Solar and wind energy were booming industries not too long ago, but the economic crisis is having a serious negative effect on their business. Which is why instead of “clean coal” incentives in the Stimulus Bill, we should be focusing on jump starting green technologies. Not only better for our future in terms of climate change concerns, but better in the long run for our economy:
Wind and solar power have been growing at a blistering pace in recent years, and that growth seemed likely to accelerate under the green-minded Obama administration. But because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn, the opposite is happening: installation of wind and solar power is plummeting.
Factories building parts for these industries have announced a wave of layoffs in recent weeks, and trade groups are projecting 30 to 50 percent declines this year in installation of new equipment, barring more help from the government. […]
Much of the problem stems from the credit crisis that has left Wall Street banks reeling. Once, as many as 18 big banks and financial institutions were willing to help finance installation of wind turbines and solar arrays, taking advantage of generous federal tax incentives. But with the banks in so much trouble, that number has dropped to four, according to Keith Martin, a tax and project finance specialist with the law firm Chadbourne & Parke.
Wind and solar developers have been left starved for capital. “It’s absolutely frozen,” said Craig Mataczynski, president of Renewable Energy Systems Americas, a wind developer. He projected his company would build just under half as much this year as it did last year.
Unfortunately, instead of pushing for immediate help for green technologies, the Senate is looking to add in billions of boondoggle funding for “clean coal” an oxymoron if I ever heard one:
Now that the President’s stimulus bill has moved to the Senate, the clean energy debate is likely to take a different tack, raising the more fundamental issue of what constitutes “clean energy” and who gets to define it. The Senators from West Virginia, Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, both Democrats, have been pushing to get as much funding as possible into the package for “clean coal” programs.
They have managed to tuck in $4.6 billion for coal-related projects to the Senate version of the bill, causing coal-related heartburn for many environmental advocates. The Senate funding is nearly double the $2.6 billion included in a current House version, and has received the blessing of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same stupid thing over and over again. Maybe we should ask the good people of eastern Tennessee what thy think of billions of free federal dollars for an industry that tears the tops off mountains and then allows the toxic sludge they created containing high levels of mercury and arsenic to spill out of its “containment area” thus contaminating their drinking water, destroying their property and posing health risks to young and old alike for decades to come.
The coal industry is the last thing we should be “stimulating” right now. It provides no benefit to halting the fossil fuel emissions which are driving an irreversible climate change on our planet. Nor does funding pet projects for the Coal Industry foster the innovation and future jobs we will need to compete in a global economy. All it does is add to the pollution of our air, our lakes and rivers, and ultimately our oceans. Pollution which may make jellyfish, the cockroaches of the seven seashappy, but is helping to kill fish stocks worldwide.
In short, no one in their right mind would want to stimulate a dying, dirty industry whose products are bad for human life, animal life and plant life. No one but our Congress and President Obama, apparently. Now I appreciate that Obama has to compromise a bit, but tossing out funding for green industries in order to subsidize one of the worst sources of pollution and global warming on earth seems like a very poor bargain to me. Right now most of the stimulus for green technologies is in the form of “tax incentives” which work slowly and will have little immediate impact. What we should be doing is providing not just tax benefits, but investment capital in the form of cheap government loans and also government funding for joint research projects with venture capitalists and other investors into ways to make current technologies more economical, and develop new technologies for the future.
The time to think green is past. What we need to do now is act on those ideas which will not only benefit our economy but also the future for our children and grandchildren who will inherit the earth we leave to them. We may have a once in a lifetime chance to effect the change necessary to remake our world. Caution and compromise with the political powers which are beholden to dirty and outdated industries like coal is not the way to accomplish this change. It’s merely business as usual in Washington, and we all know how well that’s worked out over the last 30 years.
“Business as usual” in Washington may be another name for national and, now, planetary suicide. America seems unable to overcome its own corrupt system of doing business. Special interests through their omnipresent and omnipowerful lobbies seem to control everything.
I think our form of capitalism contains the seeds of destruction of our very way of life. And that of the world’s. What a legacy we leave to future generations, should there even be such generations. Our final epitaph might be, “It would have been far better for all, if this nation never existed.
I guess you could call the United States the ultimate terrorist and its citizens with their all consuming life style the worst threat to humanity that our species has ever faced. How profoundly sad that we as a people and as a nation have lost the concept of the public good.
I saw over at HuffPo that Erin Brokovich had headed to the sludge disaster in Tennessee. She had along an attorney she worked with and did a write up. Said she was responding to email requests and had to smile at the visual of her trip putting the first taste of fear into the lives of the coal folk.
I’m living in a solar/wind/battery fueled home. Get over it govt, it works. When the sun doesn’t shine, the wind blows, when the wind doesn’t blow the batteries fill in. When all is dead stop, a tiny generator fills the gap. It works.
Cool! I hope that generator runs on biodiesel.
It does run on biodiesel. So house smells real friendly upon coming home. But this winter we had to switch to winterized diesel, phew what a stinker! We have a bumper sticker on the the little rabbit that also runs on biodiesel that says “starve a terrorist, buy biodiesel”
Wow! Got a link as to where to buy that sticker?
Got it at Cafe Press!
Look. It’s is going to take at least a decade to take coal plants offline. During that time, it would be better to reduce CO2 and other pollutants than not.
The alternative energy amounts are what the industry can be spent in two years. The coal companies are in a much better position to spend money faster on these cleanup measures just because they are established industries. It’s a stimulus package, not a green energy bill. This creates jobs besides mining in the Ohio Valley, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and North Dakota.
Yes it is Washington as usual because passage requires the votes of Senators and House Members from all of the states mentioned above. Consider Mitch McConnell telling his folks that he voted against the coal industry.
Would I prefer that this was not in the bill? Yes. Do I understand why it’s there? Yes. Is there green stimulus and green collar jobs in the bill? All through it from weatherization to alternative energy to a new electric transmission grid that makes it possible for Great Plains wind to light Chicago and New York.
This bill fixes the demand issue but not the credit issue that is hamstringing the alternative energy industry.
Where’s the green stimulus? You’ve got to be kidding about this question.
Funding carbon sequestration demonstrations and coal plant cleanups does not eliminate the substantial green stimulus in the bill.
But the problem is that “clean coal” is a fraud. It doesn’t exist in real life – it is only a concept. They are giving money to “study” and “research” the thing, so the money spent won’t cause any CO2 be sequestered.
In the end, any sort of CO2 capture is going to cost money. Even in the best of circumstances, a plant with CO2 capture is going to generate electricity that costs more than plain old coal, and it would likely cost more than wind and solar as well.
That’s what is so irritating about all of this. We already know what will work, but the powers that be aren’t interested – they are just interested in business as usual.
If you follow the link you see:
And the transition is…
There are a lot of kW being generated from coal. Renewables won’t replace them tomorrow. Should we just let coal-fired generating plants spew CO2 and create sludge pits or should we find ways to reduce the pollutants from these admittedly dirty plants.
That’s what’s being looked at in real terms.
The problem is that right now there is not sufficient renewable capacity to magically take these coal-fired plants offline.
And yes, “clean coal” will be proven to be a fraud. But in the meantime the transition can be made somewhat cleaner if more expensive.
And the fools errand of research into this quite possibly might come up with ways of cleaning up the atmosphere by sequestering CO2 from other sources.
Booman Tribune ~ Where’s the Green Stimulus?
what bugs me is that the health effects and costs from coalburning are right up there with global warming in negativity, yet they go unmentioned.
if he had bit the bullet and sent all that to wind and solar, his popularity (except among repugs) would have soared.
he likes to play the long game, i know, but i regret this. being conciliatory with assholes is worthy but impractical.
this honeymoon period should have been more about emasculating what’s left of the repugs, and less about schmoozing them.
he may well be a better judge, time will tell.
if we have enough of it…
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone hates on coal.
Guess what? It’s what is currently keeping the lights on. Conversion to other sources, even fully funded will take time. With the planet as imperiled as it is, we cannot afford to wait for that. That means dealing with coal while we must.
Carbon sequestration, or better yet, recycling (go Algenol!) is a MUST or the lights go off (or we just keep frying).
Deal with it: Cleaning up coal emissions is something we have to do and the industry at large something to invest in to prevent current bad habits from persisting. Will the coal industry change on it’s own?
There is no ‘just stop using coal’ and there is no other source available fast enough. I don’t want any more mountains decapitated, either, but this is what is happening and there are graceful ways of converting to a greener future.
So, full steam ahead on renewable/low CO2 emission energy, but let’s suck it up and realize we have to clean our current systems as well.
Ahh yes, but remember whilst we wait for govt to provide for the country to go green, there is always the option of one household at a time….
Or community at a time, sharing investment in common infrastructure investment. Support your local CSA.