources.
You don’t fix the economy from the ground up. You first have to STOP SPENDING! Then give the small businesses breaks to create more jobs and DON’T raise taxes at a time like this.
Oh, and energy prices are going to “skyrocket!” (per Obama) and other energy providers, like coal, are going to go bankrupt because of his “Most aggresive cap-n-trade program” on the planet!
Get ready for hyper-inflation.
So we’re going to produce all of this energy for what? To power our homes that everyone is foreclosing on? To power our battery cars that sit at home because we don’t have a job? To make the bread that costs $15 a loaf?
Get real people and wake up… We’re in a world of hurt here but no one wants to say it. The government is throwing gas at a fire with their spending. And WE are going to pay for it.
Go Green!!!!
Our only hope right now, to get out from under this dark cloud.
Hey Wombat, you want a NEW idea? You want a better idea?
More effective than ANY of the above would be simply to make ALL renewable, clean energy technologies 100% tax free: free of all sales, income and capital gains taxes. No tax on plug-in, flex-fuel hybrids; no tax on electricity from wind/solar/hydro. No income tax on profits from such revenues. No capital gains tax on the stock of such companies, in proportion to the percentage of revenue derived from green energy technologies.
As a nation, we need MASSIVE new PRIVATE investment in green, renewable energy. The only way to get there is by giving green investors a long-term, permanent incentive that keeps working regardless of swings in oil prices. And investors and consumers LOVE tax free. That is how you do it.
Carbon tax? Cap-and-trade (which is a carbon tax by another name)? Are you friking crazy? Energy has become expensive enough as it is… these folks want to make it even MORE expensive? What are they thinking? Do they want to bring on a depression? We need cheap energy to thrive.
What is more, the carbon tax is unnecessary because a Green Energy Tax Cut creates the same tax differential and will accomplish the same shift over to renewable energy without the pain, while keeping the cost of energy as cheap as possible through increased competition.
Making all green energy tech 100% tax free would supercharge private investment in (and public demand for) clean renewable energy, while letting the market pick the winners. It would also make the US the world leader in green investment in Obama’s first term.
But enough. Read more at GreenEnergyTaxCuts.com
Hey concerned in Goodyear AZ,
What makes YOU such an authority? You seem to think the rest of us are sleeping, but at least we don’t have OUR head buried in the sand!
I believe that there are and will be opportunities in alt energy, but I do not know which companies will lead. I have my market analyst certification but I am unclear on the positioning strategies of each company in this space.
I don’t know if we are near a bottom yet. I hope we are, but that is only my deepest optimism speaking. Like everyone, I hope for the best and I hope my green stocks find the open highway again soon.
In many areas, such as Hawaii and sunny southern mainland states, PV panels are already cost-effective over time. The reason more people don’t install them is the high up-front cost.
The quickest way for the government to speed up installation of these systems on homes and businesses is to provide financing. This plan could easily be managed by local utilities. The systems could be paid for over time through savings from reduced electricity bills. The government’s low cost of borrowing could be passed through to the purchasers so the systems could be paid off faster than if they borrowed the money from a commercial lender. System owners would have protection from future price increases While paying for the systems, and they would see dramatic reductions in their bills once the systems were paid for.
The more PV systems that are tied to the grid and placed on existing rooftops, the less remote land is required for industrial-scale power plants and the less new grid infrastructure is needed to carry that power to where it is needed.
Homeowners would be producing power during peak demand times, so existing municipal power plants could handle the expected future growth of demand more easily. This plan could be initiated very quickly, ramped up at a responsible and appropriate pace, and would have no net cost to taxpayers.
This would only be one part of the solution, but why not do something quick, cheap, and effective right away while we figure out the way to do the rest?
How about mandating that some of the automaker’s bailout $’s go to renewing the natural gas fleet vehicles. Before the current administration changed it to include E85 flex fuel vehicles, Government fleets were required to purchase 25% of the vehicles to run on Alt fuels. I appreciate the inclusion of the e-85 alternative, but very few e-85 capable vehicles are run on e-85. Natural gas isn’t currently renewable either, but most of our natural gas comes from within the US which helps reduce dependence on foreign oil, and exhaust form natural gas vehicles is much less harmful to the environment
Dave from SLC: While the above column is more about the renewable energy industry than auto, the fix for the US auto industry is the same as for oil dependency, global warming and for the economy at large: As with ALL green energy technology, make advanced “green” vehicles with ultra-high mileage and ultra-low emissions 100% tax free… no sales tax, no income tax, no capital gains tax in proportion to the percentage of revenue derived from such green vehicles that are made in the USA. The natural gas vehicles you mention would certainly fall in this group. Gas stations should have the same tax advantage when installing alternative fuel pumps, such as for natural gas. Such a policy would jump start private investment in Detroit geared towards all kinds of clean, high-mileage, flex-fuel vehicles, helping to both save and transform the US auto industry. It is possible, given Detroit’s dire straits, that a clean vehicle production tax credit may be needed as well.
Mandates in general do not always work very well, and are often short lived because of the political backlash they create. It is wiser to give investors a serious incentive to do the right thing, and stand back and let the market pick the specific winners.
You can read more about the above concept at GreenEnergyTaxCuts.com
Of all the issues that were brought up during the presidential campaign, energy came in at the top of the list for President-elect Obama. I covered Obama’s energy plans in the previous post and now is the time to take a look at what companies in particular will benefit from these plans.
Obama’s Energy Plan – Stocks You Should Own
I am interested in investing in solar stocks and have looked at FSLR, SPWRA & STP. I plan on seeking professional advise, but if anyone has some ‘green advise’ here, I would appreciate it. Also to Dave Quigley,New Castle, De., what system did u use? Thanks to all in advance. Swthoneybr@aol.com
Geothermal. When I first started looking at green stocks, Wind and Solar came to mind and I felt most comfortable learning more about them. Then I got a ‘wiff’ of Geothermal and really as a great opportunity there is some small companies like HTM. Wind will be a winner. Solar will be, too..one day. It’s still too expensive right now for large profits to be made. Wind, Solar, Geothermal all require new transmission infrastructure. Geothermal has one big advantage: It produces the same electrical output 24/7, 365 days a year. It has the potential to cover about 1/3 or all power needs int he US. While a combination of sources will be needed, I beleive Geothermal is the underestimated guy in the room…thus there are some great investments out there where P/E’s are much more reasonable. HTM is VERY well positioned, and priced. Ask a professional of course..I am not a pro, but have a pretty good understanding re the above.