Tag:

Waxman-Markey

Will Washington’s Clean Tech Spending Spree Pay Off?

Jennifer Kho this week asks what I can only assume is a rhetorical question on Green Inc. Blog at NYT, “Is Washington the New Wall Street for Cleantech?”

There was almost $30 billion in the stimulus bill that could be described as allocated toward cleantech. Lobbyists are flocking to the Hill on Waxman-Markey, and they don’t work for free.

There is ample evidence that angels and VCs are now second fiddle to the American taxpayer when it comes to cleantech capital for the next generation of innovation and investment.

06/26/2009 4 comments

Renewable Energy

NASA’s Hansen on Waxman-Markey: “it’s just stupidity”

written by Joe Walsh

Update: James Hansen just got arrested while protesting against coal mining – read latest news here

The New Yorker has a lengthy profile of NASA climatologist James Hansen in this week’s issue, in which he pulls no punches on Waxman-Markey, taking the leading national environmental advocacy groups to task for supporting the legislation (even as amended), and calls the whole process “stupidity.”

As readers of CleanTechies know, I have been dismissive of Waxman-Markey in recent weeks, a piece of well-intentioned legislation that has been so watered down by compromise and competing political pressure as to be rendered meaningless as anything other than a symbol of our intention as a nation to someday act on climate change, grid conversion, and carbon control.

After getting an email from Repower America a couple nights ago, inviting me to join a conference call with Al Gore to help push the bill through, I began to feel a little like a lone voice in the wilderness on this. But, I can’t ask for much better company than Hansen.

06/24/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

A Familiar Ring to the Cap-and-Trade Grudge Match in Australia

written by Joe Walsh

A partisan divide, climate change doubters ridiculed by by environmental advocates, concerns about the global competitive impact of being a carbon control leader, and uncertainties surrounding market function, pricing and cost to consumers… Sound familiar?

Now imagine it all in Paul Hogan’s accent instead of in the halls of the Capitol, and you have the Australian debate over cap-and-trade legislation.

NYT runs a story that gives evidence of one of the major obstacles to getting real global energy reform, the “you first” problem.

The story notes, “Conservatives say [the country] should not commit itself to any target before the world’s biggest emitters — China and the United States — lay their cards on the table, and a successor to the Kyoto agreement, which expires in 2012, is reached.”

06/23/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

How Obama’s Victory HURTS the Renewable Energy Movement

written by Joe Walsh

One of the more interesting subtexts in the ongoing Waxman-Markey negotiations is the irony that as the bill gets closer to garnering the support it needs for passage — through horse trading, earmarking, compromise and watering down — it looks less and less like a positive step for renewable energy advocates to have a federal regime at all.

Thanks to preemption doctrine, whatever does emerge from Congress will likely trump much of what already exists at the state level for energy-environment regulation. Sure, the bill may hold out state autonomy to set higher renewable standards or more ambitious target dates than those federally prescribed, and that kind of dual sovereignty — especially where expressly permitted by Congress — has long been held constitutional. But, for a “progressive” energy state like Massachusetts, there are likely to be direct conflicts with the federal law, and in those cases the state standard (in many cases the more aggressive one) will be preempted.

06/17/2009 8 comments

Renewable Energy

Waxman-Markey’s Chevron Redux?

written by Joe Walsh

There’s been a lot out there in the ether about how Waxman-Markey (and climate change legislation in general) has been a windfall for lobbyists, fighting both to keep the government’s hands off of utilities and others’ CO2 emissions on the status quo side and scrambling for the subsidies and other dollars on the green tech side.

The Washington Post (WaPo) opened just such a story this week with an anecdote about Rep Gene Green’s (D-TX) amendment changing the word “sources” to the words “emission points.” WaPo notes “that tiny bit of editing might one day give petroleum refiners valuable rights to emit carbon dioxide when it otherwise might not have been allowed.

06/09/2009 0 comment

Energy Efficiency

The Clean Coal Conundrum

written by Joe Walsh

The internecine battles in the green community are growing in number: there’s pro-renewable versus open space; the anti-hydro crowd; and the nukes or no nukes debate. Add the fight over clean coal, which the Boston Globe editorial staff weighed in on yesterday.

We know from his comments earlier this year that Al Gore essentially sees clean coal as a shell game, and he is being borne out at least in part by the larding of Waxman-Markey with billions to placate coal state legislators.

But, the Globe editorial touches on an interesting geopolitical/economics quandary. The US and Europe may be pushing toward carbon reduction reforms; but, it is the largest and fastest growing emitters in Asia that pose the greatest threat to the planet and are projected to negate even the most ambitious Western reduction estimates.

So, clean carbon technology might be the liar’s lie that Gore claims it is for US energy production, but what about the possibility of developing technology to export? Do we have an obligation to invest in clean coal research for the greater good even if its not in our future?

06/08/2009 7 comments

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