SOLAR TODAY Blog

The Bureau of Land Management has lifted its month-old moratorium on applications to build solar and geothermal power plants on public land in the Southwest.

Faced with over 130 applications to build new facilities, at the end of May the Bureau announced it would take up to two years to evaluate potential environmental impacts. The hold was applauded by the Sierra Club and other habitat advocates, and by off-road vehicle proponents in Southern California and Nevada.

Renewable energy advocates pointed out that oil- and gas-drilling companies were under no similar constraint. When individual members of Congress noted that the timing — at the height of an energy crisis, — the Bureau said, in effect, “Never mind.” The agency will resume work on new applications and conduct its environmental review in parallel.

See the story in today’s New York Times.

Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman testified in Congress today on energy security issues. Read the full text here.

He summed it up by saying that DOE is

advancing the effort to curb America’s dependence on fossil fuels and reduce GHG emissions. These efforts are expected to eventually help mitigate the effects high energy prices have on the American taxpayer. There is no silver bullet that will immediately solve our energy challenges, or drastically reduce costs at the gas pump. But we need to work together and answer the President’s call to increase domestic exploration, expand our nuclear infrastructure as well as solve our long-term nuclear waste storage challenge.

Along the way he made brief mention of research support in renewable energy and coal-plant carbon sequestration. No mention of the freeze on renewable power plant permits on federal land.>>

About three weeks ago, we reported that the Bureau of Land Management was snowed under with permit applications for new solar and geothermal plants in California and Nevada, and wanted a moratorium on new applications.

Now they’ve got it. According to today’s New York Times, applications are frozen for study — which will take up to two years. 130 applications submitted before the end of May will be processed. BLM says they want to look at the potential impact on habitat, water use and potential for land restoration after the plant closes some decades on.

This is not good news. Climate Progress concludes that it’s a sly way for the lame duck Bush administration to stall renewable energy work on federal lands, while oil and natural gas drilling proceed elsewhere.

The first victims of this policy, if it stands, will be start-up renewable energy developers. But it may also put public utility companies at risk of coming up short, and late, in meeting RPS deadlines.

This may shape up to be a fight between clean-energy advocates on one hand and habitat-preservation advocates on the other, between the Feds on one side and state governments on the other.

Congress should step in on this one, right now. Rant to your legislators.

Barack Obama gave a speech on energy policy yesterday in Las Vegas. In it, he promised to

• tax oil companies to pay for a $1000 tax rebate to working Americans.
• enforce CAFE standards and help auto companies meet their efficiency targets.
• invest $150 billion in renewable energy.
• impose fees for unused drilling leases.

Here’s the full text of the speech:

I want to start by thanking the folks here at Springs Preserve for the wonderful tour we just had. What we are seeing here — from the solar panels that power this facility to the Bombard workers who built it — is that a green, renewable energy economy isn’t some pie-in-the-sky, far-off future, it is now. It is creating jobs, now. It is providing cheap alternatives to $140-a-barrel oil, now. And it can create millions of additional jobs and entire new industries if we act now.

All across the country, local leaders and entrepreneurs and small business owners are providing the innovation and initiative needed to make this transformation possible. In Pennsylvania, an old steel mill has become the home of a new wind turbine factory because of the state’s push for renewable portfolio standards that require the production of more alternative energy. Wisconsin is poised to gain more than 14,000 jobs at existing manufacturing facilities because of its investment in wind power. Where we’re standing in Southern Nevada happens to be one of the best sources for the generation of solar power in the world. Next week, our friend and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will come here to cut the ribbon on a new thermal solar technology plant. And between solar, wind, and geothermal energy, this state could create upwards of 80,000 new jobs by 2025.

The possibilities of renewable energy are limitless. But to truly harness its potential, we urgently need real leadership from Washington - leadership that has been missing for decades. We have been talking about energy independence since Americans were waiting in gas lines during the 1970s. We’ve heard promises about it in every State of the Union for the last three decades. But each and every year, we become more, not less, addicted to oil - a 19th century fossil fuel that is dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive. Why?

It isn’t because the resources and technology aren’t there. We know this because countries like Spain, Germany, and Japan have already leapt ahead of us when it comes to renewable energy technology. Germany, a country as cloudy as the Pacific Northwest, is now a world leader in the solar power industry and the quarter million new jobs it has created. In less than eight years, before we’d ever see a drop of oil from offshore drilling, they have doubled their renewable energy output. And they did it by using technology that, in some cases, was paid for by the American people through our own Research and Development tax credits. The difference is, their government harnessed that technology by providing the necessary investments and incentives to jumpstart a renewable energy industry. Washington hasn’t done that.

What Washington has done is what Washington always does - it’s peddled false promises, irresponsible policy, and cheap gimmicks that might get politicians through the next election, but won’t lead America toward the next generation of renewable energy. And now we’re paying the price. Now we’ve fallen behind the rest of the world. Now we’re forced to beg Saudi Arabia for more oil. Now we’re facing gas prices over $4 a gallon - gas prices that are decimating the savings of families who are already struggling in this economy. Like the man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job and couldn’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one. That’s how badly folks are hurting. That’s how badly Washington has failed.

For decades, John McCain has been a part of this failure in Washington. Yes, he has gone further than some in his party in speaking out on climate change. And that is commendable. But time and time again, he has opposed investing in the alternative sources of energy that have helped fuel some of the very same projects and businesses he’s highlighting in this campaign. He’s voted against biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind power. Against a 2005 energy bill that represented the largest ever investment in renewable sources of energy - a bill that Senator McCain’s own campaign co-chair, called “the biggest legislative breakthrough we’ve had” since he’s been in the Senate. That bill certainly wasn’t perfect - it contained irresponsible tax breaks for oil companies that I consistently opposed, and that I will repeal as President. But the tax credits in that bill contributed to wind power growing 45% last year, the sharpest rise in decades. If John McCain had his way, those tax credits wouldn’t exist. And if we don’t renew key tax incentives for alternative energy production - tax incentives that John McCain opposed continuing - we could lose up to 116,000 green jobs and $19 billion in investment just next year. And now he’s talking about a tax credit for more efficient cars even though he helped George Bush block these credits twice in the last year. (more…)

In a speech last Tuesday in Houston, to an audience of oil executives, John McCain outlined an energy policy He said

• Federal regulations should defer to states regarding the opening of offshore drilling leases and the opening of ANWR for oil exploitation.
• The U.S. should fast-track construction of 100 new nuclear plants.
• Tax incentives should support renewable energy sources.

For a good summary of the talk, see the Houston Chronicle’s coverage.

A front page story in today’s New York Times carries the headline “Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol.”

Right now, that apparently means corn ethanol. Illinois is the second-largest producer of corn, after Iowa. Sen. Obama has expressed support for the tariffs that keep Brazilian ethanol out of the U.S. market. The article says nothing about the future of domestic cane ethanol.

Corn ethanol may turn out to be a bridge technology to renewable feedstocks that are dramatically less dependent on fossil-based fertilizers, along with fossil cultivation, transport and processing fuels. Meanwhile, it’s nice to know that Midwestern polticians are crossing that bridge.

Sunday’s Op-Ed page carried a rant from Thomas Friedman that’s well worth reading. He says that the Bush energy plan is to intensify our addiction to oil. He writes:

Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

General Electric this morning reported that wind farms built in 2007 generate more than enough in tax revenues to offset the tax incentives that got them built.

A report released at a renewable energy finance forum in New York, the GE Energy Financial Services Study says that Congress should stop dithering over how to pay for renewable energy tax credits, because they’re already paid for. The report estimates that “wind energy projects that began operating in 2007 have a positive net present value of $250 million to the US Treasury,” over and above any tax credits.

It looks like a canny end-run around the current impasse in Congress. House Democrats want investment and production tax credits extended beyond Dec. 31, but want the cost of the program paid for by rolling back subsidies and tax loopholes for other businesses. Republicans refuse to allow a vote on any program that would cut back subsidies and tax loopholes for other businesses.

A big part of the reason Democrats insist on a pay-for is that the Bush tax cuts have no pay-for. If they can enforce an across-the-board pay-for policy, it’s a powerful argument for allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. And that, in a new Congress, would be an important first step toward balancing future budgets.

The General Electric argument that renewable incentives pay for themselves might be accepted by Republicans, who often talk about wanting “a clean bill” — that is, a bill without offsets or pay-fors. It’s less likely to be accepted by Democrats, who may view it as a trojan horse on behalf of renewed tax cuts.

The failure of the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill set Democratic lawmakers talking about an even stronger bill next year, when they’ll have presidential support and, presumably, the 60 votes needed for cloture.

Very smart people have pointed out that cap-and-trade is full of holes. It rewards “grandfathered” polluters with a huge new revenue source. It opens up a whole new field for fraudulent accounting practice, centered on measurement of emissions. It creates a new market that will, inevitably, bubble and burst. It passes all costs on to the consumer.

Denis Hayes of the Bullitt Foundation offers a more sensible proposal: auction carbon permits at the source of the carbon — where it comes out of the ground. There are only about 2000 such places so monitoring the source is relatively easy and might even be done honestly. Split the revenue between subsidies for carbon-neutral energy sources, smart-grid infrastructure and reimbursement to consumers for increased energy costs.

Cap-and-dividend is the brainchild of Peter Barnes, author of Climate Solutions. According to Andrew Revkin, writing in The New York Times, it has been endorsed by James Hansen. Briefly, it bills emitters for excess greenhouse gas discharge, and returns the cash directly to citizens as a fixed monthly energy check. The dividend is meant to compensate us for the increased cost of the energy we use. Because the amount is fixed it’s a larger proportion of the household budget for poor people.

What are the amounts involved? The United States produces about 7500 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually. If we aim for an 80% reduction and charge $30 per ton for gas in excess of 1500 million tons, the revenue is $180 billion — roughly $600 per citizen. That’s $50 per person to offset the increased cost of fuel. The cap charge would add about 27 cents to the price of a gallon of petroleum-based fuel (about 7% of today’s gas price). The increase wouldn’t apply to demonstrably carbon-neutral biofuels. So $50 a month would offset the increased price of 185 gallons of gas, which is four or five times the fuel I put into my Subaru each month.

Over time, as major polluters reduce their carbon emissions, any cap fund would decline and payments to those of us who breathe the air or build clean energy sources would taper off. In a carbon-neutral economy, the dividend would evaporate.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter last week signed five bills meant to make energy upgrades affordable for moderate-income homeowners.

• HB 1350 encourages local governments to provide low-interest loans for residential renewable energy projects and efficiency upgrades.
• HB 1368 changes some tax-assessment practices in such as way as to encourage developers to adopt green building practices and to install solar energy systems.
• HB 1387 provides $6.5 million for emergency assistance to low-income families through the state’s Energy Outreach Colorado program, and $6.5 million toward the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP).
• Senate Bill 147 adds low-income housing to the list of state buildings that have to be built to high performance energy standards.
• SB 184 creates the Colorado Clean Energy Finance Program to help low-income homeowners to finance energy improvements.

Kevin Formby of the Georgia Solar Energy Association writes in:

On May 14, Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia signed into law HB670, creating tax credits for a wide range of renewable energy systems and technologies.

The bill was promoted by a wide range of politicians, organizations and individuals and was the result of many long and hard months of work. State leaders and representatives hope that the new tax credits will be the first step in developing a new epicenter for renewable energy technology industries and jobs in the Southeast United States which would leverage the existing skill centers such as the Georgia Institute of Technology.

For clean energy systems placed into use in single family residential homes, the tax credit is equal to 35% of the cost of the system. The credit is subject to various limits depending on the technology used — for example $2,500 for domestic solar hot water heating and $10,500 per residence for PV systems. Before claiming the credit the taxpayer must seek approval in advance as the total amount of credits are limited to $2.5M in any year. Although the funds are limited, this is a major step forward in a state that has traditionally been conservative over tax credits for renewable energy systems.

More details of HB670 can be found at the GSEA website.