by Daniel J. Weiss

Fossil fuel companies and their political allies have spent millions of dollars on advertising to persuade Americans that drilling and mining are the best solutions to our energy problems. Despite their spending, these polluters haven’t convinced most Americans – including many Republicans — to support their proposals.

A brand new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll found overwhelming public support for renewable energy tax credits, a clean energy standard, and increased regulation of hydraulic fracking for oil and gas production.

The nationwide poll of 1,004 adults was conducted from May 17-20. It asked respondents about whether tax credits for renewable energy — such as the Production Tax Credit for wind set to expire the end of this year — should be extended:

Supporters of these tax credits say they should be extended because they create jobs and encourage the development of cleaner sources of energy. Opponents say they should end because they cost too much and have not been effective at encouraging the use of renewable energy. Do you think Congress should extend these energy credits, OR allow them to expire?

By better than a two to one margin, respondents wanted to extend the incentives. Independents favored such an extension by 64 to 29 percent, as did 48 percent of Republicans.  Only 43 percent of Republicans opposed the PTC extension.

Today, President Obama plans to visit TPI Composites, a manufacturer of wind turbine blades in Newton, Iowa that employs 700 people.  He is expected to again urge Congress to extend the PTC because it is vital for job creation and maintaining competitiveness in the wind energy industry. The National Journal poll suggests that most Americans agree with him.

Poll respondents demonstrated additional strong support for clean energy when they were asked about whether they favored a Clean Energy Standard that would require utilities to generate 80 percent of their electricity with low- or no carbon resources by 2035.

Legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would create a national clean-energy standard that requires the country to generate an increasingly large percentage of its electricity from cleaner sources of energy, including renewable energy, natural gas, and nuclear power. Supporters of this policy say it would promote cleaner energy and not add an undue cost onto consumers. Opponents say imposing a national clean-energy standard would cost jobs and create higher electricity costs. What is your opinion – do you think the country should or should NOT create a national clean-energy standard?

The National Journal poll found that supporters outnumbered opponents by nearly 40 percent. This included independents who favored it by 64 to 23 percent. Even Republicans favored a Clean Energy Standard by one percent.

Fossil fuel interests are spending millions of dollars advertising and lobbying to convince Congress to leave hydraulic fracturing unregulated — despite its production of large amounts of air, water, and climate pollution.   So far, it appears Big Oil has made little progress convincing the public to support their position. Respondents were asked:

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is a process used to develop deposits of natural gas recently discovered in many regions of America. Environmentalists and some residents living near drilling operations worry that fracking can contaminate drinking water sources and worsen climate change. The oil and natural gas industry maintains the process is safe and can create jobs and promote energy independence. Which of the following comes closest to your view of what the federal government should do on this issue?

One of six respondents wanted to “ban fracking altogether because it’s not safe for the environment.”  A majority supported an “increase in regulation of fracking to protect the environment, but NOT ban it.”  A total of sixty eight percent wanted either a ban or more safeguards from fracking. Only one quarter of poll subjects wanted to “reduce regulation of fracking to encourage more natural gas production.”

Some 68 percent of independents wanted to ban or regulate fracking. A clear majority of Republicans wanted either a ban or more regulation. Only 41 percent of GOPers wanted to reduce regulation.

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In a major sign of confidence during a period of “rolling uncertainty” in the global renewable energy market, Goldman Sachs says it will invest $40 billion in the sector over the next decade.

The investment bank is already a major financier of renewable energy and energy efficiency around the world, putting $4.8 billion into projects last year alone.

Taken across the next decade, the new $40 billion plan would mean that Goldman is investing $800 million less per year than in 2011. However, it would still roughly equal the rate of investment during its first major foray into the sector between 2005 and 2011, according to Reuters:

In 2005, Goldman pledged to invest and finance $1 billion of environmentally friendly projects. By the end of 2011, the company had exceeded its goal, arranging $24 billion worth of financing and investing $4 billion into such projects, said Kyung-Ah Park, head of environmental markets at Goldman.

So is this a real vote for the sector or a public relations ploy?

Goldman was thrust back in the spotlight in March after a former executive wrote an op-ed lambasting the bank for “toxic and destructive” behavior.

“The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for,” wrote former Executive Director Greg Smith.

And in April, Goldman was given an “F” on a report card grading investment banks for their coal financing activities. While the bank actively monitors and reports emissions from coal-fired power plants it owns in the U.S., Goldman still doesn’t have a stated policy on destructive mountaintop removal coal mining.

There’s no doubt that Goldman — and every other investment bank — sees the opportunity to invest in renewable energy as a way to improve its brand. But committing $40 billion to the sector is more than a public relations campaign. It’s a clear sign that banks see the benefits of investing in these technologies.

“When investors deploy capital into renewable energy projects, they’re investing in proven technologies: solar PV, wind, biomass, geothermal. These technologies can be put to work today. Deals can be structured such so that investors can enjoy virtually bond-like, long-term returns with immediate yield,” said Bill Green, senior managing director of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, in a recent interview.

Goldman executives agree with that assessment. From the Reuters story:

Stuart Bernstein, head of Goldman’s clean technology and renewables investment banking group, compared the opportunity to technology investments in the 1990s or investing 10 years ago in fast-growing countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China, for which Goldman economist Jim O’Neill coined the term “BRIC” in 2001.

“This is another emerging opportunity we think will be quite large,” Bernstein said.

“Obviously we recognize this is not the easiest of times in the clean energy market but nevertheless the underlying thesis as to why cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy need to scale up still holds true,” Park said.

In 2011, global investments in clean energy totaled $260 billion — bringing cumulative investments since 2004 to over one trillion dollars. Last year was also the first time that investment in renewable energy surpassed fossil fuels.

by Melanie Hart

Chinese capital is finally flowing into the U.S. clean energy market. Chinese direct investment in the U.S. clean energy economy has grown from just $4 million annually in 2006 to over $260 million in 2011. That increase is attracting attention, and not all of it is positive.

Yesterday Third Way released a report concluding that U.S. private-sector investors are losing interest in investing at home due to the fickle American policy environment, leaving Chinese companies to fill the gap. The report’s authors worry that increasing Chinese participation in the U.S. clean energy market will “dramatically hamper U.S. companies’ ability to compete” and “slow economic growth and American leadership.”

Rather than welcome Chinese direct investments as job-creating, there is a tendency here in the United States to take a zero-sum view and assume that Chinese enterprise successes in this country are not good for American competitiveness. Last month, when China’s ENN Group announced plans to build a massive solar power R&D, manufacturing, and generation complex in Clark County Nevada, some U.S. commentators suggested that the ENN facility would force solar panel prices down even further and drive U.S. firms into bankruptcy.

When it comes to the U.S. clean energy market, Chinese companies must feel like they cannot catch a break.

Over the past few months, many voices in the United States—myself included—have called for stronger U.S. trade enforcement vis-à-vis China, particularly in clean energy manufacturing. It appears that in at least some cases, Chinese manufacturing companies may be breaking global trade rules. If that is true, then U.S. policymakers have to do a better job protecting American companies and making sure WTO-illegal trade behavior does not erode U.S. competitiveness in this sector.

Playing by the rules goes both ways, however. If Chinese companies are willing to come over to the U.S. market and compete on an equal playing field, we should welcome that with open arms, not with knee-jerk protectionism.

Chinese competition is not the problem. As long as the field is level, U.S. companies can handle the competition. And if we open up new clean energy opportunities here in the U.S., ideally that will give the Chinese companies that are willing to play by the rules a pathway for opting in to our rules-based system. If those companies are successful, that success will be a positive contributor to the U.S. market, and it may also help convince Chinese leaders that heavy government subsidization is not the best pathway forward toward Chinese clean energy success.

In reality, the real problem isn’t that Chinese companies are investing too much in U.S. clean energy technologies. The real problem is that they are not investing enough.

The United States does not have a clear policy framework on foreign direct investment. That makes our market difficult to traverse, and that means that in many cases, the only Chinese firms that can succeed here are the well-connected state-owned enterprises who are much more interested in fossil fuels than clean energy.

Growth rates for Chinese clean energy investments in the United States only look impressive when viewed in isolation. When you compare those numbers to the numbers for fossil fuels, clean energy is still just a drop in the bucket. In 2011, for example, China invested just under $2 billion USD in American fossil fuel sectors. Most of those investments went toward U.S. shale gas assets. The $260 million that went toward clean energy projects pales in comparison.

If we want to accelerate the clean energy market, we need to do more to level that playing field for U.S. and Chinese investors alike.

– Melanie Hart is an Analyst with Chinese Energy and Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress.

by Richard W. Caperton

Do anti-clean energy senators have any idea what Americans want?  If this morning’s hearing on the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012 is any guide, they don’t.  The truth is that Americans support a clean energy target for this country.  Senators should listen to the American public and pass this bill.

Let’s start at the beginning.  In her opening remarks, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) asked, “To me, the biggest question … is whether American’s really want a CES?”

If that’s the biggest question, then it’s time for the Senate to pass the CES Act, because the American people want more clean energy.

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans think that developing clean energy sources should be a bigger priority than expanding oil and coal production.  This is exactly what a CES would do.  The Energy Information Administration testified today that the Clean Energy Standard Act would lead to increased electricity generation from all low-carbon sources of power including renewables, nuclear, and natural gas.  While the exact mix of those resources is impossible to predict, wind and solar power increase dramatically in every scenario the EIA has analyzed.

That wasn’t the end of Murkowski’s misunderstanding of what the American people want.  She went on to say to the witnesses, “I think this is where the consuming public is coming from: If this is going to save me money, let’s talk about it; if it’s not, let’s not talk about it.”

In fact, that’s not where the consuming public is coming from.  Researchers from Harvard and Yale have found that Americans would be willing to pay an extra $162 per year to get 80 percent of their electricity from clean sources.  Conveniently, that’s exactly what the CES would do, so we know that Senator Murkowski’s presumption about what the public wants is wrong.  It’s also important to remember that while the EIA predicts small electricity rate increases from the CES, CAP’s analysis of state renewable energy standards shows that there’s no evidence that this policies increase rates.

Unfortunately, Senator Murkowski’s thinking is stopping the Senate from passing this common sense legislation that would drive clean our air, help prevent catastrophic climate change, and drive investment that can reinvigorate our economy.

Some senators are siding with the American people, though.  Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), who originally introduced this proposal and is leading the fight for a CES, understands why this bill is critical.  His opening statement is a welcome contrast to Murkowski’s:

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In an attempt to keep the political war against renewable energy in the headlines, Republicans are holding another hearing to question the value of government investments in the sector.

Looks like ten political sideshows on Solyndra weren’t enough.

If tomorrow morning’s hearing were being used as a chance to objectively assess where the industry stands, that would be one thing. But the title of the meeting gives away the real political intent: “The Obama Administration’s Green Energy Gamble: What Have All The Taxpayer Subsidies Achieved?

Actually, those green energy investments have yielded substantial returns. And before the political grandstanding begins in the House of Representatives tomorrow, here are five important things you should know about how promotion of clean energy has supported American businesses and consumers:

1. The 1603 grant program supported up to 75,000 jobs and 23,000 renewable energy projects during the height of the recession. When the recession hit, it was very difficult for project developers to find banks that were willing to utilize tax credits. So a cash grant program was created to give companies an easier way to finance projects. While it’s very difficult to know the exact influence of the grant on each project, the program played a major role in maintaining momentum — helping support $25 billion in gross economic activity, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

2. The production tax credit helps leverage up to $20 billion in private investment annually. With this key tax credit in place, the wind industry has dropped costs by 90% over the last few decades. It’s helped states like Iowa reach 20% wind penetration — bringing that state over 215 businesses that support 5,000 workers. Across the rest of the U.S., the entire industry supports 75,000 jobs, with 30,000 in manufacturing. However, up to 37,000 of those jobs could be at risk due Congressional lawmakers’ inability to extend the tax credit.

3. The loan guarantee program is expected to cost $2 billion less than budgeted. This program has gotten a black eye due to the bankruptcies of a few companies — most famously Solyndra — that received guarantees. But according to John McCain’s National Finance Chairman, Herb Allison, the cost to taxpayers will likely be far less than initially thought. In fact, over the last 20 years of experience, the U.S. government has shown a knack for managing risk — with loans and loan guarantee programs only costing tax payers 94 cents for every $100 dollars invested.

4. Home weatherization grew 1000% from April to June of 2011, creating 14,800 jobs. After a slow ramp-up, efficiency programs supported by the stimulus package have helped weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes. In addition to supporting the retrofits of individual homes, the Obama administration has supported the Better Buildings Initiative, a program that has leveraged billions of private dollars to upgrade more than 4 billion square feet of public and private buildings in the next two years. That’s enough demand to support over 100,000 jobs.

5. ARPA-E has supported dozens of potentially groundbreaking technologies in advanced materials, renewable fuels, electricity generation, waste heat, and battery storage. Helping enhance America’s lead in technological innovation, the Advanced Research Research Projects Agency for Energy — initially funded through the stimulus package — has helped inventors, companies, and university labs boost their work. This program has immense bi-partisan support for promoting the “innovative research that makes America great and has fueled our economic growth for generations.”

Despite these successes, Republicans continue milking the Solyndra bankruptcy for an election-year story that doesn’t hold up — dragging the rest of the clean energy industry into the mud.

The sector has gone through some high-profile shake-ups and bankruptcies, so it’s the duty of lawmakers to understand how tax payer dollars are being deployed. That’s a supportable endeavor. But holding yet another hearing to lambast the President for a so-called “gamble” in clean energy isn’t productive for anyone.

by Jeffrey Cavanagh

Even in the midst of an economic crisis, most European countries are staying committed to deploying renewable energy. But with demand starting to lag due to fiscal constraints, the region’s leaders are looking to large developing countries as growth markets for European companies.

A leaked version of the European Commission’s latest energy strategy shows how much importance leaders are putting on emerging markets:  “All in all, renewable energy export opportunities will strongly depend on the elimination of trade barriers in and free access to key emerging renewable energy markets such as in China, India and Brazil.”

China is a growth market with the most potential for Europe.

Last week, energy ministers from all 27 EU member countries met with Chinese ministers and energy policy counterparts in Brussels to discuss energy security, sustainable urban development, and electricity market reform. The two sides agreed to set up an energy partnership and work toward more open market access and transparency.

During EU Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso’s speech to Chinese leaders, Barroso expressed his strong support for a cooperative energy partnership between Europe and China:

The European Union and China are two of the global economy’s main actors, indeed the EU as the largest single market with a value of 12.6 trillion euros and China as the second largest economy in the world with national income of 5.2 trillion euros, respectively…We are both global stakeholders. Although we have had very different pasts, one thing is clear: We share to a large extent a common future, a future which will be determined by the manner in which we use the resources of our planet.

Leaders from both sides stressed the importance of Sino-EU relations, a partnership that recorded a record high trade volume of $567 billion in 2011. This represented more than $1.5 billion in daily trade.

China has accelerated its renewable energy investments, investing over $45 billion in the sector in 2011. This represented a 95 percent increase over the previous five years. China’s 12^th Five Year Plan similarly calls for aggressive renewable energy spending and development, opening up the largest market for renewable energy in the world.

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By Jessica Goad

Yesterday the Silver State North Solar Project on the California border near Primm, Nevada began generating electricity. It is the first-ever solar project sited on public lands to be completed and produce power.

The 50-megawatt project, which was developed by First Solar and owned by Enbridge, will power approximately 9,000 homes. It employed 380 workers at peak construction, just a portion of Nevada’s 17,254 jobs in green goods and services.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar described the significance of the project in a dedication ceremony:

… a landmark for America, a landmark for the solar industry and a landmark for how we use public lands.

The Silver State project is also notable because the company worked with stakeholders to avoid places unfit for industrial energy development. It is close to existing transmission lines and the size of the project’s footprint was reduced in order to minimize impacts on wildlife and the landscape. As the Nevada Wilderness Project wrote on its blog:

In the case of Silver State North, we dubbed this 600-acre project 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas “smart” because the developer was willing to gather environmental input early on to avoid complications during the formal review process. From where we sat at the review table, that was a good sign.

Currently there are a handful of wind and geothermal project sited on public lands that are operational. But until today, there were no solar energy projects producing power. The Interior Department has permitted 15 other solar energy projects that are in various states of construction, financing and permitting.

The Obama administration has permitted more renewable energy projects on public lands than all other administrations combined.  It is also in the process of finalizing a landmark set of guidelines that guide solar energy development into specially-designated zones, a new and improved model for energy development on public lands.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress.

Who would have thought that clean energy would become the source of such scorn for Mitt Romney, a candidate who called transitioning away from fossil fuels “a must” in 2007?

The Romney campaign released a new campaign ad this morning attacking clean energy jobs. Just like every other ad on the issue this election cycle, this one cherry-picks a few stories and claims that efforts to create jobs in this sector have failed.

As numerous reports have shown, the claims in this ad are completely absurd: The Brookings Institution found that the stimulus helped the clean energy sector grow 8.3 percent during the height of the recession; a report from the Department of Energy showed that the 1603 Treasury Grant Program supported 75,000 jobs and $25 billion gross economic activity; and a recent analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the clean economy now employs 3.1 million people — with growth in the last few years happening in every geographic region of the U.S.

And in a masterful piece of spin, the campaign ad actually insinuates that Obama is responsible for 10,000 job losses in the wind industry. Ask anyone in the wind industry and they’ll tell you those jobs have been shed because of Congress’ inability to pass the production tax credit and give businesses in the sector certainty — threatening an additional 37,000 jobs today. In fact, it was the stimulus package that helped the wind industry maintain 85,000 jobs during the height of the recession in 2009.

But here’s the real kicker: There are actually 64,000 renewable energy and energy efficiency jobs currently in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts. Because of strong state and federal policies (which Romney once supported), employment in Massachusetts’ clean energy sector grew 6.7 percent between 2010 and 2011 — crushing the 1% growth rate in the rest of the economy.

Check out the documentary film below to see what’s happening today in Romney’s home state. In just one short election cycle, the candidate has Etch-a-Sketched himself squarely against clean energy — even as the industry gains traction.

by Rebecca Lefton and Andrew Light

In 2010 the U.S. launched the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) as a collaborative effort among governments, the private sector, and other stakeholders to promote policies, programs, and technical solutions that will accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.

An outgrowth of the U.S.-led Major Economies Forum — which brings together the major carbon polluters in the world in a smaller forum than the U.N. climate negotiations — the CEM has evolved into a global alliance of 23 countries joined in a variety of partnerships to advance energy efficiency, increase renewable energy, and provide modern energy access solutions to 10 million people by 2015.

Last week the CEM met in London and had its most successful meeting to date, greatly expanding a number of its initiatives on technology cooperation. This alone would have signaled a successful meeting. But the parties went even further, joining forces with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s Sustainable Energy For All (SE4ALL) initiative.  SE4ALL has emerged as the key goal for the upcoming Rio+20 meeting in June, an event marking the 20^th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit that gave birth to the U.N. framework conventions on climate change, biological diversity, and desertification.

Moon’s Sustainable Energy For All goals are to (1) ensure universal access to electricity by 2030, (2), double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030, and (3) double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030.  While some in the environment and development community had doubted the U.N.’s ability to move this new platform over the finish line in Rio, this show of support from the CEM parties greatly increases the chances of success by adding a necessary level of detail for how the goals would move forward.

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by James Newcomb, via the Rocky Mountain Institute

Electric utilities and policymakers in Japan and Germany have been scrambling for months to find ways to compensate for nuclear power plants shut down in the aftermath of Fukushima.

In both instances, fossil fuels are part of the stopgap solution to offset the declines in nuclear generation in the short term, but longer-term energy policies are shifting definitively toward efficiency and renewables. Now, the unexpected and indefinite shutdown of both units at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Southern California has raised questions about California’s short-term electricity supply options and long-term contingency plans.

Not surprisingly, efficiency, demand response, and renewables could play a key role in helping to diversify and mitigate risks for Southern California’s electricity supply future. The solutions being pioneered in these three markets, while driven by different circumstances, all take advantage new smart grid technologies to manage and integrate distributed resources.

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