On these pages we present excerpts and summaries of media articles showing that clean energy offers the critical key to U.S. economic progress and to our national security.

“I don’t think you can get a coal plant permitted in this state, and I don’t want to.”  Georgia Power President and CEO Mike Garrett, August 21, 2009

"The carbon-based free lunch is over."  John W. Rowe, CEO of energy company Exelon, September 2009, announcing that his company would quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of its stand on climate change.  More.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Georgia is falling behind the renewable energy curve

Falling Behind On Green Tech

Clean Tech Jobs Take Off

The Strategic Imperative for the U.S. Senate to Pass an Effective Energy Bill

It’s Easy Being Green

Clean Energy Action Will Jump Start Our Economy

Moore’s Law and the Law of More: Carbon Tax Now = Cheaper Energy in the Future

The Cost of Climate Inaction

ARTICLES

Georgia is falling behind the renewable energy curve
Viewpoint - Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Lee J. Peterson Full article

(Excerpts) Despite available incentives, Georgia remains shackled to the past when it comes to energy-related economic development. In anticipation of federal cap-and-trade carbon regulation, reducing energy costs while minimizing pollution-related liabilities is now mission-critical for commercial building owners. To smooth the transition, Congress is providing meaningful cash and tax incentives for efforts to increase commercial building energy-efficiency and generate renewable energy.

(Despite energy-related improvements throughout the U.S.), Georgia is falling behind the curve…public policy…is causing thousands of clean-tech jobs to locate elsewhere. This…policy appears to be largely attributable to Georgians being convinced that renewable energy somehow works everywhere else but the South. Unbelievably, many are convinced that Georgia doesn’t have enough sun to run a solar panel. This thinking appears to be due to decades of artfully crafted, half-accurate information being gently, but persistently, laid upon the minds of elected officials.
Much of the problem lays in the law. The constitution of Georgia contains provisions…Another law… gives regulated utilities near-complete dominance to prevent large-scale private renewable energy from being sold…the Georgia Public Service Commission is prevented by state law from permitting all but the smallest renewable energy systems from feeding clean electricity to the public utilities.

Sadly, Georgia’s governors and state legislators seem to accept that the alleged low cost of fossil- and nuclear-based electricity is more important to protect than the other equally and more compelling economic impacts offered by renewable power.

Peterson is a senior tax manager and attorney in Reznick Group’s Atlanta office, specializing in alternative and renewable energy resource transactions. This year, he served as a key adviser on federal tax energy incentive credits.

Falling Behind On Green Tech

By John Doerr (venture capitalist) and Jeff Immelt (CEO, General Electric)
Washington Post, Monday, August 3, 2009

(Excerpts) America confronts three interrelated crises: an economic crisis, a climate crisis and an energy security crisis. We believe there's a fourth: a competitiveness crisis. This crisis is particularly evident in America's worldwide standing in the next great global industry, green technology.

Do we want to win the race to lead the next great global industry, clean energy?...We are clearly not in the lead today. That position is held by China…when it comes to wind power, the most mature of the clean-energy sectors, of the top five manufacturers…only one is American. Similarly, the United States is home to only one of the 10 largest solar panel producers in the world and two of the top 10 advanced battery manufacturers. How can we catch up? Not through protectionism or massive government intervention but through the power of good old home-grown innovation…our government's energy and climate policies are our principal obstacle to success.

Five basic changes are needed:
-- Send a long-term signal that low-carbon energy is valuable. We must put a price on carbon and a cap on carbon emissions.
-- Get the rules of the road right for utilities. We must make our utilities a driving force for repowering America, driving efficiency through incentives, a renewable electricity standard and a national unified smart grid.
-- Set energy standards that grow steadily stronger. America should strive to have the most efficient buildings, cars and appliances in the world. The savings will land in the pockets of U.S. consumers and businesses.
-- Get serious about funding research, development and deployment… -
-- Fulfill President Obama's commitment to "become the world's leading exporter of renewable energy."

There is still time for us to lead this global race, although that window is closing. We need low-carbon policies to exploit America's strengths -- innovation and entrepreneurs. We know that building such policies is a heavy political lift. But, without doubt, bad energy policy has cost our country dearly, and the costs of continuing it are incalculable.

John Doerr is a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Jeff Immelt is chairman and chief executive of General Electric.

Clean Edge Says Cleantech Jobs Are Everywhere

[RenewableEnergyWorld.com] October 16, 2009 Full report

(Excerpts) Cleantech is becoming one of the country's key markets for growth and job creation. In its first look at the state of clean-tech jobs in the U.S. and globally, Clean Edge Inc. has released its Clean Tech Job Trends 2009…“the clean-tech economy is a highly dispersed phenomenon, with no single place, industry, or professional demographic controlling the sector,” said Ron Pernick, co-founder and managing director of Clean Edge. “…formerly shuttered manufacturing facilities…are now opening their doors to make products like wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries. Similarly, clean-tech deployment and growth has become an economic cornerstone for nations looking to innovate and compete in the 21st century…”

Clean Tech Job Trends 2009 also provides a look into clean-tech compensation….The survey is a coproduction of Clean Edge and PayScale. Click here to download a copy of the free report.

The Strategic Imperative for the U.S. Senate to Pass an Effective Energy Bill
by Lou Schwartz, China Strategies LLC
RenewableEnergyWorld.com - September 30, 2009 Full Article

(Excerpts) …The link between energy sustainability and self-sufficiency in China and the success or failure of the U.S. government in preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons’ capacity is now crystal clear…If the U.S. is to exercise the only realistic option it currently possesses to divert Iran from its ambition to build nuclear weapons — international sanctions — it must demonstrate to China its commitment to the construction of the world’s new energy future, a future where Middle Eastern oil is a footnote…In the long term, building a new energy infrastructure will marginalize Iran and other nations whose oil wealth permits them to flaunt the will of the community of nations. If the U.S. is able to demonstrate to China that it is truly dedicated to leading the transformation of the new energy economy, China may become less bound by its economic interests in Iran, freeing it to join with the U.S. in confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions…

As we have shown repeatedly over the last few years through articles on China’s progress in solar, wind, biofuels, electric vehicles and the smart grid, China is now more proactive than the U.S. in building a new energy infrastructure…China also fully appreciates that the next great upward movement in economic development worldwide will arise from the wholesale conversion of the world’s energy infrastructure and that it will continue its impressive growth, while achieving sustainability, precisely through the process of restructuring how it generates and delivers energy…

Lou Schwartz, a lawyer and China specialist who focuses his work on the energy and metals sectors in the People's Republic of China, is a frequent contributor to Renewable Energy World.

It’s Easy Being Green
By Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist – New York Times 9/25/09 Full article

…the next big debate: the fight over climate change. The House has already passed a fairly strong cap-and-trade climate bill, the Waxman-Markey act…the sticking point will be the Senate…the main argument against climate action probably won’t be the claim that global warming is a myth. It will, instead, be the argument that doing anything to limit global warming would destroy the economy. As the blog Climate Progress puts it, opponents of climate change legislation “keep raising their estimated cost of the clean energy and global warming pollution reduction programs like some out of control auctioneer.”

It’s important, then, to understand that claims of immense economic damage from climate legislation are as bogus…as climate-change denial. Saving the planet won’t come free (although the early stages of conservation actually might). But it won’t cost all that much either…First, the evidence suggests that we’re wasting a lot of energy right now…The existence of this gap suggests that policies promoting energy conservation could, up to a point, actually make consumers richer. Second, the best available economic analyses suggest that even deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would impose only modest costs on the average family. ..

(A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the effects of Waxman-Markey concluded) that in 2020 the bill would cost the average family only $160 a year, or 0.2 percent of income. That’s roughly the cost of a postage stamp a day. By 2050, when the emissions limit would be much tighter, the burden would rise to 1.2 percent of income…The cost of climate protection would barely make a dent in (GDP) growth. And all of this, of course, ignores the benefits of limiting global warming…the campaign against saving the planet rests mainly on lies…The truth about the economics of climate change is that it’s relatively easy being green. 

Clean Energy Action Will Jump Start Our Economy
by Barbara Boxer - The Huffington Post – Posted July 16, 2009
Full Article

(Excerpts) … reminds me of every naysayer who has spoken out against progress in cleaning up pollution. Whether it was the debate over the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Superfund law or any of our other landmark environmental laws, one pattern has always been clear: Time and time again, pessimists predicted loss of jobs and great costs to taxpayers. And time and time again, our environmental laws have cleaned up the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the communities we live in at far lower cost than expected.

Take the acid rain program established in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

• The naysayers said it would cost consumers billions in higher electricity rates…in reality the opposite happened…electricity rates declined an average of 19 percent between 1990 and 2006.
• The naysayers also said that cost to business would be more than $50 billion a year, when in reality the health and other benefits of the program outweighed the costs 40 to 1.
• Another charge was that it would cost the economy millions of jobs. In reality, the American economy grew by 20 million jobs between 1993 and 2000, as the economy grew 64 percent.

(Some claim) that low income families will be hurt by rising energy prices. In fact, the independent Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the poorest 20 percent of American families would actually come out ahead by $40 a year under the Waxman-Markey legislation passed last month by the House of Representatives. The…Climate Security Jobs bill that we will present to the Senate, based on the Waxman-Markey bill, will jumpstart our economy, protect consumers, stop the ravages of unchecked global warming, and ensure that America will be the leading economic power in this century.

But don't just take it from me. Thomas Friedman put it concisely in his most recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: "...the ability to develop clean power and energy efficient technologies is going to become the defining measure of a country's economic standing, environmental health, energy security, and national security over the next 50 years."

John Doerr…leading venture capitalist who helped launch Google and Amazon—(says) that putting a price on carbon will help spark the clean energy revolution…predicted that the investment capital that will flow into clean energy will dwarf the amount invested in high-tech and biotech combined…"Going green may be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century. It is the mother of all markets."

This bill is a jobs bill. By creating powerful incentives for clean energy, it will create millions of new jobs in America -- building wind turbines, installing solar panels on homes, and producing a new fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles…a recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that more than 10,000 new clean energy businesses were launched in California from 1998 to 2007. During that period, clean energy investments created more than 125,000 jobs and generated jobs 15 percent faster than the California economy as a whole.

A May 2009 report by a panel of retired U.S. generals and admirals found that, "Our dependence on foreign oil reduces our international leverage, places our troops in dangerous global regions, funds nations and individuals who wish us harm, and weakens our economy; our dependency and inefficient use of oil also puts our troops at risk."
…(we can't drill our way out of this crisis). ..the U.S. has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, while we are responsible for 25 percent of the world's oil consumption.

…When we protect the American people from pollution they not only get the health benefits, they get the job benefits. And in this case, they also get national security benefits, and the benefits that come from world leadership.

Moore’s Law and the Law of More: Carbon Tax Now = Cheaper Energy in the Future
By Thomas L. Friedman – Op-ed columnist - The New York Times, April 26, 2009

(In this commentary, Friedman writes the speech he’d like President Obama to give, predicated on the conclusion that passing a carbon tax today would save Americans bundles in the long term.)

(Excerpts) “You’ve heard of Moore’s Law in information technology. I’d like to speak to you about the ‘Law of More’ in energy technology…Right now we’re paying a huge price — a tax — for everyone trying to achieve more in an unsustainable way. But the ‘More Tax’ is not imposed by the U.S. government. It is a tax imposed by the market and will continue rising indefinitely as more and more people want more and more stuff. It will steadily drive up gasoline prices, home heating prices and factory electricity prices…And then all that tax money out of your pocket goes to enrich oil companies and petro-dictators.

“My proposal is that today we fix a durable price on carbon-based fossil fuels, but set it to begin only in 2011, after we’re out of this recession. Every home builder, air-conditioning manufacturer, gasoline refiner, carmaker will know that it’s coming and will, I believe, immediately look for ways to profit from and invest in more energy efficient systems. Yes, the cost of gasoline or kilowatt hours will rise in the short term. But in the long term, your actual bills and expenses will go down because your car, appliances and factory will become steadily more productive and give you more power for less energy.

“I call it the ‘Carbon Tax Cut.’ You won’t receive the dividend in the first week or month, but you will get it soon, and it will be a permanent tax cut, a gift that will keep on giving.

“So those are our choices, folks — an escalating ‘More Tax’ forever, premised on immediate gratification and short-term thinking, or a ‘Carbon Tax Cut’ forever, which is exactly what you’ll get from establishing a carbon price signal that shapes the market in favor of American interests and not those of our adversaries and competitors. If you’re with me, write your member of Congress and senator today.” 

The Cost of Climate Inaction
By Kristen Sheeran and Mindy Lubber
Washington Post, Wednesday, May 6, 2009 

(Excerpts) (Some analysts argue) that the cost of moving to a clean-energy economy is higher than advocates expect…But this assumes that all costs involved in mitigating climate change -- and there will be costs -- represent new costs, without acknowledging the massive error in our market system that equates the price of carbon emissions to zero. This fundamental error skews everything that follows, because if emitting carbon costs nothing on a balance sheet, all steps to reduce pollution count as "new costs."

The real cost of carbon emissions is far from zero. Each new scientific report brings proof of a changing climate that promises to disrupt agricultural patterns, set off a scramble for dwindling resources, raise sea levels, propel population shifts and require massive emergency spending as we try to react to the growing crises. These are the costs of inaction. A smart climate policy can create a mechanism to put the right price on carbon, and rapid economic change will follow that firm price signal, along with reduced climate risks. Our work with more than 100 economists nationwide and at RealClimateEconomics.org demonstrates the weight of economic analysis supporting this point.

The failure to put a real price on carbon emissions also undermines (the argument) that we cannot switch to clean energy technologies quickly. Many claim that these technologies will not work, at least in a cost-effective way, because we would already be using them if they did. But we are not using them enough now because we have set the price of carbon pollution at zero and have devoted most of our financial incentives to fossil fuel production to gas up our vehicles, heat our homes and power our factories. Acknowledging the climate crisis and pricing its risks correctly…would produce an amazingly quick shift to new technologies and behaviors.

We change habits when it makes economic sense to do so. Price matters…Gas at $4 per gallon is cheaper in a car that gets 40 miles per gallon than $3-a-gallon gas in a clunker that gets 20 mpg. American entrepreneurial and research genius can move us to far greater energy efficiency quickly, using mostly existing technologies, when a carbon price rewards the effort.

The economic impacts on households, then, may not be as dramatic as some warn…Consider Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), a coalition of nationally and globally known companies…The heads of these companies believe that passing strong climate and energy legislation this year is in the interests of both the planet and their businesses…These companies see strong climate and energy policy as pro-business because increased energy efficiency saves them money and clear price signals on carbon help them plan competitive strategies on a more level playing field.

Kristen Sheeran is executive director of the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network, a nationwide group of economists focused on environmental policy. Mindy Lubber is president of Ceres, a national coalition of investors, environmentalists and public interest groups working with companies to address sustainability challenges.