Posts Tagged by RPS
What Will It Take to Achieve a US Renewable Portfolio Standard?
| October 3, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
I was keeping a tally sheet at last week’s Renewable Energy Finance Forum, so I could let readers know the issue that was brought up most often and granted the most overall prominence. The clear winner: China is eating our lunch in the migration to renewables. Inexplicably and tragically, the US is content to drop further and further behind in the development of energy technology with each passing week. While China is hiring, researching, developing, importing, exporting — and dominating the world of 21st Century energy, we seem to be content to argue and point fingers at each other.
Mainstream Media: Energy Policy Needs More Prominence
| September 5, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I got a high-quality rowing machine (Concept2) on Craig’s list yesterday, and have committed to daily use. It’s really the perfect tool for strength building and cardio simultaneously. But the reason I bring this up is that it will essentially force me to watch a bit of television, enabling me to keep up better with the coverage that the mainstream media affords various subjects of national and international importance.
Cooling down after my workout just now, I ask myself what I learned from 20 minutes or so in front of the Chris Matthews Show. Essentially, it’s that Obama has not done a good job in explaining himself and the actions he’s taken. While he was waiting for the stimulus package to take effect, he spent the majority of his political capital pushing through healthcare reform – a bill of dubious priority. The majority of Americans are angry with government, and the last think they want to see is more of it – in healthcare – or anyplace else. With the mid-term elections now only two months away, the Democrats are floundering to regain the trust of the electorate.
What does this mean in terms of renewable energy in the US? To me, it means this: don’t hold your breath. There are so many obvious actions related to energy policy that you or I would do if we were in charge, not one of which is anywhere close to happening. Anyone of conscience acting independent of corruptive influence would start, I think, with these three:
1) Create a level playing field, removing the imbalance of subsidies that favors fossil fuels by a factor of 12:1, and accounting for externalities
2) Develop some version of federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS), probably looking at the country by region, and targeting specific adoption of solar, wind, geothermal, hydrokinetics, etc. accordingly
3) Be fair and honest in the allocation of stimulus money and other grants to businesses that actually can make a difference, vs. corporate behemoths that make huge campaign contributions
But let’s be realistic. The world of “what is right” and the world of political reality are galaxies apart. What can I infer from the fact that 20 minutes of analysis came and went in front of me – without a mention of the word “energy” even once? I think it’s pretty clear. If you’re looking for reform here, we have a lot of work in front of us if we’re going to elevate this issue to the position of prominence it needs to be.
A Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard — Is It Fair?
| August 1, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I had lunch last week with a senior engineer at SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District), whose responsibility is managing the delivery of electricity while minimizing damage to air quality. “It’s terrible,” he told me over our salads.
“I thought it was actually pretty good.” I replied, a bit surprised.
“No, I mean what we were talking about a second ago. The clean air mandates in California are so onerous that they’re prohibitively expensive.”
“Oh. But don’t most other states face a different version of the same problem?” I asked naively.
“Not at all. To win popular appeal, our legislators have set the bar ridiculously high. You could replace every car on the roads with bicycles – and there would still be a few days in the year that you wouldn’t meet the targets. There were pictures of Los Angeles taken in the early 20th Century that show smog from decaying vegetable matter and wild fires. We have concentrations of ozone precursors that are simply impossble to deal with; it’s just the way the land is formed.
“So California has to do things to have clean air that cost far more per kilowatt-hour than any other state in the union. And how do we pay those costs? With taxes and regulation that drive the businesses out to states that simply haven’t gotten tough with air quality, or that are fortunate enough to have good air naturally.”
This got me thinking about my position on a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard that I’ve been recommending. Maybe this isn’t really a good idea after all. The southwest has sun, the plains have wind, the mountains have geothermal, the east has hydro, but renewable energy resources in some areas of the country are simply far more scarce than they are elsewhere. I suppose the fair thing to do is to rate each state on the availability of clean energy resources, and build mandates around those ratings.
Of course, the real solution (as I’ve often suggested) is simply to remove the subsidies that make energy from fossil fuels artificially inexpensive, and let the problem take care of itself in about a nanosecond.
US Government — Why So Conspicuously Absent in Renewables?
| May 23, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Many of us have noted with some frustration that the US government has been conspicuously inactive in laying out a migration path to renewable energy.
Some have noted that the lack of a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS) or national system to reduce emissions has created a climate in various states have taken the initiative. After all, shouldn’t we take solace in the idea that 27 states and the District of Columbia have binding renewable portfolio standards? Utilities that operate in these areas are must generate a certain percentage of their electrical power from renewable sources. It’s also true that many countries outside the US have taken aggressive posture with respect to clean energy. Every week we hear about enormous commitments in this direction from nations all over Europe, Asia, and South America. Shouldn’t we be happy about that?
Sure. But let’s keep asking the obvious question: What’s up with the US? What is it exactly that is causing our national leaders to sit on their hands – an approach that is so clearly wrong?
Read More
