Clean Energy

It's another drizzly, dreary day in eastern Germany -- oddly perfect, it turns out, for demonstrating the potential of solar energy. Despite the rain, hundreds of thousands of photovoltaic panels still gaze skyward here at the country's biggest solar farm, like a field of huge silvery sunflowers planted in neat rows marching toward the horizon. Raindrops splotch their faces, and the steely gray clouds curtain the sun. But the panels remain busy absorbing solar radiation to convert into electricity.

SAN JOSE - After a morning of closed-door campaigning here Thursday, President Obama plans to talk about tax credits for clean energy production during a visit to Iowa. As he focuses on his administration's efforts to boost job creation, Obama plans to call on Congress to extend tax credits designed to encourage businesses to invest in clean energy production, senior officials said. Obama is scheduled to make his remarks on a visit to TPI Composites, a global provider of composite wind blades to major turbine manufacturers.

At a time when the U.S. economy is desperate for jobs and investment in future growth, a slew of clean-energy projects are on hold largely because of political stalemate in Washington. With President Obama's energy and climate proposals bottled up in Congress, business leaders say they cannot tell what direction government policy will take on a variety of issues, including new energy taxes, tougher emissions standards for factories and vehicles, and guaranteed markets for start-up wind and solar power plants.

Solar choices Re "Standing their sacred ground," April 24 The choice is not between disturbing Native American grave sites or building clean-energy projects; it's between continuing these huge, inefficient, enormously expensive and environmentally destructive boondoggles in the desert or using solar the way it should be used: with panels on every rooftop supplying that building's energy needs. The attempt to fit solar into the portfolio of big energy companies is a doomed strategy that may be good for Southern California Edison's bottom line but is bad for the desert environment and the species that live there.

At a conference for green investors, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates said that research funding for clean energy needs to at least double in order to see a viable, investor-attractive source of clean energy to reduce carbon emissions.  But Gates was not optimistic that the innovation would come anytime soon, saying that the United States and other countries do not adequately fund research and don't encourage experimentation by entrepreneurs.  ...

In what could be an encouraging sign of change in the long-standing shortage of Americans preparing for "clean energy" careers, the subject is suddenly hot on college campuses across the nation -- a surge of interest largely stimulated by the specter of global warming.

SAN JOSE - After a morning of closed-door campaigning here Thursday, President Obama plans to talk about tax credits for clean energy production during a visit to Iowa. As he focuses on his administration's efforts to boost job creation, Obama plans to call on Congress to extend tax credits designed to encourage businesses to invest in clean energy production, senior officials said. Obama is scheduled to make his remarks on a visit to TPI Composites, a global provider of composite wind blades to major turbine manufacturers.

12:44 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Please, have a seat. Thank you. Thank you, MIT. (Applause.) I am -- I am hugely honored to be here. It's always been a dream of mine to visit the most prestigious school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Applause.) Hold on a second -- certainly the most prestigious school in this part of Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Laughter.) And I'll probably be here for a while -- I understand a bunch of engineering students put my motorcade on top of Building 10. (Laughter.

The renewable-energy sector got a lift from the economic stimulus package signed Tuesday, with a fix to a crucial tax issue that had stalled projects nationwide. Solar and wind companies said it could take several months for the legislation to get portions of the industry moving again. But some players are already gearing up for growth. SolarCity, a Foster City, Calif.

President Obama has grand plans for a green nation ? 1 million electric vehicles on the road within four years and clean power sources providing 80% of the nation's energy by 2035. But a day after getting a surprisingly extensive shout-out in Obama's State of the Union address ? he sees clean tech as the country's best chance to seize its "Sputnik moment" ? industry officials were less than enthused and questioned whether the ambitious targets were even attainable. "It's a lofty goal, but it's like the race to the moon in that it's generally achievable," said John Cheney, chief executive of solar project developer Silverado Power.

Concern over the safety of the San Onofre nuclear power plant is growing among Orange County cities closest to the facility, which has been shut down since January because of system failures. Officials in nearby San Clemente and Laguna Beach - both within 20 miles of the San Onofre facility - have registered their fears after significant wear was found on hundreds of tubes carrying radioactive water inside the plant's generators. Residents in the Orange County beach towns for years have lived with the twin-domed nuclear plant as a backdrop.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who was an early advocate for clean energy during his first governorship 30 years ago, told business leaders at an event here today that he was committed to picking up where he left off.  Brown talked about tax incentives for solar energy that he approved in 1977, initiatives that he said were eagerly embraced.  At the time, there was "no resistance," he said. "Those were the good times. " Today, the governor, who is in the second year of his third term, said he finds himself facing more resistance to his proposals.

California's economy may not be as “green” as people think. In the federal government's first report breaking down so-called green energy employment in the country, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday that California had 338,400 jobs associated with the production of green goods and services in 2010. That's more than any other state, but as a percentage of California's overall employment, green jobs made up 2.3% of its total private and public payrolls. In the country as a whole, the BLS says, there were 3.1 million green jobs in 2010, which accounted for 2.4% for all employment.

At a conference for green investors, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates said that research funding for clean energy needs to at least double in order to see a viable, investor-attractive source of clean energy to reduce carbon emissions.  But Gates was not optimistic that the innovation would come anytime soon, saying that the United States and other countries do not adequately fund research and don't encourage experimentation by entrepreneurs.  ...

It has been three years since President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was enacted. The stimulus was one of the administration's first attempts to micromanage the economy with short-run policies instead of offering a long-run strategy for restructuring government. The president's proposed 2013 budget is the latest. If we learned anything from the stimulus, it's that the country would be better served if the president did less tinkering in his budget - like handing out tax breaks for manufacturing and "clean" energy - and more leading.

Executives from the U.S. hydropower, geothermal and biomass power industries called Wednesday for the passage of a congressional bill that would extend production tax credits to all renewable-energy projects. The leaders were referring to H.R. 3307, the American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act of 2011. The bill has been offered by Reps. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and has drawn bipartisan support from more than 60 co-sponsors. Failure to pass the bill, the executives said, would put thousands of jobs across the country at risk, stall active energy projects and make it very likely that few new projects would get the funding necessary to begin.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who was an early advocate for clean energy during his first governorship 30 years ago, told business leaders at an event here today that he was committed to picking up where he left off.  Brown talked about tax incentives for solar energy that he approved in 1977, initiatives that he said were eagerly embraced.  At the time, there was "no resistance," he said. "Those were the good times. " Today, the governor, who is in the second year of his third term, said he finds himself facing more resistance to his proposals.

No federal gold for the Golden State Re "Robbing California of energy," Opinion, Feb. 23 Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) berates the House for cutting tens of billions of dollars of funding that would have gone to California businesses for projects in the field of renewable energy. As the senator explains, these funds would serve as loan guarantees for various industries that would then create thousands of jobs. What she fails to explain is that if these industries have so much potential, why are they unable to find private funding that would "invest in the future" and reap a fortune at the same time?

Google Inc. is investing $94 million in solar panel farms in the Sacramento area. The money will go toward four photovoltaic, or PV, panel farms built by Recurrent Energy, a San Francisco company owned by tech-giant Sharp Corp., along with funding from investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., said Axel Martinez, Google's assistant treasurer, in a company blog post. The investment pushes Google's portfolio of clean-energy investments to more than $915 million, $880 million of which has been invested since January, Martinez said.

When Solyndra, a Bay Area maker of industrial solar panels, announced plans to file for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, it wasn't just a blow for the company's 1,100 laid-off employees or the investors who have pumped millions into the venture. It called into question the Obama administration's entire clean-energy stimulus program. Solyndra was the first company to be awarded a federal loan guarantee under the stimulus, worth $535 million. Taxpayers are likely to end up on the hook for much if not all of that amount, a highly embarrassing development for President Obama because he was among the company's biggest cheerleaders.