Consider the following recent news from Ernst & Young about investment in cleantech companies this quarter:
So there's no doubt that billions of dollars are flowing into this market from government, private investors, banks and major corporations.
The question is -- is it enough?
Is it enough to stimulate the economy? Is it enough to combat climate change? Is it even enough to keep up with China?
Despite the billions in loan guarantees and investments this year, there is still no clear federal policy on funding clean energy. But amidst all the sound and fury of the debt ceiling debate, however, some quiet steps were recently taken to change that.
In mid-July, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the Clean Energy Financing Act of 2011 with a rare unanimous vote. If that kind of broad bi-partisan support can sustain a vote on the floor, the bill would establish a Clean Energy Deployment Administration, or CEDA. Commonly referred to as a "Green Bank," CEDA would be an independent institution providing affordable financing for clean energy technologies who've had funding difficulties. A similar Green Investment Bank was recently launched in the UK, and even the conservative the US Chamber of Commerce supports the CEDA legislation.
While there are still questions about how the program will be funded, and which technologies should be included, the idea also has support from the influential American Energy Innovation Council, a group of America's top business executives who've developed a plan to make America a global leader in energy technology innovation. The Council's members include Bill Gates; John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins; Chad Holliday, chairman of Bank of America; and Jeff Immelt, chief executive of GE.
These business leaders have several recommendations for making CEDA successful, including: #1 -- Creating an independent national Energy Strategy Board, and #4 -- funding ARPE-E at $1 billion per year. But they warn that if their second recommendation is not met "our other recommendations will not matter much."
So what is their 2nd recommendation? Invest $16 billion per year in clean energy innovation.
Currently we're only investing $5 Billion per year. For comparison, the China Development Bank Corporation plans to finance more than $30 billion in clean energy each year, according to the Center for American Progress.
To keep our economy strong, and remain competitive, the business leaders on the Council say the US needs "sizable, sustained investments in clean energy innovation. We believe that $16 billion per year -- an increase of $11 billion over current annual investments of about $5 billion -- is the minimum level required. This funding should be set with multi-year commitments, managed according to well-defined performance goals, focused on technologies that can achieve significant scale, and be freed from political interference and earmarking."
Even if CEDA passes, these are lofty aspirations in today's political climate, to say the least. And if our top business leaders think triple what we're doing now is the minimum required to stay competitive, then I think we have our answer.
Are we investing enough in Clean Energy?
Sadly, no. Not by a long shot.
Follow Andy Mannle on Twitter: www.twitter.com/andymannle
Thanks for those encouraging examples of investments.
But you are so right.
We need to cut the MIC by 90%, size the bankster FED trillions fraudulently extorted at.004%, end all the fossil and nukes subsidies and breaks and Tax the rich and the multinationals.
invest ALL of that in infrastructure, green energy and the citizens safety nets. At least 5 trillion over the next 5 years.
say 1/3rd each, or 1.3Trillion in green energy.
rooftop pv solar, offshore wind, and waste bio char bio fuels are ready to provide all the energy and fuels the world needs. 24/7. forever, safe clean and cheaper than clean coal, oil wars, and nukes.
Name one Solar Cell plant totally powered by solar cells?
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors are cheaper than DIRTY COAL.
Robert Hargraves : THORIUM ENERGY CHEAPER THAN FROM COAL ~ AIM HIGH!
http://wwwÂ.youtube.cÂom/watch?vÂ=BOoBTufkEÂog
It is the combination: rooftop solar, offshore wind, and waste bio char bio fuels that can supply all the energy and fuel's we need.
You ask a straw man question.
Liquid thorium reactors don't exist.
REE (Rare Earth Elements) so necessary for all those wonderful Earth Friendly
Technologies, wind mills, electric cars, etc., are buried in mounds of THORIUM!
Thorium the fuel used in LFTRs!
LFTRs is the remedy for Weapon Grade Nuclear Waste. LFTRs consumes the
WGNW. One metric tonne of thorium consumed in a LFTR could produce:
9900 GWe*hr of electricity (at 45% conversion efficiency)
up to 15 kg (8400 watts*thermal) of Pu-238 for NASA space missions
20 kg of molybdenum-99 for medical procedures
5 g of thorium-229 for targeted alpha therapy medical procedures
3300 thermal watts of strontium-90 for heating sources
150 kg of stable xenon
125 kg of stable neodymium
that’s about
$600M worth of electricity
~$100M worth of Pu-238
~$200-300M worth of Mo-99
and about $300K worth of xenon and neodymium
and many lives saved through clean electricity and medical radioisotopes.
Robert Hargraves : THORIUM ENERGY CHEAPER THAN FROM COAL ~ AIM HIGH!
http://wwwÂ.youtube.cÂom/watch?vÂ=BOoBTufkEÂog
http://www.coal2nuclear.com/
Did not look at the videos, did you?
The mind is like a parachute it only works when its OPEN.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors are very close to eliminating your concerns.
Robert Hargraves : THORIUM ENERGY CHEAPER THAN FROM COAL ~ AIM HIGH!
http://wwwÂ.youtube.cÂom/watch?vÂ=BOoBTufkEÂog
LFTR reactors all have problems, and you will next refuse to provide a single design to refute.
This is the way of the Thorium Nuclear Fission folks.
Rooftop solar, offshore wined and waste bio char bio fuels,
are all cheaper than Nukes, clean coal, and oil wars.
Our pathetic nation is flooding the coffers of Chevron, Google, BP, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc. for their Big Solar and Big Wind and Big Transmission boondoggles while letting our massive, sprawling, baking built environment rot. Our strategy so far has been "slaughter healthy desert ecosystems and endangered species so that Big Energy can make billions off of greenwashed power and prevent democratization of our energy supply."
NO, THANKS. Everyone from libertarians to green party should be fighting for ENERGY DEMOCRACY AND INDEPENDENCE so that WE can participate in the renewable energy economy as more than piggy banks for Big Energy monopolists. PACE loans and generous feed in tariffs would have solved so many of our economic, ecological and climate problems, but since they don't enrich Big Energy, they have been completely blocked.
Big Energy is the problem, period. Get rid of them and we have healthy ecosystems, no more AGW, affordable, reliable clean energy and millions of jobs.
I can drive across the country and count on one hand the number of solar panels or wind turbines I see.
The Jobs thing is mostly myth because it's still more expensive than oil, coal, gas and thus it's a net jobs killer.
I think we should be honest about that, there is a cost to going green and it's jobs. Industry will flee to nations with less expensive energy....or they will go out of business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain solar doing fine in Spain.
panels lasting longer and better than predicted http://solar.gwu.edu/Research/EnergyPolicy_Zweibel2010.pdf Great article about price of solar now 3$/W installed. last 100 years, 1-2 cents pwer KWH after the first 20 years and the loan is paid off.
cheapest new solar panels 1-2$/Wp http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
Then see what subsidies you can get, there are lots of them: http://www.dsireusa.org/
http://www.ncwarn.org/2010/07/solar-and-nuclear-costs-the-historic-crossover/
http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NCW-SolarReport_final1.pdf
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-06-16-german-rooftop-solar-price-averages-less-than-4-per-watt
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sunergy-offers-5-cent-solar-billing-2009-12
With the right financing solar can save money and energy today. What we need is a national policy that sets our sights firmly on clean energy and makes the right investments. Otherwise, we're going to get beaten by foreign competitors. It is a global market, after all, and the race is on for clean energy. We need to keep up!