renewable energy

The Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a measure on Tuesday night to fund a program providing loans to property owners for the installation of rooftop solar-power systems. The program is the first of its kind in the nation, which creates a new sustainable energy tax district (pdf) within the city.

Property owners who opt into the program will be given loans for solar systems and pay no up front costs. At an average cost $22,000 apiece (after a $6,108 rebate from the state-run California Solar Initiative), the systems will be paid for over a 20-year term. Homeowners pay off the loan as part of the property tax bill. The cost of the loan will run around $180 per month at an annual rate of 6.75%.

The innovative idea behind this city-run financial mechanism is that homeowners would pay for solar energy via an opt-in property tax increase that would be offset by annual savings on their electric bills.

We have come to a point in the election season where the courage of the candidates and the intelligence of the voters are being severely tested. So far, the candidates are flunking. The public’s grade is pending.

The test is about oil and national security.

An old friend of mine used to say that at a certain stage in political campaigns, dead cats start flying through the air.  I’ve never understood what he meant by that, but I think the cat-flinging has begun.

Both candidates are doing their share, but one exchange deserves special analysis: John McCain’s attack against Barack Obama’s comment about tire gauges. In one of his recent energy speeches, Obama made the point that acts of conservation by individual Americans can have an impact on rising oil prices. He used tire pressure maintenance as an example.

The Wall Street Journal may not like T. Boone Pickens' clean energy plan, but it has a lot of merit. What Pickens sees -- and the WSJ ignores -- is that our oil-driven global economy is stretched to the limit and is likely not sustainable.

A telling indicator is an enormous oil-extraction project in Alberta, Canada -- an enormous energy-intensive, financially questionable undertaking that oil companies are now treating as the next great oil bonanza.

Hunter Lovins is one of the country’s premier prophets of the post-carbon economy and the vast new markets and investment opportunities that are opening worldwide for clean technologies. “Those who recognize this opportunity will be the first to the future and the billionaires of tomorrow,” Hunter says.

The good news: The race already has begun. It’s producing some new billionaires and attracting some old ones.

The first recorded solar billionaire was identified by the Wall Street Journal in October 2006. He is Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech Power Holdings Company in China. Since then, at least two other solar entrepreneurs have joined the club: Frank Asbeck, who founded Germany’s Solar World, and Xiao Peng, head of LDK Solar in China.

Joining them are two American tycoons who have decided that while their past was in oil, their future – and America’s – will be found in renewable energy. Everyone now knows about T. Boone Pickens’ commitment to build the world’s largest wind farm in Texas, and his commitment to spend $58 million of his own money on television commercials to persuade Americans that we can’t drill out way out of the energy crisis.

Pickens has been traveling around the Great Plains states lately to make the case for wind power and, judging by the photo, he’s committing so much of his disposable fortune to renewable energy that he can’t afford Powerpoint.

Warning to U.S. companies: Just because national lawmakers are dawdling on global warming, don't think your business can dawdle, too.

While U.S. policymakers are running in place on climate change, global investors are moving quickly to make money from its far-reaching risks and opportunities. One Wall Street firm is calling climate change the "next global mega-trend," after the opening of the Iron Curtain and the Internet revolution. Despite losses from the subprime debacle, European and US investment firms are ramping up their global warming research, trading desks, investments strategies and capital.

Do the 535 elected leaders in the United States Congress have what it takes to help America solve its energy and climate crises?

Apparently not. Congress flunked a crucial test on climate change earlier this year when the Senate failed to bring a cap-and-trade bill to a vote. The House hasn’t even brought a bill to the floor.

Another crucial test took place this week on a proposal to extend tax incentives for renewable energy industries. The incentives are critical to the rapid development of wind and solar systems in the United States, technologies that are essential to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. But the US Senate failed to pass a key procedural vote on the incentives for the fourth time this summer, shelving the bill again. Unless Congress votes to extend them, the incentives will expire at the end of the year.

How much science does it take; how many droughts, wildfires and natural disasters; how many energy crises; how many entreaties from world leaders before Congress does the right thing?

Why does the latest poll by the Pew Research Center report that drilling for domestic oil has jumped to the top of Americans' energy priorities? Maybe because Pew didn’t ask respondents if they want the nation to invest in clean energy and efficient cars, instead.

So suggests this poll (pdf) by Belden Russonello & Stewart, released last week.

Have a look at its striking results. Renewable energy was listed as an energy solution, and guess what? Americans chose it over drilling by an overwhelming 76 percent to 19 percent.

Here’s the exact question posed by Belden:

Let’s face it: The Bush Administration has made a mess of things. It is now clear, if it hasn’t been all along, that by the time George Bush leaves office, the White House will have wasted eight years of leadership on the Mother of All Issues.

If those eight years are a profound disappointment looking backward, then they are a profound tragedy looking forward. The head of the IPCC is spreading the message that the world community has seven short years to act decisively to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. John Holdren is among the prestigious U.S. scientists who now say more openly that the affects of climate change already are upon us. Dr. Jim Hansen now estimates that atmospheric concentrations of carbon must level off at 350 ppm, nearly 30 percent lower than everyone thought was needed to keep climate change at "safe" levels. Anyone who’s paying attention sees that the impacts of global warming are occurring much faster than predicted.

If this year’s weather extremes are a sample of climate change, how much worse will they be 10 years, 20 years or 30 years from now, as today’s rising and accumulating emissions take their toll?