energy policy
Waxman-Markey Bill’s Tentative Compromise on Renewable Energy Offers a Weak Standard
When Representatives Waxman and Markey introduced their energy bill concept, they included a requirement that utilities deliver 25% renewable-derived power by 2025. According to the New York Times, a tentative agreement with Democrats unenthusiastic with the orginial proposal would reduce the target to 15% by 2020. And the 15% gets watered down even further. States …
CONTINUE READINGPublic Policy is Spurring Enormous Growth in the Windpower Industry – Don’t Stop Now
Worldwatch Institute reports that windpower capacity worldwide increased by 27,051 megawatts in 2008, bringing total installed capacity over 120,000 megawatts. The United States showed the greatest growth, adding 8,358 megawatts to make a current total of 25,170 megawatts. That’s a 50% increase in one year! The contribution that the U.S. windpower makes to overall domestic …
CONTINUE READINGSilos: Great for Fodder, Not So Hot for Energy Policy
The electricity grid is one big machine. Transmisssion must be centrally coordinated. Generating units must all be in sync. Voltage levels have to be maintained. There must constantly be an even match between demand and supply. But you would hardly know it from the way we look at energy policy at the states and on …
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CONTINUE READINGExxon Valdez: 20 Years Later – Lessons Learned
Today commemorates a sad and calamitous event in American environmental history: the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The key facts of that ecological disaster, recounted in yesterday’s New York Times, are by now well-known: the spill of 11 million gallons of crude oil into near-shore ocean waters, …
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CONTINUE READINGRenewable Energy and Economic Stimulus: Better Luck This Time Around
The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus package, throws 11 billion dollars at infrastructure development to support renewable energy, particularly improvement and expansion of transmission grids. It’s characterized as a win-win scenario, getting people back to work while smoothing the way for substantially less carbon-intensive energy generation. That’s quite a …
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CONTINUE READINGObama’s Progressive Tax and Energy Policy
Though the budget released yesterday by the Obama Administration was short on details, it was long on big pronouncements that fundamentally shift federal policy in important areas. On the climate change front, the budget for the first time reveals the administration’s thinking on how it would distribute money raised from allowances issued under a proposed …
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