job creation

According to the popular saying—one often bandied about real estate circles; when it comes to deciding where to live there's little else that matters more than location. Soon, however, the criteria for judging the desirability of a particular locale may be getting a little more...specific. We're not just talking about the various and sundry aspirations loosely contained under headings like 'standard of living' or 'quality of life'—in these tough economic times people need to crunch a lot of numbers before making the difficult decision to stay put or uproot. For many, the numbers their local utility companies are coming up with are starting to raise serious concerns. Not only in California (see previous post), but across the country in places like Albuquerque, Central Ohio, West Virginia and Holland, Michigan rates are on the rise. At the rate of 4, 5 and 6 percent, the increases have hardly gone unnoticed. Take, for instance, West Virginia State Treasurer John Perdue's recent speech in which he officially announced his candidacy for Governor of West Virginia:

"Over the past few months, I have listened to many West Virginians about their hopes and dreams," Perdue said. "They want good-paying jobs. They want a better life for their children. They are concerned about skyrocketing utility costs." That's right, for the people of West Virginia utility rates are right up at the top of the priority list alongside the desire for good jobs and good schools. If Perdue is elected, he has promised to "stand up to the utility companies and tell them that their rate increases are crippling both our citizens and our businesses". Easier said than done. West Virginia is the second-largest coal-producing state in the nation—they're also the second-poorest state in the nation. But between the environmental concerns and controversy surrounding mountain-top removal and the looming threat of carbon cap legislature—West Virginians are stuck between a lump of coal and a hard place. This means that state politicians like Perdue may have a much bigger job on their hands than just getting "the fox out of the henhouse".

This week, Chinese news outlet Chinadialogue published an informative article about the future of coal in West Virginia. The article is titled: America's Coal War. To put WV's woes in perspective for the rest of us, the author explains

For decades, the advance of distributed solar power in the United States has seen its share of setbacks. Distributed solar, as opposed to centralized (think big desert arrays like these), refers to solar photovoltaic panels—PV panels for short. In fact, just a few short years ago, headlines everywhere were warning investors of the impending burst of a 'solar bubble' caused by too much supply and not enough demand. While it's true that many solar start-ups have since fallen by the wayside, a new industry report by VLSI Research is seeing more than a light at the end of the tunnel—they're seeing the potential for a PV explosion.

According to weSRCH, who published the report, 2011 is slated to be a banner year for PV sales and investment. VLSI's market research states that PV sales are "expected to grow 24%, driving sales to in excess of $12B". Sounds like good news...and boy, did we need some good news. The recent financial crisis caused more than one hiccup for the growth of PV: in 2010, Spain (a global leader in solar installations) was forced to cut back their feed-in tariffs for solar. In the same year, the PACE financing scheme for solar installations in some U.S. states ran into some legal trouble of their own. According the VLSI, however, there’s a silver lining to be found here, too: "Looking back, 2010 was a record year for PV Manufacturing Equipment, beating the previous peak reached in 2008 by around 10%."

The report goes on to name companies like Applied Materials, Amtech, Apollo Solar, Komatsu, Jusung, GS Solar, and Meyer Burger as the big success stories of 2010. It also sites new manufacturing innovations as one reason for PV's surprising growth rate last year. What's interesting to note is that of the companies mentioned above, only Applied Materials and Amtech are based in the U.S. The others are from around the globe: South Korea, Switzerland, Japan, and of course, China. But this doesn't mean the U.S. doesn't stand to benefit greatly from 2011's 'sunny' forecast for solar sales—quite to the contrary...

...That is the question. But if we don't drill, how else are we going to secure the nation's supply of what many are calling the 'bridge fuel' that's going to help us go from a carbon-based (coal) energy economy to a low-carbon (or even carbon-free) one: natural gas.

In the documentary, BTLS focuses on two gas-drilling booms or gas 'plays', as the industry calls them-the established Barnett shale in Texas, and the gargantuin Marcellus shale, which covers much of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. Due to the recent discovery of the Marcellus shale's potential for natural gas production (once thought to be played out), gas drilling companies are making a mad dash to lease land and get wells drilled. And in many places (as BTLS documented in Houston, Pennsylvania) the gas boom has meant economic prosperity for many struggling farmers and local business owners.
 
Also resulting from the rush to drill: concerns over the environmental impacts of shale drilling, specifically those impacts resulting from a new technique of gas-drilling called hydraulic fracturing [also shortened to hydrofracking, or just fracking]. But the effects of getting that gas out of the ground aren't just going to impact the areas covering the Marcellus, there are many other gas-producing shale formations covering the rest of the continental U.S...including the state of Michigan.

Michigan's Antrim shale was the site of a large gas play in the 1990's, at the time making it "the most actively drilled shale gas play in the US, with thousands of wells drilled." That's over 10,000 wells drilled. So do Michiganders need to be worried about fracking-related water and air contamination? For answers I talked to Amy Mall, Senior Policy Analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Amy contributes to the NRDC's awesomely informative staff blog, 'Switchboard', and is the authority on anything and everything related to oil and gas production.

Right now, however, you may be asking yourself 'isn't drilling regulated by the government'? The BTLS Braintrust asked the same question of the NRDC, who reminded us that state regulators only know what we tell them. If communities and land-owners ask the right questions of regulators and drilling companies (preferably with a lawyer present, cautions Mall) we can all avoid a fate similar to that of DISH, TX.

According to Mall, gas drilling permits are issued by year, so in addition to the more than 10,000 active wells currently in Michigan, there were 270 new permits issued in the state last year alone. Each of those 270 communities could be the next to face an environmental clean up if drillers and land owners don't proceed with caution. So what are the right questions? And who should you ask?

Subsidies for renewable energy may be going away...again.

America's stormy love affair with renewable energy began in the 1970's, when President Jimmy Carter introduced subsidies for what were then termed 'alternative' energy resources. But the burgeoning wind and solar industries that grew under Carter were not fated to last long. Nurturing an infant renewable energy industry was not part of Ronald Reagan's presidential image, nor his platform. Beyond the Light Switch looks at this pivotal time in our nation's history as a means to understand the current state of our energy policy and energy politics.

Currently, the hopes of many long-suffering renewable energy supporters (and industry players) have been pinned on the Obama administration. And Obama did make good--by ushering in subsidies for renewables, known as the "1603 grants" (so-called for the section of the stimulus bill that created them). And just in case you were wondering what those grants actually do, today The LA Times was kind enough to lay it out for us--the 1603 grants "paid up to 30% of the cost of projects breaking ground by the end of this year. Renewable facilities generating a combined 4,250 megawatts (the equivalent of roughly four large nuclear plants) were supported by the program as of March, according to a report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; that output is doubtless far higher now. The grants have created thousands of jobs, and helped clean the air and wean the country off fossil fuels. But all that may be about to stop".

Sounds scary, doesn't it? Well, what's happening is...

Last week the seemingly cursed Cape Wind offshore wind farm project finally made some headway, inking their PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with National Grid for a hefty rate of 18.7 cents a kilowatt-hour. And that's the revised rate - down from 21.5 cents a kilowatt-hour.

But Cape Wind's still got support where it counts...hot on the heels of the contract's approval by state utility regulators, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar jumped to announce his comprehensive plan to expedite development of the project.

Or, in the words of the Department of the Interior, they want to help get those turbines in the water "in the shortest time period possible". It's a bad sign when the Federal Government itself gets fed up with all of the red tape.

The tension surrounding Cape Wind has left some experts worried that such vociferous resistance from the public does not bode well for future off-shore proposals elsewhere...