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Renewables hit the jackpot
House passes massive tax extensions for renewable energy
Kate Sheppard, Gristmill
The House approved legislation today that renews billions of dollars in tax breaks for wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy sources, and extends a proposed new tax credit for biofuels derived from sources other than corn.

"The Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008" (which is a much better name than it had last week, when it was the "Energy and Tax Extenders Act") was approved by a vote of 263-160. The total package, which also includes tax breaks for education and business expenses and an expansion of the refundable child tax credit, is worth $54 billion.

"As we debate this legislation, American families are paying record prices at the pump -- yesterday the cost of a barrel of oil passed $129 for the first time in history. Today, I believe it went past $130," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the House floor today. "This legislation invests in the future and the ingenuity of the American people to create and deploy cutting-edge renewable technologies that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

The bill includes a six-year extension of the investment tax credit for solar energy; a three-year extensions of the production tax credit for biomass, geothermal, hydropower, landfill gas, and solid waste; and a one-year extension of the production tax credit for wind energy. There are also incentives for the production of renewable fuels such as biodiesel and cellulosic biofuels, incentives for companies that produce energy-efficient products, and incentives to improve efficiency in commercial and residential buildings.

Congress has been trying to get these tax credits for clean energy through for a year. The bill is likely to face tougher opposition in the Senate, and the president has already threatened to veto it.
(21 May 2008)

Congressional delays hobble renewable energy
Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, San Francisco Examiner
This week, for the third time in two years, the House will vote on a bill to extend renewable energy and energy efficiency tax credits due to expire at the end of this year. That is good news. The Senate has already voted 88-8 to do so. That is great news. However, The Hill newspaper Energy Tip Sheet predicts this latest House bill’s “future in the Senate might not be any brighter than previous efforts,” both rejected because the House bills contained tax increases unacceptable to the Senate. That is the bad news. Worse news is that there have already been negative economic consequences for Marylanders as a result of this ongoing political stalemate.

You might think that with oil over $125 per barrel and gasoline fast approaching $4 a gallon, it’s a no-brainer that these tax credits for clean, renewable domestic energy production would be extended. You would be wrong. A few weeks ago, I got mad after reading a column by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman titled “Dumb as We Wanna Be.” He recounted that “for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy.”

I soon discovered that Democratic Maryland Sen. Benjamin Cardin is one of 43 bipartisan co-sponsors of a bill, S. 2821, which would extend these tax credits. This is the legislation that the Senate approved on an 88-8 vote. I checked, but there was no House version of the bill, so I introduced it. H.R. 5984 is also bipartisan and is currently supported by more than 45 House members, including Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-District 1. I hope you agree that’s good news.

The bad news is that this is not the bill the House will vote on next week. A summary of that bill is on the House Ways and Means Committee Web site. Then again, if the bill the House majority will approve is destined to go nowhere fast because more than 40 senators can block it, who cares about the details? This might be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
(20 May 2008)
It's a sign of our times that a conservative Republican from Maryland has his views published in a paper at the heart of the "Left Coast." Bartlett's openness and scientific realism show one way that conservative Republicans could cope with The Fall of Conservativism (New Yorker). -BA

Environment is secondary to private profits
Kenneth Davidson, The Age
Investing in renewable energy is being ignored to keep fossil fuels burning.

THE idea that coal-fired electricity generation can continue to be the major contributor to global electricity generation and the world can still restrict carbon dioxide emissions to a level constant with holding climate warming below 2 degrees is a fairytale, according to letter in the premier science journal Nature (published online, May 7, 2008).

Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba, in Canada, makes a new point that is critical to the debate as it is being run by state and federal governments in Australia: "Carbon geosequestration is irresponsibly portrayed as an imminently useful large-scale option for solving the challenge. But to sequester just 25% of carbon dioxide emitted in 2005 by large stationary sources of the gas we would have to create a system whose annual throughput by volume would be slightly more than twice that of the world's crude-oil industry, an undertaking that would take many decades to accomplish."

And yet the Brumby and Rudd Governments persist in pouring money into geosequestration research at the expense of developing solar energy, among other renewable alternatives.
(22 May 2008)

Peter Meisen at GENI on TREC, visualizations, E8, and more
Marc Strassman, Etopia News
Peter Meisen, Director of the Global Energy Network Institute in San Diego, California, talks about that group's efforts to "provoke" an inter-connected global grid for the continuous delivery of clean green energy, recorded from San Diego, 5-21-08
(21 May 2008)