Recently in Alternative Energy Category

Forbes.com:

Thanks to a state ban on competition among utilities, the manner in which electricity is provided hasn't changed for 100 years. Enormous power plants in remote locations generate the juice, which is then transported hundreds of miles on transmission towers and distribution poles on its way to homes and businesses. It's a long and tenuous supply chain, which makes it leaky and vulnerable. The blackout that darkened the Northeast in 2003 was caused by a tree branch in Ohio.

Engineers have developed small-scale generation technologies (micro-nuclear power plants, mini-gas turbines, solar panels and the like) that can dramatically shorten the distance from generation to end-use. These technologies could make the grid more reliable and eliminate the need for eyesore transmission towers. This can't happen right now, however, because state regulators allow only one provider of electricity in each service area keeping the energy industry locked into the old energy generation model.

If Congress were serious about addressing the problem of America's outdated grid, it would encourage states to dismantle the barriers to energy competition. Instead, it is pushing smart-grid subsidies to further entrench the electric industry's broken regulatory regime by funneling billions of dollars through monopolistic utilities and their bureaucratic benefactors in local government. These subsidies will simply prop up a broken and ossified system.

Example: I attended a lecture yesterday by Deepwater Wind. They're a group of entrepreneurs and investors who want to put in an off-shore wind farm south of Rhode Island's Block Island. DWW is answering the call of Rhode Island politicians to provide all residential power through renewable resources (20% of all RI power by 2020). They're doing it with little or no subsidies at all.

The engineering is pretty straightforward. Take a 3.5 MW wind turbine, technology that's been around for a decade or so now, and stick it on top of a modified version of an offshore oil platform that Americans have been building for a half-century. Since this project is further offshore, it's unlikely (though certainly possible) to suffer from Nantucket's Cape Wind NIMBY problem.

The three biggest roadblocks to such a worthwhile and environmentally-friendly project are federal environmental permitting, state land use and environmental agencies (google "SAMP"), and the state government-run power purchase monopolies agreements described in the article.

Big government isn't the solution to green power, my friends. Green power is chomping at the bit, but government refuses to ease its grip on the grid.

Joe Walsh:

If the early returns from the online environmental community are any indication, Kennedy’s progressive credentials earned him green cred that may even outstrip his actual accomplishment in the field. Thought leaders at places like Treehugger and Grist are singing his praises as an environmentalist, though it should be noted that they both cut and paste large swaths of their tributes from Kennedy’s own Senate page of accomplishments.

A Google search of the Senator’s name and the word “environment” brings up first-page hits that are incredulous about his opposition to the wind project, and a search pairing his name with the word “green” brings up mostly hits touting the rumor that Teddy had once been a Green Bay Packers prospect after his Harvard football career wound down.

In the end, I suspect that many Americans will be left with the mental image of the Senator as a sailor, so often was he photographed in nautical blue and white (with a touch of Red Sox red), sailing the waters off of Cape Cod. That image, his solid—if not aggressive—environmental voting record, and his unequaled progressive bona-fides will likely leave Senator Edward M. Kennedy with an environmental legacy that will only be burnished over the years - regardless of whether wind turbines ever tower over Horseshoe Shoal. [Greenpeace photo.]

I wonder if Catholic greens, like the pro-life faithful, regret that he didn't do more for the cause.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has more.

MarketWatch.com says it's a bust for solar-powered stockholders, but a potential boon for consumers:

One major issue in the solar business is its dependency on government subsidies. For consumers, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a solar roof does not have an immediate payback. Their monthly utility bills might drop from a $100 or so to a few dollars or even to zero, but it can take between 10 to 20 years before they can amortize the total cost of installing those energy-generating solar panels.

But the U.S. market could be a growth area for the industry, if the recent price cuts can somehow be used to bolster consumer demand. Instead of storing their products in inventory until demand returns, as iSuppli predicts many firms will, the industry should grab this moment to expand.

Also says something about the negative impact of subsidies (re: cash for clunkers, new home buyer tax credit, yada yada).

The Corner:

Ironic, then, that Congress’s rush to replenish the popular Clunkers program with more money involved raiding the stimulus bill’s Title XVII energy-loan-guarantee program. The energy loans have “been slow to be awarded,” reports the Detroit News (read: bogged down in federal red tape). That’s right. To continue to feed Americans’ thirst for gas-powered automobiles, Washington has diverted $2 billion from the Democrats’ pet $60 billion to remake the American energy grid with windmills and other forms of expensive, non-carbon energy sources.

Ironic - I thought so too.

American Insurance Group, even after a $180,000,000,000 taxpayer funded bailout, has dumped its climate change program. Treehugger says it was a risk/reward decision. Former AIG Environmental CEO says the program was annoying clients. Two former VPs say the program - including lobbying efforts - is dead, while a current AIG spokesman says climate related products and services are "still available." Treehugger observes:

It's kind of ironic, really--the company that had a hand in creating a global recession by making unsustainable investments was on the brink of making some of the most important, most sustainable investments of all.

Not ironic at all, my green friends. Important and sustainable rarely mean profitable when government is regulating the investments.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Wal-Mart (aka "not bailed out") is taking a stab at making green profitable:

What's interesting about the way Wal-Mart is going about this program, however, is that it hopes to provide an accurate rating on each project. I suspect lots of products that currently call themselves green won't fare so well when put to the Wal-Mart test.

Yep.

Solar and wind are useless unless they're connected to the grid. Where do we put 6,000 miles of transmission lines for all these new sites? The folks running things now are suing the folks who came up with Plan A. I doubt lawsuits will get us Plan B either.

And power tourist Julianne Couch clears security, dons a dosimeter and takes us inside a nuclear plant in far east Nebraska.

CleanTechBlog:

Credit must be given where credit is due: earlier this month, Fast Company hosted a research note by Ariel Schwartz about the development of an approach to produce hydrogen from urine that requires much less voltage than is necessary to electrolyze pure water. Yes, that's right: hydrogen produced cheaply from urine, one of the most renewable of all resources. I've written previously about piss-poor cars, but someday in the future, we may be talking about piss-powered cars.

In the WaPo today. She makes a great point here:

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

Yeh, would should reduce fuel consumption across the board. But as long as we're dependent on petroleum, aren't we more likely to "do" petroleum greener?  I think so.

Would also love to see her take on ecology from a Christian perspective, since she are one.

"...solar industry on hold."

Despite valiant government effort, the solar industry won't be thawed until 2010, mostly because banks are still stingy in their lending practices, says FBR in a note this morning. While that's discouraging today, in the next year or so, FBR sees a sustainable growth for solar companies.

Banks, and then there's the solar union worker problem.

Better hurry, though. Remember?

Obama's recovery package aims to:

• Double within three years the amount of energy that could be produced from renewable resources, an ambitious goal given the 30 years it took to reach current levels. Advisers say that could power 6 million households.
• Upgrade 10,000 schools and improve learning for about 5 million students.
• Save $2 billion a year by making federal buildings energy efficient.
• Triple the number of undergraduate and graduate fellowships in science.

The plan would spend at least 75 percent of the total cost — or more than $600 billion — within the first 18 months, providing a massive infusion of cash to the struggling economy, either through bricks-and-shovels projects favored by Democrats or tax cuts that Republicans have pushed.

Cold Fusion Reactor

High Altitude Wind Power

Solar in the Sahara

Alaska's Untapped Hydrates