White House Reveals Its Own Fake News
Almost Everyone Believed It by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Press Secretary Sean Spicer reveals the joke. This morning, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer began an epic five-hour press conference with a one-word statement from President Donald Trump: "Bazinga!" Spicer then launched into a detailed explanation of how the President (with help from many Republicans and conservative think-and-humor-tanks) had convinced the nation and the world how he did not believe in climate change. In fact, efforts to roll back EPA regulations like the Clean Power...
Renewable Fuel Producers Score A Win
Despite Trump’s vow to roll back all measures endorsed by Obama, his Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt is backing off plans to scuttle the U.S. biofuel policy. The Trump administration had planned to change regulatory standards to reduce the amount of renewable fuel that must be blended with conventional fossil fuel for gasoline and diesel supplies. In the third week in October 2017, Pruitt sent a letter to Congressional leadership indicating the renewable fuel volume mandates for 2018 would remain unchanged.
Most analysts saw the about face as a win for ethanol and renewable diesel producers such as Green Plains (GPRE: Nasdaq), FutureFuel...
Overcoming Hurdles to Clean Energy Commercialization
by David L. Levy In the absence of a global framework for regulating emissions, the future of the planet largely rests on choices by private firms and investors regarding which technologies to pursue and commercialize. Despite the mounting evidence of severe climate change, there is a funding crisis for potential solutions. The Department of Energy released data at the beginning of November showing that global emissions of CO2 rose 6% in 2010, despite the ongoing economic recession. This trajectory is higher than the worst case projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in it’s 2007 Fourth...
Aggressive New CAFE Standards; The IC Empire Strikes Back
John Petersen Last Friday President Obama and executives from thirteen leading automakers gathered in Washington DC to announce an historic agreement to increase fleet-wide fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks from 27.5 mpg for the 2011 model year to 54.5 mpg for the 2025 model year. While politicians frequently spin superlatives to describe mediocre results, I believe the President's claim that the accord "represents the single most important step we've ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil" is a refreshing example of political understatement. After three decades of demagoguery, debate,...
The Farm Bill: 5-Minute Guide to the Energy Title
Jim Lane Only 5 min BigStock Photo What’s in that Durn-tootin’ US Farm Bill, anyhow? For the harried taxpayer, some relief. For energy security and rural economic development, targeted investments that now head to the legislative floor. Here are the need-to-knows. In Washington, the House and Senate Agricultural committees have now passed their respective versions of the proposed 2013 farm bill, which would take effect for fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2018. Both bills have energy titles meaning that, should they find passage, as expected this summer,...
Biofuel Industry Reacts To EPA New Renewable Fuel Standard
Yay or Nay for EPA? RFS Volumes out for 2020, Biodiesel for 2021 – What’s the reaction from industry?
by Jim Lane
What’s the reaction from industry? Coal for Christmas?
Should Santa bring coal for EPA’s stocking this year? Do the biofuels and agriculture industries think the EPA just put coal in their stocking? Is it thumbs up or thumbs down from biofuel industry advocates on last week’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency renewable fuel volumes? What about the exempted volumes?
The Ruling – Rotten or Respectable?
First, a bit on the EPA ruling that establishes the required renewable volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program for...
Creating a Climate Resilient America: A Green Investment Adviser Testifies To Congress
The prepared remarks of Garvin Jabusch, Chief Investment Officer of Green Alpha Advisors before the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis in Washington, DC, July 25th, 2019.
Chairwoman Castor, Ranking Member Graves, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify and contribute to this important conversation.
Climate disruption and resource degradation present significant threats to and opportunities for American business. Every sector and industry are affected, and my industry of asset management, in its role deploying capital across the economy, is directly exposed to it all, risks and opportunities inclusive.
First, risks. The purpose of investing is to preserve and...
Net Metering Is the Solar Industry’s Junk Food
Shoppers who bring reusable bags to the grocery store buy more junk food. This example is part of a growing body of behavioral psychology research showing that when we feel good about ourselves for doing one thing right, we give ourselves permission to be careless in other areas. The solar installation industry seems to be falling into the "reusable shopping bag" trap. Solar itself is the reusable shopping bag. The junk food is net metering. Net metering is a simple, intuitive way to pay for solar generation at retail rates. But it puts solar companies on...
New York State Pension $ 22 Billion Poorer By Not Divesting 10 Years Ago
Research firm Corporate Knights revealed that the pension fund would be $22 billion richer had it divested from fossil fuel stocks in 2008. That's almost $20,000 for of each of the pension fund’s 1.1 million members & retirees.
A new in-depth analysis by the research firm Corporate Knights, shows that New York State pension fund would be $22 billion richer had it divested from fossil fuel stocks 10 years ago. That works out to almost $20,000 for of each of the pension fund’s 1.1 million members and retirees. To perform their analysis, Corporate Knights looked at the stock holdings of the pension fund in...
Why We Need More Energy in the Economy But Less in the Atmosphere
Garvin Jabusch Preface: As per my usual, this post is more or less a narrative, and is definitely not math-centric. But, still, nothing quite conveys the stark reality of a thing like its governing equation. So, two of those found their way in here, but both are short and explained in English. With that, let’s look at why energy is so good. And bad. Any system in nature, including the human economy, is bound by a simple fact: it can only thrive and grow in proportion to the energy inputs it has access to. Energy equals growth. In economic...
What Trump’s Victory Means For The Bioeconomy
Jim Lane In Washington, Donald Trump captured the US Presidency in an upset victory that confounded pollsters and political pundits even as it delighted supporters of his maverick candidacy based on themes of immigration and trade reform coupled with a message that government policies of the past generation had failed for too many Americans. An unexpected series of wins across US Midwestern states – capturing Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio which had gone for Obama in 2012 – provided a comfortable margin of victory in the Electoral College and the popular vote. 5 Themes Some immediate themes emerge...
What I Didn’t Say About Obama and New Energy
I was interviewed for a story on NPR's Morning Edition which aired Thursday. Tamara Keith asked me what Obama's election meant for Alternative Energy, and I felt many of my points were downed out by the others she interviewed. Here's what she didn't put in the story: Obama mentioned three challenges ahead in his acceptance speech. He said, "We know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime: two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century." Of these three challenges, two were thrust upon him, but he chose to...
Trick and Treat: Energy loans under review, as Hallowe’en looms
Jim Lane The Obama Administration got tricked, and handed out some bad energy loan candy. Turns out that the Washington press corps, and House Republicans, were asleep on the job, too. Until the money ran out, that is. We’re not sure if there’s been any more perfect timing for an Obama Administration announcement, than the news that it will start up an investigation of the DOE loan guarantee program just as Hallowe’en weekend got underway. Hallowe’en, is of course, the time of disguise, the celebration of the macabre, and the ghostly return of the...
US Ethanol Industry Upset With 2019 Renewable Fuel Standard Proposal
The 2019 proposed US Renewable Fuel Standard proposed volumes attracted a major raspberry from the ethanol industry.
As the American Coalition for Ethanol noted:
“Unfortunately, EPA continues to take actions which undermine the letter and spirit of the statute and harm the rural economy. While refiners are reporting double-digit profits, the heart of America is being left behind. Farmers are losing money while refiners have the best of both worlds: fat profit margins and minimal RFS compliance costs. EPA needs to discard its refiner-win-at-all-costs mentality and get the RFS back on track.”
“While the proposed rule purports to maintain the 15-billion-gallon conventional...
Clearing Up Some Confusion Over Community Solar In New York
Community Solar in New York has a messaging problem. It is confusing, and even some industry professionals have given up in disgust because of aggressive marketing and a lack of clarity.
Fortunately, aggressive marketing is not universal among community solar developers.
Unfortunately, the lack of clarity is almost universal.
How Community Solar Works in New York
The system the New York utility regulator set up for community distributed generation (CDG, a term which includes community hydropower and community wind as well as community solar) is counter intuitive for most potential customers.
As shown in the diagram above, the electric utility pays for a project's...
Green Jobs: Debunking the Debunkers
Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Energy markets are neither free nor efficient, so traditional economic arguments against regulation and other government interventions do not apply.
In response to my recent article digging into green jobs, a reader sent me a copy of a March paper by Andrew Morriss et al at University of Illinois that attempts to debunk green jobs myths. While I see major flaws in most green jobs papers I read, many of the myths cited by this paper are irrelevant to what I consider the most important questions:
Can government intervention to clean up the energy sector create jobs...
