(Photo credit: Sunpower)

Adoption of renewable energy standards — which require electric utility companies to produce a portion of their electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources — has considerably driven clean energy advances in recent years.

Some 29 states and the District of Columbia have adopted hard targets for renewable energy production with another eight states setting renewable energy goals. Standards place an obligation on electricity-supply companies to reach set targets, while renewable energy goals are voluntary for companies — although states might incentivize a utility for reaching a set goal. Collectively, state renewable energy standards have supported the development of more than 33,000 megawatts of new renewable power through 2011 and by 2025 will provide 10 percent of the nation’s current electric generation capacity.

But legislators in at least 14 states have introduced bills that would water down or repeal the mandates. So far only Montana is on the verge of wiping out the renewable energy standard entirely by including existing hydropower facilities. SB 31 has passed both chambers and is awaiting Governor Steve Bullock’s decision.

Organizations like the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Council, or ALEC, and Koch-backed Grover Norquist have been lobbying against renewable energy policies, and pushing “model legislation” to undo these standards.

The good news is that the Colorado Senate has bucked the trend and will soon pass SB 252 — sponsored by state Senate President John Morse. The Senate still must have a third and final vote on the bill. SB 252 will raise the state’s renewable energy standard to 25 percent for rural electric cooperatives by 2020 — an increase from 10 percent.

SB 252 will affect two main cooperative associations: Tri-State Generation & Transmission, which is the state’s second-largest utility and provides electricity to 18 Colorado member cooperatives, and the Intermountain Rural Electric Association. Cooperatives in Colorado serve 70 percent of the state’s landmass but 25 percent of the population. Tri-State has sought to block the legislation.

Colorado became the first state to create a renewable energy standard by ballot initiative when voters approved Amendment 37 in November of 2004. Then, in March of 2007, HB 1281 increased the mandate to 20 percent and extended a separate renewable-energy requirement of 10 percent to rural electric cooperatives. In March of 2010, Colorado legislators passed, and Governor Bill Ritter signed, HB 1001 into law further expanding the standard to 30 percent for utilities.

Between 2005 and 2010, the clean technology sector in Colorado grew by 32.7 percent and now has over 1,600 clean technology companies employing over 19,000 workers –fourth nationwide. In 2010, the clean technology sector was the only sector in the state to grow.

Expanding Colorado’s renewable energy standard will not only continue to create clean jobs in Colorado, it will also reduce soot, smog, mercury, and global warming pollution from the state’s electricity sector. SB 252, if enacted, will incentive quick action for the rural cooperatives required to meet the increased renewable portfolio standard by 2020, allowing additional credits for renewable resources added before 2015. The legislation also promotes investment in local small-scale projects which will allow rural landowners to benefit by leasing land for wind farms– creating an additional income stream. In fact, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, wind energy provides 10 times more local tax revenue than a coal-fired power plant in Colorado.

SB 252 will continue to help Colorado remain a leader in the clean energy sector.

Matt Kasper is a Special Assistant for the Energy Policy team at the Center for American Progress. Lexy Atmore is an Energy Policy intern and contributed to this piece.

Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill requiring California utilities to get a third of their power from renewable sources, the country's most aggressive clean energy standard (AP Photo)

By Jorge Madrid via EDF

California has a thriving clean economy. In fact, the Golden State boasted more green jobs in clean energy and transportation last year than the other top 4 states combined, according to a new report by Environmental Entrepreneurs.

Here are some more highlights:

Innovation: The state is a hub for clean energy innovation. Clean technology patents grew by 26 percent in the past 2 years, outpacing the country and the rest of the world. It is the “undisputed leader in solar technology patents” according to Next10.org, with totals greater than the cumulative solar patents of the next eight highest states.

Energy Generation: Total renewable energy generation has grown 28 percent between 2007 and 2011 and wind energy has doubled during this same period. Earlier this month, the state broke its own record for solar power — over 15,394 megawatt-hours of power to the grid, enough for every Californian to keep a 100-watt bulb lit for four hours. Not to be outdone, the state also surpassed 4-gigawatts of wind power — similar to what California’s two nuclear plants can churn out at full power, or enough to momentarily supply over 2.5 million homes.

Jobs: Green jobs are growing four times faster than the rate of all other jobs nationwide, with the majority happening in California according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. EDF’s analysis of California’s clean economy finds that jobs in core sectors like energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean transportation, and advanced storage and materials have not only remained resilient during the worst of the Great Recession (2008-2010), they outpaced all other job growth and grew 109 percent from 1995 to 2010.

Green jobs are also good jobs in California. They are diverse, across a wide range of education-level and skills, and almost half of all jobs in the clean economy don’t require a college degree according to the Brookings Institution. On average, green jobs offer a higher median wage and career advancement opportunities. An analysis by Philip Romero, the former Dean of CSU Los Angeles College of Business and Economics finds that “workers command wages with a 50-to-100 percent premium over the average job,” and estimates that the overall clean economy will grow “by at least 60-to-100 percent” by the late 2030’s.

Something exciting is happening in California, and at this point you may be wondering what our secret is.

It’s policy. California boasts a legacy of innovation stemming from the state’s leadership in environmental policy — it happens here first and it transforms markets. It is evidenced in everything from improved tailpipe emission standards and higher performing gas mileage in cars, greater efficiency in household appliances, and greener building practices that has transformed the sector and created hundreds of billions of dollars in economic value. All these innovations started with policy.

I believe good stuff can happen when you set clear policies that signal markets and influence behaviors. There is a reason why 24 percent of hybrid and 32 percent of electric vehicles in the US are registered in California: good policy that led to better cars and consumers who could see the improvement to their bottom line at the gas pump. California leads in renewable energy, efficiency, and clean transportation in strong part because of strong policies like AB 32 which puts a price on carbon and sets a statewide Renewable Portfolio Standard, providing a clear market signal for greater investment in clean technology.

And by the way, someone local has to install all those solar panels and wind turbines, weatherize all those homes, as well as maintain and operate all those buses and rail cars — good jobs in the clean economy follow smart policy.

It turns out that California’s “secret” to growing green jobs and a thriving clean economy is not so secret at all… it’s good policy.

– Jorge Madrid is a Climate and Air Fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund. This piece is reposted with permission of the author.

By Mari Hernandez and Rebecca Lefton

In March, the Bureau of Labor Services released its green jobs report, which reported a total of 3.4 million jobs associated with the production of green goods and services in 2011 – up from 3.1 million green jobs in 2010. Growing at a rate four times faster than all other jobs, the green sector offers new opportunities for good-paying jobs across the U.S. and raises the question: Are women benefitting from the transition to a green economy as much as men?

A new study suggests not, finding that women hold just three out of ten green jobs in the U.S. and are making less than men in the green sector. In the report “Quality Employment for Women in the Green Economy,” the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) provides estimates of the number of green jobs held by women within each state, industry and occupation using data gathered from surveys (BLS Green Goods and Services Survey and U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2008-2010), state reports and a 2011 report on green jobs (Brookings study). Several of the key findings from the report include:

• Women are underrepresented in the green economy, holding just 29.5 percent of green jobs compared to 48 percent of the total U.S. workforce
• Women’s estimated median earnings are higher in the green economy than in the overall economy ($38,486 compared to $35,574)
• The gender wage gap is lower in the green economy than in the overall economy (18 percent compared to 22 percent, for 2008-2010)
• The distribution of jobs in the green economy is more concentrated in industries that typically employ more men than women, including manufacturing, construction, transportation, warehousing and utilities
• Women’s share of green jobs is expected to stay low since the occupations that are projected to see the most growth are traditionally held by men (heating and air conditioning technicians, carpenters and electricians)

With this first-of-its-kind analysis of the gender distribution of green jobs, the IWPR has uncovered both good and bad news. The good news: the green economy offers higher-paying jobs for women and a lower wage gap. The bad news is that this report also exposed the glaring underrepresentation of women in the green economy and a bleak outlook for women in the sector going forward.

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Energy resource diversity in the electricity sector is important to any region’s energy portfolio. Having a range of energy options increases grid stability, reduces consumers’ exposure to price spikes in any energy source, and makes policy changes (including a price on carbon) easier to handle. While resource diversity is intuitively valuable, it’s often used as a catchphrase to defend the status quo or argue against renewable portfolio standards at the state level.

In a recent House subcommittee hearing on electricity diversity, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) spoke out in favor of a diverse energy mix, but added that “the best way to strike the right balance is through market forces – not government mandates or other market distorting policies.” In this post we’re attempting to add some rigor to the conversation by measuring the electricity generation diversity in each state over the past 20 years.

To measure generation diversity, we used the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), which is commonly used to determine market concentration in an industry as well as economic diversity. The HHI measures the extent to which an industry is dominated by a few firms. We chose to use this index because it measures the level of concentration in an industry (or, in this case, the level of concentration in the electricity sector).

The HHI is simply the sum of the square of each market participant’s market share. The resulting value, the HHI, is a fraction between 0 and 1, which represents the competitiveness of an industry. A market with only one participant — who would have 100% market share – has an HHI of 1. As more firms enter the market and each participant’s market share decreases, the HHI goes down, with extremely diverse markets having an HHI near zero. In our case, the HHI represents energy diversity within the electricity sector. We took the percentage of the generation mix from each energy resource (coal, natural gas, wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear, and others) in each state, according to Energy Information Administration data. We then squared each percentage, and added them together, repeating this calculation for every year from 1990 to 2011. If the HHI moves closer to 0 over the years measured, then the energy mix has become less concentrated and more diverse. If the HHI value increases over time and moves closer to 1, then the energy mix has become more concentrated and less diverse.

The table below shows how each state’s generation portfolio diversity has changed from 1990 to 2011 and provides two separate rankings — one based on 2011 energy diversity and one based on the change in energy diversity (found by subtracting the 2011 HHI value from the 1990 HHI value for every state).

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Tonight, 62 Senators voted for an amendment to the Fiscal 2014 Budget Resolution that attempts to give Congress the power to approve the Keystone pipeline. This is despite the fact that the pipeline would do nothing to make the country more energy independent, and would create far fewer jobs than its supporters claim.

While some conservatives may claim the pipeline would create “more than 20,000 direct jobs,” the most recent State Department impact assessment found that the pipeline would directly create only “3,900″ temporary construction jobs. After construction is complete, the operation of the pipeline would only support 35 permanent and 15 temporary jobs, with “negligible socioeconomic impacts.” Moreover, only 10 percent of the total workforce would be hired locally. For perspective, our country had 3.4 million green energy jobs in 2011 and it was the fastest-growing industry in the country.

The State Department’s report also made clear that at least some of the Keystone oil will be refined and then exported, in response “to lower domestic gasoline demand and continued higher demand and prices in overseas markets.” This means the pipeline adds nothing to U.S. energy security, a key talking point used by proponents. It also means that the pipeline is a way for the industry to get access to steeper oil prices in foreign markets. So why the intense push in the U.S. Senate to get this project approved?

Perhaps it has something to do with campaign contributions from the oil industry. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the 10 co-sponsors received $561,539 on average in contributions from the oil industry compared to the other 89 voting senators who received $224,777.

The budget is unlikely to make its way into law. CREDO Political Director Becky Bond said “the only thing today’s nonbinding, symbolic vote underscores on Keystone XL is the fact that this is President Obama’s decision alone and his alone.” LCV President Gene Karpinski said “Big Oil may have bought themselves this meaningless vote, but the decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline remains where it’s been all along — with Secretary Kerry and President Obama.”

Winterization installs energy-efficient windows

The recently released Senate and House budget resolutions for fiscal year 2014 reflect diametrically opposed visions of American’s energy and climate futures. The Senate budget invests in clean energy technologies that reduce carbon pollution responsible for climate change. The House budget, on the other hand, ignores climate change and defunds clean energy technologies.

The proposed Senate budget resolution — “Foundation for Growth: Restoring the Promise of American Opportunity,” authored by Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) — would boost the United States into the 21st century by investing in the clean energy industry, which will be a $1.9 trillion market from 2012 through 2018. In addition, the Senate resolution would attack the carbon pollution that is responsible for climate change.

Michael Linden, Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress, noted that Sen. Murray’s overall budget “would promote immediate job creation, lay the foundations for future broad-based growth, and responsibly pursue deficit reduction.” The Murray budget’s funding proposals would also help address the fundamental challenges of clean energy development and slow climate change.
Meanwhile, the House budget resolution — “The Path to Prosperity: A Responsible, Balanced Budget,” written by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) — would continue investment in the dirty fossil fuels of the past while disinvesting in clean energy. And it ignores the looming disruptive and expensive threat of climate change.

Reducing oil dependence and carbon pollution from transportation

Traffic congestion in the United States, partly due to damaged roads and inadequate access to public transit, wastes 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline annually, or nearly 196,000 barrels of oil per day, according to the latest Urban Mobility Report published by the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute. The study also estimated that “additional carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions attributed to traffic congestion: 56 billion pounds—about 380 pounds per auto commuter.”

Sen. Murray’s budget would eliminate some of this oil waste and carbon pollution by investing $50 billion in “repairing our nation’s highest priority deteriorating transportation infrastructure … [including] fixing crumbling roads, bridges … [and] updating our mass transit.” Her budget would also provide “$10 billion to create an infrastructure bank that will leverage investment from the private sector” for additional road and transit projects.

Conversely, the Ryan budget would increase oil use and carbon pollution by slashing investments in transportation below current levels.

Fighting climate change and investing in clean energy technology

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Global solar insolation average. Notice bright red oval on lower right. (Credit Mines ParisTech/Armines 2006)

Australia is climate change’s canary in a coal mine. It has been suffering heat waves, floods, and wildfires in a climate-fueled “angry summer” that demonstrates how critical reducing carbon emissions really is.

Australians are finding ways to use the sun’s energy to reduce fossil fuel consumption. According to a new report, Australia’s solar photovoltaic market could reach 10 gigawatts in five years:

The Australian solar PV market could tip the 10,000 mewagatt (10 gigawatt) mark as early as 2017, and could reach the “saturation” levels for owner-occupied houses in many areas in coming years, according to a new report.

The five-year forecast prepared by leading market analysts Sunwiz and Solar Business Services says that the Australian solar PV market – currently at 2.5GW – will likely grow to between 6GW and 10GW by 2017.

The actual outcome will depend on the speed of the growth in the largely untapped commercial sector, the pace of large, utility-scale solar farms, and the industry’s ability to penetrate more challenging parts of the residential sector.

That “saturation rate” has already been achieved in some areas of the owner-occupied residential sector — reaching 90 percent in some localities. Nationally, the average penetration rate is 20 percent. Adding apartment buildings into the mix, this share drops to 10 percent, and it is this rental market that offers the most promise for growth in solar installations.

You can see the prime driver of solar PV installation in Australia here:

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While the prospects of comprehensive energy legislation remain grim in Washington, real action to address climate change and grow the clean economy is being taken on the state level.

California in particular is a shining example of state-based leadership on climate, having established its own cap-and-trade mechanism — a key element in the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (also known as AB 32) — that will soon be linked with the Province of Québec which will decrease overall greenhouse gas emissions and provide greater flexibility to California businesses. The state also has a Renewable Portfolio Standard of 33 percent by 2020 (the state utilities have already met 20 percent of its electricity needs through renewables), and a net metering program allowing customers to receive financial credit for power generating by their onsite system.

Thanks to the foresight of California policymakers and ample natural resources, the state leads the nation in solar projects, solar megawatts installed, and the average cost per watt of solar. In 2011, $1.9 billion was invested in the state to install solar on homes and businesses, and there are currently more than 1,500 solar companies working throughout the manufacturing chain in California. California even ranks second in wind installation, while also leading the nation in most wind capacity installed in 2011.

Clearly, Californians have much to be proud of when it comes to taking strong action to reduce carbon emissions and fighting the urgent threat of climate change.

This week, Southern California energy providers came to DC to highlight the state’s great achievements and recommend action that could be taken at the federal level needed to maintain long term energy reliability for California while at an event hosted by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The panelists called for three specific items of legislation that federal lawmakers can enact to not only support California policies, but create economic and environmental benefits for the entire country:

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By Evan Mills, via Property Casualty 360

Whatever insurers may think about the presence or causes of climate change, one thing is certain: the business climate is changing, rapidly.

New technologies are entering the market for saving and supplying cleaner energy in buildings, transport, and industry — and insureds are adopting these “green” technologies left and right. Renewable energy investment around the world topped $257 billion in 2011 (80% of the investment in fossil fuel capacity), approaching half of all new electrical generating capacity globally. Energy efficiency and “green-buildings” have also become multi-billion-dollar markets, and growth is showing no signs of slowing.

With this comes a need to assess and manage associated emerging risks, as well as be an early mover to capture business opportunities and stay in tune with customers who are increasingly “going green.”

Read Mills’ “From Risk to Opportunity 2012: The Greening of Insurance“

I have cataloged over 1100 climate-oriented activities conducted by 378 insurance entities in 51 countries. Surprisingly more are based in the U.S. than any other country, although some of the most concerted efforts are to be found elsewhere.

Care should be taken that these well-intended efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions don’t have inadvertent consequences. That said, some pundits have focused myopically on potential downsides, without considering the prospective co-benefits. For example, insurers have long found that facilities that institutionalize a “culture” of careful energy management experience fewer losses.

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House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his fiscal year 2014 budget yesterday. Once again, he offers a path to prosperity that is limited to corporate special interests like Big Oil.

Despite nearly two-thirds of Americans echoing President Obama’s push to tackle climate change through regulation, Ryan decided to concentrate his energy strategy on “restoring competition to the energy sector” and “stopping the government from buying up unnecessary land.” Unsurprisingly, Ryan has multiple cases of misinformation and at times, blatant lies.

Let’s break down the eight biggest falsehoods from Ryan’s energy vision:

1. “The construction of the Keystone XL Energy Pipeline would create more than 20,000 direct jobs and 118,000 indirect jobs while battling the high cost of gas.”

Contrary to Rep. Ryan’s claims, the Keystone XL pipeline would actually only support 35 permanent and 15 temporary jobs after construction is complete, with “negligible socioeconomic impacts,” according to the State Department’s revised draft environmental impact assessment.

2. “Once it was in operation, the pipeline would contribute an additional $5.2 billion in property taxes to communities along the route during the life of the pipeline.”

The TransCanada assessment that claims that the six states crossed by the pipeline would receive an additional $5.2 billion in property taxes fails to account for the likely damage caused by oil spills along the pipeline route. “In the past five years, more than half a million barrels of oil and other hazardous liquids have been spilled from U.S. pipelines, killing 76 people and causing some $2.4 billion in property damage, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.”

3. “The administration continues to penalize economically competitive sources of energy and to reward their uncompetitive alternatives. On the one hand, it pours money into its favored industries.”

According to an analysis by DBL Investors, the oil and gas industry has received a total of $446 billion in government subsidies from 1918 through 2009. Meanwhile, the renewable energy industry received just $5.5 billion from 1994-2009. U.S. taxpayers have invested $80 in oil for every $1 invested in clean, renewable energy. Moreover, the big five oil companies –BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — made a combined profit of $118 billion in 2012 while Reuters reported that the three American companies’ tax payments were “a far cry from the 35 percent top corporate tax rate.”

4. “In 2012, the Congressional Budget Office found total energy subsidies were $24 billion, of which $16 billion were spent on ‘green’ energy programs and $2.5 billion on fossil fuels.”

Ryan actually misquoted the report, which actually refers to subsidies from 2011. Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office found that the government only spent $3.6 billion on energy efficiency and renewables in 2011.

5. “Many of the administration’s loan-guarantee projects have failed.”

Independent analysis of the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program has shown that that these investments were not only successful, but cost-effective. Despite the hysteria behind Solyndra, the program will cost $2 billion less than initially expected, for a total cost of $2.7 billion. To put that in perspective, the fossil-fuel industry got a whopping $70 billion in government subsidies from 2002 to 2008. The Loan Guarantee Program has allowed extremely important projects to move forward, including the world’s largest wind farm and our country’s biggest concentrating solar power project. Critically, the program created jobs for nearly 60,000 people.

6. “Beyond Solyndra, the latest ill-fated ventures include a $737 million loan guarantee to Solar Reserve for a 110-megawatt solar tower on federal land in Nevada and a $337 million guarantee for Mesquite Solar 1 to develop a 150-megawatt solar plant in Arizona.”

Politico reported that both of these projects are either already generating power or are on schedule with construction.

SolarReserve’s 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, near Tonopah, Nev., has inked a 25-year agreement to sell electricity to the power company NV Energy. The project is on track for completion later this year…. Ryan’s other target, the Mesquite Solar 1 project west of Phoenix, flipped the switch to electricity generation earlier this year. Media reports described it at the time as a success story of the DOE loan guarantee program.

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