geothermal

Not new but really special!
"HANS BRINKER OR THE SILVER SKATES" - READ THE WHOLE BOOK HERE...

Ideas/Concepts Employed in the 21st Century...From Washington State to Connecticut: Headquarters, Weston!
Next President should be running on the message - "a full tank of fuel for everyone and no more dependence on Middle East oil."

NEWS STORIES - latest on the subject!

WHAT IS CONNECTICUT UP TO?

CARS: America's love affair to end if gas price rises high enough? Can pavement be environmental afterall? How about A BETTER BATTERY ?

W I N D F A R M S ;

GEOTHERMAL:

A home (in Weston);
Sources of information;
News of projects...in NYC

FUEL CELL LINK HERE

Fuel cells in Connecticut.

MUNICIPAL"ENERGY IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS" - legislation passes!

BIOMAS;

ETHANOL;

HYDROELECTRIC/TURBINE (this one Deception Pass in Washington).

IN THE COURTS: U.S. Supreme Court Climate Change ruling;

SOLAR NEWS AND...Great Columns on environmental matter from Tom Friedman!

Worldwide...
Solar panels at schools;
Green Building Council ideas...
CT DEP link here.

Editorial: E.P.A.’s Doctor No
NYTIMES
December 25, 2008

On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal Clean Air Act plainly empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks — and, by inference, other sources like power plants.

There was great hope at the time that the decision would force President Bush to confront the issue of climate change, which he had largely ignored for six years. Instead, it became the catalyst for a campaign of scientific obfuscation, political flimflam and simple dereliction of duty — which United States Senator Barbara Boxer aptly described as a “master plan” — to ensure that the administration did as little as possible.

The guiding intelligence behind the master plan has been Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s point man, in turn, has been Stephen Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It was Mr. Johnson who refused to grant California a normally routine waiver that would have allowed it to impose its own greenhouse gas standards on cars and trucks. It was Mr. Johnson who was trotted out to explain why the administration could not possibly fulfill the Supreme Court’s mandate before leaving office.

And it was Mr. Johnson, in one final burst of negativity, who declared last week that his agency was under no obligation to even consider greenhouse gas emissions when deciding whether to allow a new coal-fired power plant to go forward.

The case involved a proposed power plant in Utah and turned on an arcane regulatory question: whether a Clean Air Act provision requiring the monitoring of carbon-dioxide emissions also meant that they could be controlled. This sort of question would normally prompt careful review. Mr. Johnson responded with a 19-page memorandum that added up to one word: No.

Senator Boxer has gone so far as to call Mr. Johnson’s peremptory judgment illegal.

The only thing saving this administration from a total wipeout on clean air issues was a timely decision on Tuesday from the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It temporarily reinstated the Clean Air Interstate Rule — a 2005 regulation aimed at reducing soot and smog, and the most important clean air proposal to emerge from Mr. Bush’s E.P.A. In July, the court found the rule deficient on several counts, but on appeal it decided that a flawed rule was better than none at all.

So there we have it. One original initiative in eight years, saved at the bell. That’s a poor showing, and the Democrats are hardly alone in hoping for better under an Obama administration. Last week, two prominent moderate Republicans — William K. Reilly, who ran the E.P.A. under President George H.W. Bush, and William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as administrator under both Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — sent a little-noticed but eloquent letter to President-elect Barack Obama.

The gist of the letter was that the E.P.A. could be an enormously positive force in the fight against climate change and oil dependency. All it needed was someone who believed in its mission and was prepared to use the laws already on the books. Granting California its waiver, carrying out the Supreme Court decision, regulating emissions from vehicles and power plants — all this and more, they wrote, could be accomplished with the statutory tools at hand.

This exhortation from two veterans of the environmental wars was designed to encourage not only Mr. Obama, but also Lisa Jackson, the woman he has chosen to run the agency. It was also, however, an arrow aimed at the ideologues who have been running the agency for the last half-dozen years — and a lament for how little they have done with the weapons Congress gave them.

Bad news on this front just a few weeks later?
Weston's Rep. Stripp looks at green energy
Weston FORUM
Saturday, December 06, 2008

State Rep. John Stripp of Weston (R-135) participated in an Energize CT panel recently with the speaker of the House and other leaders from the legislature’s Energy, Commerce and Finance committees.

There were presentations on both traditional and alternative energy sources including fuel cells, solar energy, biofuels, and nuclear power as well as conservation and “green collar” job creators.

“If we really want to reduce Connecticut’s dependence on foreign oil, there has to be a proactive, coordinated effort that encourages alternative energy sources and conservation in a way that stimulates job growth in emerging ‘green collar’ industries,” said Mr. Stripp, whose district includes Weston, Easton and Redding.

The non-profit American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy ranks Connecticut third among all states, behind only California and Oregon, in promoting energy independence and investment in cost-effective energy efficiencies.

“In order for these programs to continue to grow and succeed, a trained, qualified workforce is a must,” Mr. Stripp said.

Connecticut is already one of the nation’s largest hubs for companies that produce fuel cells, supporting an estimated 2,100 related jobs.

Last session, Mr. Stripp voted afor legislation to promote the fuel cell industry in Connecticut by supporting the buying of hydrogen-electric hybrid buses and converting Bradley International Airport to the world’s first airport to run on fuel cells.

“The enhancement of ‘green energy’ research and development, as well as the growth of ‘green energy’ manufacturing, represent major pieces of Connecticut’s economic future, and the next few years will be crucial to determine just how big that piece can grow,” said Mr. Stripp, the head Republican on the Commerce committee.

Mr. Stripp believes “green collar” jobs can become a bigger part of Connecticut’s economy as development of alternative energies and efficiency efforts continue to grow.

Connecticut’s public education systems, including technical high schools, community colleges and state universities, are gearing up to transition the workforce to compete for Connecticut’s share of these “green collar” jobs, he said.

Clever New Yorkers make fun of the Mayor (l.) and who can forget West Side Story - "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way/From your first cigarette to your last dying day..."

4.2 Million 'Green' Jobs Possible
Hartford Courant
By H. JOSEF HEBERT | Associated Press
October 6, 2008

A major shift to renewable energy and efficiency is expected to produce 4.2 million new environmentally friendly "green" jobs during the next three decades, according to a study commissioned by the nation's mayors.

The study, released last week by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says that about 750,000 people work today in what can be considered green jobs — from scientists and engineers researching alternative fuels to makers of wind turbines and more energy-efficient products.

But that's less than one half of 1 percent of total employment. By 2038, another 4.2 million green jobs are expected to be added, accounting for 10 percent of new job growth during the next 30 years, according to the report by Global Insight Inc.

"It could be the fastest-growing segment of the United States economy over the next several decades and dramatically increase its share of total employment," said the report, which The Associated Press obtained. However, the study cautioned, such job growth won't be realized without an aggressive shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency.

For example, it assumes that by 2038 alternative energy will account for 40 percent of electricity production, with half of that coming from wind and solar; widespread retrofitting of buildings to achieve a 35 percent reduction in electricity use; and 30 percent of motor fuels coming from ethanol or biodiesel.

Alternative energy, such as wind, geothermal, biomass and solar, currently accounts for less than 3 percent of electricity generation, and nonfossil sources, such as ethanol and biodiesel, account for about 5 percent of all motor fuels, the report notes.

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the conference's president, said the report makes "a very compelling economic argument for investing in the green economy and that we're going to get a huge return for it."

"These are things we have to do," Diaz said in a telephone interview, adding that "Washington needs to get on the train."

Both presidential candidates have cited the jobs potential if the country embraces alternative energy and efficiency.

Democratic nominee Barack Obama predicts that investments in a "clean energy economy" during the next 10 years "will help the private sector create 5 million new green jobs" — a more ambitious projection than outlined by the study provided to the mayors.

GOP rival John McCain's energy blueprint makes no specific job growth forecast, but declares the development of green jobs and green technology "vital to our economic future."

The report predicts that the biggest job gain will be from the increased use of alternative transportation fuels, with 1.5 million additional jobs, followed by the renewable power generating sector, with 1.2 million new jobs.

Another 81,000 jobs will be generated by industries related to making homes and commercial buildings more energy-efficient, the study said.

And it predicted an additional 1.4 million green jobs related to engineering, research, consulting and legal work.

"We're trying to show the size of the green jobs economy," assuming policy shifts toward less dependence on fossil fuels, said Jim Diffley of Global Insight.

Architects and Engineers Express Doubt About Bloomberg’s Windmill Proposal
NYTIMES
By KEN BELSON and DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: August 20, 2008

Interviews with architects, engineers and energy experts on Wednesday suggest that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to place wind turbines atop the city’s skyscrapers and bridges, as well as off the coastline of Queens and Brooklyn, would be complicated and expensive and barely begin to meet the growth in demand for electricity that is expected in the coming years.

Mayor Bloomberg's plan to put windmills atop skyscrapers has been criticized, but what about these two approaches, in the illustrations above and below?

“The smaller turbines that he’s talking about almost don’t pay in terms of kilowatts per hour produced,” said Daniel Karpen, a Long Island engineering consultant who has studied the feasibility of wind power. “He’s going to need money to build them, and then you end up with a tremendous amount of red tape. It’s a nightmare.”

The thought of making the most of a clean, bottomless resource like wind is certainly an attractive one. But the challenges of harvesting that resource in a densely populated city like New York are manifold, which is why several initiatives to experiment with wind in recent years have not taken flight.

Skyscrapers would have to be designed — or retrofitted at great cost — to accommodate the extra weight, vibration and swaying of the turbines. Insurers would have to be persuaded that turbines are worth the risk. And New York is not a particularly windy city, so a few buildings facing New York Harbor might be the only sites that make sense.

Even if Mr. Bloomberg could find investors willing to build turbines capable of generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity, experts said, operators of the city’s grid would be able to count on only 100 megawatts, or less than 1 percent of peak demand.

Solar panels, by contrast, can be put on an array of structures and are active on hot, sunny days when electricity use is high. (New York is windiest on winter nights, when demand is low).

“New York is really a solar city,” said Anthony Pereira, chief executive of altPower, a company that helps design, develop and install solar and wind power and is a member of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, an industry group.

Mr. Pereira said that some solar panel installations could pay for themselves in four years, compared with as many as 25 years for small wind turbines.

Speaking on Wednesday in Washington Heights, the mayor said that his proposals for wind power were only the “very beginning” and that “if you don’t ask, you’re never going to find out” whether new ideas make economic sense.

“Windmills are no panacea for our problems, but they can help,” he said, a day after making his proposal in a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. “No one thing will fix the problems we have created over the years.”

The mayor said that he saw windmills off the shore of Blackpool, England, where they appeared as dots on the horizon. But the track record for such projects in New York is spotty.

Last year, the Long Island Power Authority’s proposal to build dozens of windmills off Jones Beach was shot down because the projected costs skyrocketed and the cost of electricity from the turbines would have been at least double that of power from traditional sources.

Wind turbines have been used at a handful of sites in New York City, including Battery Park City and 34th Street at the East River. They have been installed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard site and soon will be placed at a commercial building in the Melrose section of the Bronx.

A serious consideration of harvesting wind energy on New York’s skyscrapers and bridges, however, requires the abandonment of any fanciful idea about installing windmills on the Empire State Building or the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge.

First of all, it is unlikely that any existing structure would be able to withstand the extra swaying, twisting, vibrating and weight that turbines impose. So the tower’s structural framework would have to be retrofitted to handle the new loads, adding enormously to a project’s cost with relatively little yield.

Second, the familiar windmill or wind farm turbine has a horizontal rotor with radiating blades. These would pose a tremendous liability in the city, where a flying blade could do great damage. (Five people were killed in 1977 by a helicopter blade that snapped off atop what is now the MetLife Building on Park Avenue.)

There are vertical-axis wind turbines, some of which resemble giant food processor blades, that can collect wind from any direction and have been the choice of several architects who considered wind farms for the city.

Eight vertical wind turbines were integral to the original design of the new 1 World Trade Center, also known as Freedom Tower, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. They would have been situated within an open-air, cable-framed structure at the tower’s upper reaches, though they were never envisioned as a major power source.

“It would have been a small but identifiable portion of the building’s needs,” said Carl Galioto, a Skidmore partner. “We were hoping that, at peak capacity, it would have been enough to power the elevators. If it were able to do that, it would have been rather impressive.”

The turbines would also have served as a symbolic representation of perpetual renewal, certainly a meaningful theme at ground zero.

But Gov. George E. Pataki expressed concern about the danger the blades would pose to migrating birds, and others worried about them icing up. Before these issues could be resolved, the New York Police Department raised objections to the tower’s overall security provisions, compelling a redesign that abandoned the wind farm notion.

More than 30 vertical wind turbines, each about 50 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter, were included in the Kohn Pedersen Fox design of the stadium proposed for the New York Jets on the West Side.

“They were designed to capture the prevailing winds from the Hudson River,” said Trent J. Tesch, a senior associate principal at the firm. He added that their presence within the industrial-looking facade would have “expressed the frenetic energy of what was happening inside.”

In combination with photovoltaic cells, Mr. Tesch said, the plan called for the turbines to produce enough power to satisfy all the stadium’s needs when a game was being played and to generate energy for other users when the team was not playing. The stadium project was scuttled in 2005 when legislative leaders in Albany failed to support it.

Kohn Pedersen Fox is proposing an array of vertical turbines for an exhibition hall called the Ubiquitous Life Building in New Songdo City, South Korea. These would collect the wind that hits the building’s facade, forcing it to cross the rooftop. “They don’t necessarily have to be incredibly high up to be productive,” Mr. Tesch said.

Urban turbine farms might be productively situated at industrial sites around New York Harbor, where they could take advantage of low-rise surroundings and wind off the water, Mr. Galioto said. And there are other ways of collecting wind energy in large structures. Skidmore is working on the 71-story Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China, where the exterior walls of the mechanical-equipment floors are shaped into enormous scoops to direct the wind into turbines inside. These will generate energy for the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning, the firm said.

“There’s an example of building design,” Mr. Galioto said, “where wind power is integrated within the building and one doesn’t need all sorts of fanciful contraptions appended to the top.”

We heard about this in Weston, thanks to the Global Warming Committee!
Breaking free of oil: Home powered with geothermal energy
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Richard Lee, Business Editor
Article Launched: 08/18/2008 02:36:25 AM EDT

STAMFORD - Two homeowners think they have found a way to beat Big Oil. Joe Comerford and Lynne Kudzy are heating their 50-year-old house on Sawmill Road in North Stamford with a geothermal system they said will safeguard them against a volatile oil market.

"It's a pocketbook issue. It's a house with a big footprint so we were a captive to oil heat," Comerford said of the four-bedroom, 31Ú2-bath house that measures more than 3,000 square feet.

Comerford and Kudzy, who had their geothermal system installed early last year, still use oil to heat their water but plan to connect that to their geothermal system. The technology uses an environmentally friendly refrigerant that promotes heat transfer. Water vapor is compressed by being circulated through electric heat pumps in the basement to create warm air in the winter. The compression is decreased in summer to create cool air.

The home did not have a central air conditioner, so they installed a unit and ductwork so it was in place for the geothermal system.

"You get central air with geothermal. If you have central air, no ductwork needs to be installed, and the cost will be lower," Comerford said.

The geothermal system was installed for $40,000.

"The entire thing was done on our nickel," he said.

That's because there is little financial assistance in Connecticut for geothermal installations. Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating Co. offer a small incentive for geothermal energy - up to $3,000 per site. The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund does not have funds for geothermal energy, said David Goldberg, manager of strategic initiatives.

"In the past six months, we've been looking into the benefits of ground-source heat pumps," Goldberg said. "The one thing that the report indicates is an overall increase in consuming electricity. You have an electric motor for the heat pump."

Since geothermal reduces reliance on heating oil, the fund is determining the benefits of the technology. State Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, who plans to visit Comerford and Kudzy's house, is a member of the General Assembly's Energy Committee and helped draft the energy reform bill passed in 2007.

"One of the challenges, given the state's finances, is maintaining those rebate and incentive programs," Tong said. "The governor needs to make them a priority. I'm going to push on the Energy Committee for funding energy assistance programs."

Geothermal was part of the Stamford Energy Future Expo that Tong hosted in May at city hall. The event was supported by the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, CL&P and Mayor Dannel Malloy's office. Tong is planning a similar event next year and wants Comerford to be a speaker.

"I hope Joe spreads the gospel," Tong said.

Comerford and Kudzy did their homework before beginning the project, settling on a system manufactured by Earth to Air Systems LLC in Franklin, Tenn. The results have been dramatic, because the system cuts oil and electricity costs, Kudzy said.

"It's amazing. It cools so much more rapidly and quietly," she said, adding that the system saves money heating and cooling the house. "Operating costs are incredibly less with much lower electric bills. The average house around here will pay $6,000 for oil."

Although the price of crude oil has dropped in the past few weeks, Comerford said they made the right decision.

"We did our (return on investment) calculations when oil was about $2.25 a gallon. We figured the payback would be eight years or less. Oil is bad now, but it could be worse. The oil world is unstable," Comerford said.

He said he expects to connect the geothermal system to his hot water tank soon, eliminating the need for oil. "It's the best big-scale investment you can make to reduce a carbon footprint."

Comerford, who told his neighbors about his project at a Sawmill Association neighborhood meeting in June, said they were intrigued.

"People are extremely concerned about what it's going to cost to heat this winter," he said. "We're confident that it will be good for resale."

Eric Morson, president of the Sawmill Association, was impressed by what he heard, but the expense gives him second thoughts.

"It's a $30,000 expense, and the payback is long. I have two kids to put through school," Morson said. "Oil has retreated, but it's still above $4 a gallon. It's a tough call. It would be a kick to see the electric meter go backward."

Installing the geothermal system took about three months and required drilling two 300-foot-deep holes to draw 55-degree water to the surface, Comerford said. Comerford and Kudzy used Advanced Air Solutions in Harrisburg, Pa., to install the system. Deregulation of electrical rates in Connecticut and New York has created a demand for geothermal installations, and more companies are getting involved in the industry, said Sam Pollak, project manager at Advanced Air.

"There are three or four companies in the Northeast now. About three years ago, there was only one," Pollack said.

Geothermal has a bright future, said Don Gary of Weston, who owns Geothermal Technologies LLC with his son, Robert Gary, and Michael McGrath.

"We're working on a project in Weston and have four waiting," Don Gary said.

As owner of Hybrid Homes, predecessor of Geothermal Technologies, Robert Gary learned about installing geothermal systems, Don Gary said.

Geothermal Technologies also is a distributor of Earth to Air Systems.

Several months ago, the trio installed a geothermal system for a model home at Windemere, a development in North Stamford, and expects to install more as the houses are sold.

Fuel Prices Knocking Wind Out Of Towns: Some local governments are running on empty as new fiscal year approaches
New London DAY
By Amy Renczkowski
Published on 5/19/2008

t's a game of roulette for some towns when it comes to calculating fuel and oil budgets for the next year.

Many school systems and municipalities in the area are hoping they've placed the right bets but questioning the amount they budgeted because of the volatile oil market and the uncertainty of the economy. Only a handful of towns have locked into set prices for oil and fuel for next year's budget. Other towns are watching in dismay as prices skyrocket to more than $4 a gallon.

”You kind of hold your breath and wait for a good time to do it,” said David Erwin, superintendent of Montville schools.“This is one of the most challenging issues for districts this year with the budget.”

The Ledyard school district played its lucky card in January and locked into heating oil and transportation fuel for less than $3 a gallon for the 2008-09 budget.

”When I did it, I said, 'We're either going to look brilliant or like complete nincompoops,'” said Superintendent Michael Graner.

The process for locking in a price is supposed to be simple. Most towns start shopping in late winter and spring, when they begin crunching numbers for the budget year that starts in July. Many towns sign contracts that allow them to purchase at a specified price for the entire fiscal year. Stonington has begun locking in prices to buy about half the heating oil that will be needed at $3.28 a gallon, half the diesel needed for $3.42 a gallon and all 43,000 gallons of gas the town needs for $3.29 a gallon.

But North Stonington, Old Saybrook and Montville are already anticipating shortfalls in the amount they budgeted for next year. Some towns aren't sure how they're going to handle the overruns because of budget cuts. They have no extra funds.

”If I now come in and say, 'I'm sorry, I need another $30,000 for fuel,' I don't have any place to get it anyway,” said Charles McCarthy, business manager for North Stonington schools.

The city of New London budgeted for almost a 60 percent increase from the $350,000 it spent on in the fiscal year ending in June 2007. Yet the city's interim finance director, Donald Goodrich, said he worries the $560,000 figure could still fall short of next year's true fuel costs.

”My gut reaction is it would have to go up based on prices today,” Goodrich said.“All bets are off right now. It's so volatile.”

The New London school system budgeted the cost of heating oil to increase by 39 percent. Oil is expected to cost the system about $435,000 next year. The school system also expects to spend $166,000 on diesel and gasoline next year for transportation, said Maria Whalen, the director of business and finance, who has anticipated the cost of diesel to increase by 41 percent. The system uses gasoline for only a few vehicles, she said. Oil and fuel budgets for the Groton and Waterford schools and the town of Westerly are running on fumes. All three are expecting a deficit for this fiscal year, which ends in June.

Conservation measures have given the East Lyme school district nearly 80,000 gallons of surplus heating oil. Within the past school year, most of the windows in the Lillie B. Haynes Elementary School were replaced, and the school system instituted new energy conservation measures, including turning some thermostats down. Superintendent Paul Smotas said the school system is also considering further measures such as installing solar panels at the high school.

Smotas said the system, which in years past had purchased about 250,000 gallons of heating oil, will now need to buy only 200,000. Energy conservation is also affecting the budget next year for fuel and oil for Waterford schools. The ongoing school consolidation project, to move from five elementary schools to three, allowed the district to budget about $84,000 less for fuel. And at the Quaker Hill School, the district didn't have to budget for any fuel because it's a newly renovated school that uses green initiatives and has a geothermal system.

”The move to consolidate and go with geothermal has proven to be a very fortunate move,” said Randy Collins, superintendent of schools in Waterford.

In Montville, the renovation of schools has created a challenge for estimating the need. Energy conservation measures are offset by additional square footage.

”It's difficult to judge what we need,” Erwin said.“Between these high prices coupled with the fact of new renovations ... it's a challenge.”

Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol
NYTIMES
By LARRY ROHTER
Published: June 23, 2008

When VeraSun Energy inaugurated a new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa, some of that industry’s most prominent boosters showed up. Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, for instance, came to help cut the ribbon — and so did Senator Barack Obama.

Then running far behind Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in name recognition and in the polls, Mr. Obama was in the midst of a campaign swing through the state where he would eventually register his first caucus victory. And as befits a senator from Illinois, the country’s second largest corn-producing state, he delivered a ringing endorsement of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

Mr. Obama is running as a reformer who is seeking to reduce the influence of special interests. But like any other politician, he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic ethanol, almost all of which is made from corn, he also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry at a time when energy policy is a point of sharp contrast between the parties and their presidential candidates.

In the heart of the Corn Belt that August day, Mr. Obama argued that embracing ethanol “ultimately helps our national security, because right now we’re sending billions of dollars to some of the most hostile nations on earth.” America’s oil dependence, he added, “makes it more difficult for us to shape a foreign policy that is intelligent and is creating security for the long term.”

Nowadays, when Mr. Obama travels in farm country, he is sometimes accompanied by his friend Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota. Mr. Daschle now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, “he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy.”

Mr. Obama’s lead advisor on energy and environmental issues, Jason Grumet, came to the campaign from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan initiative associated with Mr. Daschle and Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who is also a former Senate majority leader and a big ethanol backer who had close ties to the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.

Not long after arriving in the Senate, Mr. Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation’s largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state.

Jason Furman, the Obama campaign’s economic policy director, said Mr. Obama’s stance on ethanol was based on its merits. “That is what has always motivated him on this issue, and will continue to determine his policy going forward,” Mr. Furman said.

Asked if Mr. Obama brought any predisposition or bias to the ethanol debate because he represents a corn-growing state that stands to benefit from a boom, Mr. Furman said, “He wants to represent the United States of America, and his policies are based on what’s best for the country.”

Mr. Daschle, a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign, said in a telephone interview on Friday that his role advising the Obama campaign on energy matters was limited. He said he was not a lobbyist for ethanol companies, but did speak publicly about renewable energy options and worked “with a number of associations and groups to orchestrate and coordinate their activities,” including the Governors’ Ethanol Coalition.

Of Mr. Obama, Mr. Daschle said, “He has a terrific policy staff and relies primarily on those key people to advise him on key issues, whether energy or climate change or other things.”

Ethanol is one area in which Mr. Obama strongly disagrees with his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona. While both presidential candidates emphasize the need for the United States to achieve “energy security” while also slowing down the carbon emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming, they offer sharply different visions of the role that ethanol, which can be made from a variety of organic materials, should play in those efforts.

Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce.

“We made a series of mistakes by not adopting a sustainable energy policy, one of which is the subsidies for corn ethanol, which I warned in Iowa were going to destroy the market” and contribute to inflation, Mr. McCain said this month in an interview with a Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de São Paulo. “Besides, it is wrong,” he added, to tax Brazilian-made sugar cane ethanol, “which is much more efficient than corn ethanol.”

Mr. Obama, in contrast, favors the subsidies, some of which end up in the hands of the same oil companies he says should be subjected to a windfall profits tax. In the name of helping the United States build “energy independence,” he also supports the tariff, which some economists say may well be illegal under the World Trade Organization’s rules but which his advisers say is not.

Many economists, consumer advocates, environmental experts and tax groups have been critical of corn ethanol programs as a boondoggle that benefits agribusiness conglomerates more than small farmers. Those complaints have intensified recently as corn prices have risen sharply in tandem with oil prices and corn normally used for food stock has been diverted to ethanol production.

“If you want to take some of the pressure off this market, the obvious thing to do is lower that tariff and let some Brazilian ethanol come in,” said C. Ford Runge, an economist specializing in commodities and trade policy at the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota. “But one of the fundamental reasons biofuels policy is so out of whack with markets and reality is that interest group politics have been so dominant in the construction of the subsidies that support it.”

Corn ethanol generates less than two units of energy for every unit of energy used to produce it, while the energy ratio for sugar cane is more than 8 to 1. With lower production costs and cheaper land prices in the tropical countries where it is grown, sugar cane is a more efficient source.

Mr. Furman said the campaign continued to examine the issue. “We want to evaluate all our energy subsidies to make sure that taxpayers are getting their money’s worth,” he said.

He added that Mr. Obama favored “a range of initiatives” that were aimed at “diversification across countries and sources of energy,” including cellulosic ethanol, and which, unlike Mr. McCain’s proposals, were specifically meant to “reduce overall demand through conservation, new technology and improved efficiency.”

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama has not explained his opposition to imported sugar cane ethanol. But in remarks last year, made as President Bush was about to sign an ethanol cooperation agreement with his Brazilian counterpart, Mr. Obama argued that “our country’s drive toward energy independence” could suffer if Mr. Bush relaxed restrictions, as Mr. McCain now proposes.

“It does not serve our national and economic security to replace imported oil with Brazilian ethanol,” he argued.

Mr. Obama does talk regularly about developing switchgrass, which flourishes in the Midwest and Great Plains, as a source for ethanol. While the energy ratio for switchgrass and other types of cellulosic ethanol is much greater than corn, economists say that time-consuming investments in infrastructure would be required to make it viable, and with corn nearing $8 a bushel, farmers have little incentive to shift.

Ethanol industry executives and advocates have not made large donations to either candidate for president, an examination of campaign contribution records shows. But they have noted the difference between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain.

Brian Jennings, a vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol, said he hoped that Mr. McCain, as a presidential candidate, “would take a broader view of energy security and recognize the important role that ethanol plays.”

The candidates’ views were tested recently in the Farm Bill approved by Congress that extended the subsidies for corn ethanol, though reducing them slightly, and the tariffs on imported sugar cane ethanol. Because Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama were campaigning, neither voted. But Mr. McCain said that as president he would veto the bill, while Mr. Obama praised it.

Boone Pickens project buys 667 GE wind turbines
DAY
Posted on May 15, 8:21 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- A renewable energy company founded by billionaire T. Boone Pickens says it's buying 667 wind turbines from General Electric. The longtime oilman's company, Mesa Power, plans to use the turbines to start what it expects will be the world's largest wind energy project. The Pampa Wind Project will be located in Texas.

The turbines in the deal can each produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity. That makes the project's first phase - one of four planned - able to make enough to power more than 300,000 average U.S. homes. Pickens says the first phase of the project will cost about $2 billion, with power coming online by early 2011.

Op-Ed Columnist
Texas to Tel Aviv
NYTIMES
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: July 27, 2008

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

You’d have the start of an energy revolution.

The only good thing to come from soaring oil prices is that they have spurred innovator/investors, successful in other fields, to move into clean energy with a mad-as-hell, can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power. Two of the most interesting of these new clean electron wildcatters are Boone and Shai.

Agassi, age 40, is an Israeli software whiz kid who rose to the senior ranks of the German software giant SAP. He gave it all up in 2007 to help make Israel a model of how an entire country can get off gasoline and onto electric cars. He figured no country has a bigger interest in diminishing the value of Middle Eastern oil than Israel. On a visit to Israel in May, I took a spin in a parking lot on the Tel Aviv beachfront in Agassi’s prototype electric car, while his sister watched out for the cops because it is not yet licensed for Israeli roads.

Agassi’s plan, backed by Israel’s government, is to create a complete electric car “system” that will work much like a mobile-phone service “system,” only customers sign up for so many monthly miles, instead of minutes. Every subscriber will get a car, a battery and access to a national network of recharging outlets all across Israel — as well as garages that will swap your dead battery for a fresh one whenever needed.

His company, Better Place, and its impressive team would run the smart grid that charges the cars and is also contracting for enough new solar energy from Israeli companies — 2 gigawatts over 10 years — to power the whole fleet. “Israel will have the world’s first virtual oilfield in the Negev Desert,” said Agassi. His first 500 electric cars, built by Renault, will hit Israel’s roads next year.

Agassi is a passionate salesman for his vision. He could sell camels to Saudi Arabia. “Today in Europe, you pay $600 a month for gasoline,” he explained to me. “We have an electric car that will cost you $600 a month” — with all the electric fuel you need and when you don’t want the car any longer, just give it back. No extra charges and no CO2 emissions.

His goal, said Agassi, is to make his electric car “so cheap, so trivial, that you won’t even think of buying a gasoline car.” Once that happens, he added, your oil addiction will be over forever. You’ll be “off heroin,” he says, and “addicted to milk.”

T. Boone Pickens is 80. He’s already made billions in oil. He was involved in some ugly mischief in funding the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry. But now he’s opting for a different legacy: breaking America’s oil habit by pushing for a massive buildup of wind power in the U.S. and converting our abundant natural gas supplies — now being used to make electricity — into transportation fuel to replace foreign oil in our cars, buses and trucks.

Pickens is motivated by American nationalism. Because of all the money we are shipping abroad to pay for our oil addiction, he says, “we are on the verge of losing our superpower status.” His vision is summed up on his Web site: “We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year ... I have been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. If we create a renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.”

Pickens made clear to me over breakfast last week that he was tired of waiting for Washington to produce a serious energy plan. So his company, Mesa Power, is now building the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, where he’s spent $2 billion buying land and 700 wind turbines from General Electric — the largest single turbine order ever. The U.S. could secure 20 percent of its electricity needs from wind alone.

But Pickens knows he’s unique. Unless, he says, “Congress adopts clear, predictable policies” — with long-term tax incentives and infrastructure — so thousands of investors can jump into clean power, we’ll never get the scale we need to break our addiction. For a year, Senate Republicans have been blocking such incentives for wind and solar energy. They vote again next week.

If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way.

Dumb as We Wanna Be
NYTIMES
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 30, 2008

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

No, no, no, we’ll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Mrs. Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars — burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation?

The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Are you sitting down?

Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘Congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”

It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point “where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics” that it would turn its back on the next great global industry — clean power — “but that’s exactly what is happening.” If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won’t be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. “Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets.”

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

Governator of California employs "wave power"

Governors, Others Meet On Climate Change:
Governors Convene At Yale To Fight Global Warming
By DAVID FUNKHOUSER | Courant Staff Writer
April 19, 2008

NEW HAVEN - The moment he strode into Woolsey Hall Friday afternoon, late but just in time for a photo op, Arnold Schwarzenegger changed the climate of Yale's austere gathering of governors and gave the sweltering crowd a boost of energy — and a lot to think about.

In what was intended as a historic replay of a landmark meeting on conservation called by President Theodore Roosevelt 100 years ago, Yale brought together governors and officials from several states this week to sign a declaration calling on the federal government to get moving on climate change.

Schwarzenegger came to sign the declaration and to deliver his own brand of eco-politics: As a fiercely independent Republican governor of California, he perhaps has done more to fight global warming than any other governor in the nation. And he makes no bones about his differences with Congress and the Bush administration.

"In California, we say don't wait for Washington, because Washington is asleep at the wheel," he said. Like many who spoke at the conference, he is looking to the next administration for decisive action: "Things will begin to pick up speed after Inauguration Day."

That sentiment matched the central theme of the conference, which was that states have moved far out in front on the issue, and the federal government needs to work with them when developing climate policy.

"Today, we recommit ourselves to the effort to stop global warming and we call on congressional leaders and the presidential candidates to work with us — in partnership — to establish a comprehensive national climate policy," states the declaration, signed so far by 18 governors.

The statement urges Washington to support state efforts already underway and provide both mandatory measures and financial incentives for states. Three dozen states already have or are considering programs to confront climate change.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell welcomed the crowd and earned praise from speakers for her efforts on global warming, including the state's participation in a regional program to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The program sets up a cap-and-trade system that limits emissions and charges companies for permits to emit carbon dioxide, one of the key heat-trapping greenhouse gases associated with global warming. The first auction of such permits is scheduled for September.

The state legislature's appropriations committee on Friday approved a climate change bill that would begin to set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. The bill still needs final approval by the House, the Senate and Rell.

In Washington, Congress is negotiating over a bill co-sponsored by Connecticut independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman that would set up a nationwide cap-and-trade system. At issue are mandatory emissions caps, and whether industry will have to pay for permits to emit CO{-2}.

Joining Rell and Schwarzenegger in signing the declaration on the stage in Woolsey Hall were Govs. Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. The governors of Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington also have signed.

Also on stage were representatives from Mexico and the Czech Republic and two Canadian provincial premiers, Jean Charest of Quebec and Gary Doer of Manitoba, both heavily involved in the issue. Charest announced Friday that his province will join a climate-change initiative involving a coalition of western U.S. states.

Yale also brought in Nobel Prize-winner R.K. Pachauri, head of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to speak at the signing Friday afternoon.

Pachauri dismissed skeptics of global warming and said the world is unquestionably on a path of development and consumption of the Earth's resources that cannot be sustained.

Impacts already are being felt, he said, and "lifestyles will change."

He warned that without action now, irreversible changes in climate could lead to melting of the massive Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Such events would send sea levels up several meters "and put at risk several hundreds of millions of people," he said.

"The good news," he said, "is that mitigation is not an expensive proposition." He noted states' efforts have already shown some economic advantages that in the long run could outweigh the costs. He said the most important thing nations can do is to put a price on carbon, to incorporate incentives into the economic system.

The afternoon's ceremonies began without Schwarzenegger.

But as Rell, Corzine and Sebelius posed for photos after signing the declaration, Schwarzenegger walked onto the stage, rousing the crowd to applause.

Schwarzenegger gave the audience a boisterous dose of optimism and reality.

"People are not going to give up their energy-burning cars and TVs," he said, chiding environmentalists for running campaigns "powered by guilt."

"I don't think any movement has made it far on guilt. Successful movements are built on passion," he said. He also criticized activists and outdated environmental laws for putting obstacles in the path of cleaner energy solutions, such as a huge solar array proposed for the Mojave Desert.

"If we can't put solar power plants in the middle of the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it," he said.

He urged the audience to keep an open mind and not shun collaboration with corporations or political opponents.

"I am optimistic" about attacking the problem of climate change, Schwarzenegger said. "You can feel the big things moving. … You can feel the momentum. Things are about to move our way."

Theodore Roosevelt IV, grandson of the president who convened the 1908 meeting, spoke at a private dinner at the Yale Law School Thursday evening.

A noted environmentalist who works for the investment bank Lehman Brothers, he warned of a growing economic inequality in America that threatens social cohesion.

While most in the room would generally agree on economic and environmental policy, he said, for most Americans, "downward mobility is the threat, whereas upward mobility was the promise."

This disconnect, he said, means many citizens do not trust their government and may feel environmentalists stand in the way of their economic progress.

What's needed, he said, is "a Square Deal for the 21st century" that also considers the public's needs for economic security, health care and education.

Watertown could get state's biomass plant
Waterbury Republican-American
Sunday, September 9, 2007 9:08 AM EDT

A renewable energy power plant is helping to fill a need for electricity in this small town and provide an example of a similar project proposed for Watertown.

The Watertown plant would be the first of its kind in Connecticut. Tamarack Energy, the company proposing the plant, has pitched the wood-burning facility as a way to reduce greenhouse gases and dependence on fossil fuels. Called a biomass plant, it converts wood debris, old pallets and piles of wood chips into a source of renewable energy that could help to bridge an energy gap in the state.

BIOMAS PLANT IN MASS.
In this rural town of 7,700 people, the Fitchburg Power Station provides full-time employment for 20 people and has generated more than $240,000 in taxes over the past three years.

Located on five acres in an industrial park, the plant is not far from a two-lane highway and a large state forest — a similar setting to the plant site proposed in Watertown. The facility is fairly quiet, outside of light mechanical noise. Most of the noise is generated by the diesel engines from incoming trucks delivering wood.

Jonathan Clapp, the plant manager, has worked there since it was built in 1992.

"This is all you get in a fuel spill," Clapp said, letting a small pile of wood chips fall between his fingers and onto a waiting conveyor belt.

The smell of pine chips wafts around the plant as tractor trailers deliver wood material that has been procured from forest debris, scrap wood and trees that have been shredded to clear land for house lots.

Most of the plant's systems are automated; rubber conveyor belts send chips to multiple levels of its dark interior.

Although it's automated, the roughly 80,000-square-foot facility requires 20 employees for operations and maintenance.

It runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, burning nearly 25 tons of material an hour. That equates to roughly 30 truckloads of wood per day and roughly 200,000 tons per year, Clapp said.

"We haven't found much difficulty finding fuel," he said. "Real estate development has been our bread and butter."

The method used to create the energy has been around since the 1800s. Wood chips and other wood material are burned in the bottom of a 65-foot-high boiler. A large flame heats water in a series of pipes at the top until it reaches roughly 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The process turns the water into high-pressured steam, which then spins a 25,000-horsepower turbine.

Wood is chipped before it gets to the plant. It has to meet size requirements to be accepted. Other fuel sources include processed packaging material, such as shredded gum wrappers and hospital gowns made of paper. It's not industrial waste, rather surplus material that's unusable, Clapp said.

Most of the wood comes from a 50-mile radius around the plant and the company works with independent contractors who procure it. At least seven companies in town, and others nearby, sell wood to the plant.

"The area has grown up with us," Clapp said. "They depend on us, to some degree, to survive."

A ton of wood can be sold to biomass plants for between $15 and $23.

Water makes up 40 percent of the plant's emissions, and pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are monitored by the state at the top of the plant's 180-foot stack. Unburned material is captured in 1,600 fiberglass filters tucked away into an upper level of the plant.

Even the ash gets used by companies that cart it away for use in fertilizer, Clapp said.

Over the course of 15 years it has only had one fire, said Town Coordinator Karen Murphy.

As part of a really, really big energy bill, "Energy Improvement Districts" passed in Long Session - PA07-242 (specifically, sections 21-36).
Economist's energy plan taking off
PETER URBAN purban@ctpost.com
Article Last Updated: 07/15/2007 10:39:59 AM EDT

WASHINGTON — It was a serendipitous meeting at an ice hockey rink that sparked Connecticut native Guy Warner's most recent business venture — Pareto Energy, which is advising Ansonia as it sets up the state's first mini-power network.

Warner, an economist who lives here, had worked in Central and South America helping companies with the financing and construction of on-site energy plants. The business tumbled after Sept. 11, 2001, and the collapse of Enron, and Warner was ready for a change.

"I took a year off and coached my daughter's hockey team," Warner said.

When he wasn't skating around, Warner was thinking about how to reshape his business.

There were plenty of companies in need of reliable power supplies, but few could afford to do it themselves. The obvious answer was to have them pool their resources.

In the 1980s, businesses in New York's Times Square, Washington's K Street and downtown Philadelphia organized "business improvement districts" to hire private security and cleanup crews to improve their neighborhoods.

If businesses could organize into an "Energy Improvement District," Warner felt certain that he could attract private investors — using tax-free municipal bonds — to finance the capital improvements needed to build a cost-effective and reliable energy system.

Back at the hockey rink, Kathryn Kretschmer-Weyland, whose daughter was on the team, was impressed with Warner's winning and compassionate coaching style.

She wanted to know more about him.

Kretschmer-Weyland is the chief operating officer of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and had heard an earful from mayors about the problems they were having with brownouts and rising electricity rates.

"We started talking about what he did and what I did," she said. "I thought there might be a nexus here."

Regulators and utilities typically propose billions of dollars of investments to fortify conventional grid infrastructure — large, central power plants that have an extraordinarily negative impact on the environment and land use and are connected to customers over wires that can easily be knocked down by weather or human violence, Warner said.

"It's 1950s technology," he said.

Smaller, more efficient generators can be designed to provide the electricity needed for the Energy Improvement District as well as supply air conditioning to nearby buildings by capturing the heat otherwise lost up the generator's smokestacks, he said.

Warner, 50, speaks in long run-on sentences bouncing from one idea to another as he explains how he went from being an economist to the head of a company that provides energy and financing advice to municipalities.

In some ways it goes back to his hometown.

Warner grew up in Wallingford in central Connecticut. He graduated high school from Choate Rosemary Hall prep school, then attended St. Lawrence University in New York and received a master's degree from George Washington University.

Wallingford operates its own power company and has worked with local businesses to keep rates down and provide reliable service. He thought that other municipalities could benefit from a similar local approach.

"I grew up in a town where the power company was well-respected," he said.

Warner employs about 10 people at his Pareto Energy office in Georgetown near the Potomac River. The company pushed through legislation in the Connecticut General Assembly — approved last month — that allows towns to set up Energy Improvement Districts. They are advising Ansonia, Stamford and Watertown on setting them up.

Pareto Enterprises hopes to be hired to organize the EIDs — traversing the legal and regulatory steps, pulling together the partners and rounding up the financing that will bring the projects to reality.

Kretschmer-Weyland considers Warner a genius.

"As an economist, he knew the way to make this work," she said.

Kretschmer-Weyland thought that cities like Stamford could benefit from providing a reliable energy source to financial services companies that cannot afford to lose computer links to Wall Street.

Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, who is active in the conference, was intrigued and has embraced Warner's approach.

In August 2003, a major power outage hit much of the Northeast and Midwest. New York City alone estimated that the failure cost the city more than $500 million in lost revenues. All together, the total economic damages of the blackout exceeded those ascribed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Warner said.

"Power became a front-door issue for mayors," Warner said.

Ansonia will likely become the first city to embrace Warner's concept later this summer, now that the Connecticut General Assembly has passed a law allowing these unique districts to be established within municipalities.

Mayor Jim Della Volpe said that instead of relying solely on large nuclear, oil and coal-burning power plants, a portion of Ansonia's electricity needs will be met by a cluster of newly built, small, environmentally friendly power plants sited in an energy improvement district.

On Thursday, Della Volpe signed a resolution officially establishing the city's EID following a vote earlier in the week by the Board of Aldermen authorizing its creation.

The power generated there — all of it from clean-running sources like natural gas-powered fuel cells — will provide low cost, reliable electric power that will serve as a catalyst for continuing Ansonia's economic revitalization, Della Volpe said.

Bridgeport Mayor John M. Fabrizi said he is enthusiastic about the concept and would like to launch a pilot program with a city building as the focus.

"I believe this can be a real benefit to economic development and would help draw private investors in to the city," Fabrizi said.

Warner hopes to bring EIDs to municipalities across the country and is working on other ideas for more efficient and reliable energy. For now, he is happy that his concept has taken root in his home state.

Germany Debates Subsidies for Solar Industry
NYTIMES
By MARK LANDLER
Published: May 16, 2008

THALHEIM, Germany — This sad stretch of eastern Germany, with its deserted coal mines and corroded factories, epitomizes post-industrial gloom. It is a place where even the clouds rarely seem to part. Yet the sun was shining here the other day — and nowhere more brightly than at Q-Cells, a German company that surpassed Sharp last year to become the world’s largest maker of photovoltaic solar cells. Q-Cells is the main tenant among a flowering cluster of solar start-ups here in an area known as Solar Valley.

Thanks to its aggressive push into renewable energies, cloud-wreathed Germany has become an unlikely leader in the race to harness the sun’s energy. It has by far the largest market for photovoltaic systems, which convert sunlight into electricity, with roughly half of the world’s total installations. And it is the third-largest producer of solar cells and modules, after China and Japan.

Now, though, with so many solar panels on so many rooftops, critics say Germany has too much of a good thing — even in a time of record oil prices. Conservative lawmakers, in particular, want to pare back generous government incentives that support solar development. They say solar generation is growing so fast that it threatens to overburden consumers with high electricity bills.

Solar-energy entrepreneurs warn that reducing incentives will deprive Germany of its pole position in an industry of the future. As proof, they point to the United States and Japan, which were once solar stars but have faded as their government subsidies became less enticing.

The debate over solar subsidies is a test of how an environmentally minded country can move from nurturing a promising alternative energy sector to creating a mass-market industry that can compete with conventional energy sources on its own footing. It is a tricky transition, even with a sympathetic population.

“Germany’s law has basically been a turbocharger,” said Anton Milner, the chief executive of Q-Cells. If the proposals being floated by the Christian Democratic Union, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, were adopted, he predicted, “you’d kill the industry.”

Germany’s surging market has lured investors from Canada, Norway and the United States. More than 40,000 people work in the photovoltaic industry, helping to revive blighted regions like this one. On Wednesday, Q-Cells reported a 63 percent jump in its first-quarter operating profit, showing the riches to be reaped from sunshine.

Leading a visitor past gleaming rows of solar panels on the roof of Q-Cells’ headquarters, Mr. Milner, a British-born former executive at Royal Dutch Shell, said Germany could not afford to blow this chance. Surely, he says, the naysayers are aware that the cost of electricity will spike along with the price of fossil fuels?

Joachim Pfeiffer, a member of Parliament who is drafting the plan to cut incentives, said: “We don’t want to slaughter the solar industry; we think photovoltaic technology will have a great future. But to have that future, we can’t have overkill now.”

At the heart of the debate is the Renewable Energy Sources Act. It requires power companies to buy all the alternative energy produced by these systems, at a fixed above-market price, for 20 years.

This mechanism, known as a feed-in tariff, gives entrepreneurs a powerful incentive to install solar panels. With a locked-in customer base for their electricity, they can earn a reliable return on their investment. It has worked: homeowners rushed to clamp solar panels on their roofs and farmers planted them in fields where sheep once grazed.

The amount of electricity generated by these installations rose 60 percent in 2007 compared with 2006, faster than any other renewable energy (solar still generates just 0.6 percent of Germany’s total electricity, compared with 6.4 percent for wind).

This, in a country that gets an average of only 1,528 hours of sunshine a year, less than a third of the total daylight hours. That figure is comparable to London’s but it is one-third fewer sunshine hours than in Florence, Italy, and only half San Diego’s, making German solar installations less efficient, and their growth all the more remarkable.

With wind, biomass and other alternative energy also growing, Germany derives 14.2 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. That puts it ahead of a European Union target for countries to generate 12.5 percent of electricity from alternative sources by 2010.

Spain, France, Italy and Greece have copied Germany’s solar incentives. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed a plan in which utilities pay rebates to customers with solar panels, though only up to the amount of electricity they would have otherwise used from conventional energy sources.

“Germany is a driving force worldwide,” said Hermann Scheer, a member of Parliament who helped write the law. “It is very important that the driving force not become a lame duck.”

Christian Democrats, however, say the law has been too successful for its own good. Utilities, they note, are allowed to pass along the extra cost of buying renewable energy to customers, and there is no cap on the capacity that can be installed — as exists in other countries to prevent subsidies from mushrooming.

At the moment, solar energy adds 1.01 euros ($1.69) a month to a typical home electricity bill, a modest surcharge that Germans are willing to pay. That will increase to 2.14 euros a month by 2014, according to the German Solar Energy Association.

But the volume of solar-generated energy is rising much faster than originally predicted, and critics contend that the costs will soar. Mr. Pfeiffer, the legislator, said solar power could end up adding 8 euros ($12.32) to a monthly electricity bill, which would alienate even the most green-minded. With no change in the law, he says, the solar industry will soak up 120 billion euros ($184 billion) in public support by 2015.

The conservatives would like to accelerate the rate at which the feed-in tariff declines, now set at 5 percent a year. Under a draft proposal, the tariff would fall 30 percent in 2009, and 9 percent a year after that. The law’s term might also be shortened to 15 years from 20.

Mrs. Merkel, who boasts of her green credentials, has yet to enter the debate. Her party must win over its coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, which might be tough, given that the law was strengthened in 2004 by the last government, led by the Social Democrats.

Meanwhile, solar advocates are testifying before Parliament and publishing articles defending the law.

Eicke R. Weber, a prominent physicist, said the estimate of 120 billion euros in subsidies was too high because it did not take into account the rising price of conventional electricity. That, plus a gradual decline in the cost of solar, will close the price gap between conventional and solar-generated electricity by 2014 or 2015, he predicted.

The actual subsidy, Mr. Weber said, will be 40 billion to 60 billion euros, a third of what the German state is paying to prop up its superannuated coal industry.

“If we’re willing to burden the population with 180 billion euros of support for a dying industry, who do we worry about taking one-third of this to make Germany the world leader in photovoltaic technology?” said Mr. Weber, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg.

Defenders of solar energy see the hand of Germany’s power companies behind the effort to change the law. Reducing incentives for solar would favor wind, which is a more natural fit for the utilities, since the cost of building wind farms is too high for the average homeowner with an empty roof and an urge to generate electricity.

“Solar energy is more decentralized, so the industry sees more competition from solar than from wind,” said Carsten Körnig, the managing director of the German Solar Energy Association.

In the former East Germany, where scores of state-subsidized industries were shuttered after reunification in 1990, the solar industry is a welcome tonic for a depressed region. Signet Solar, an American maker of photovoltaic modules that use thin-film technology, chose to build its first factory and research center near Dresden.

“We decided right from the beginning to have our main R&D in Germany,” said Gunter Ziegenbalg, Signet’s managing director.

Still, there are constant reminders of how quickly Germany could lose its status. Signet is building its next factory in Madras, India; Q-Cells is building one in Malaysia. Other German companies are exploring the Mediterranean markets, particularly Spain.

With more sunny days a year, Spain is likely to have a competitive solar industry that can stand on its feet before Germany’s does. And now it has put in place its own German-style incentives.

“To develop a technology, you’ve got to create an industry,” said Mr. Milner, the chief executive of Q-Cells, referring to the German success story. “You can wait and wait and wait for costs to come down, but it takes too long.”

Solar power sees bright future; Rebate program helps fight rising prices
By EMILY GROVES
For the Norwich Bulletin
Posted Jul 18, 2008 @ 11:47 PM

Canterbury, Conn. — In November, Stan Clerici paid $84,000 to install three 10-feet-by-21-feet solar panels in his yard to generate power to his 3,600-square-foot Canterbury home.

After a $44,000 Connecticut Clean Energy Fund rebate, an electric bill that dropped from about $250 a month to $15 and credits from a nonprofit agency and Connecticut Light & Power Co., Clerici expects the investment to pay off in about 10 years.

“I knew electricity was going to keep going up, even higher than what they’ve estimated, and I’ve always been interested in alternative energy, because I know fossil fuels are being depleted at a fast rate,” he said. “I think this year you’re going to see a lot of people struggling with rising fuel prices. Some people are doing something about it, and some people aren’t. I chose to do something about it.”

The number of people statewide to take advantage of the state’s solar rebate program has grown rapidly in the last year and a half, prompted by concerns about the rising cost of electricity.

Clerici is one of 586 people since January 2005 to receive solar rebates from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, which was established by the state legislature in 2000 to promote renewable energy. Of those rebates, 480 were issued since February 2007, according to Emily Smith, spokeswoman for Connecticut Innovations, a Rocky Hill-based company that administers the fund.

“It really is taking off, and one of the reasons it’s taking off is the cost of electricity is going up,” she said.

Smith said the state fund provides rebates covering around 50 percent of the cost. The average system, a five-kilowatt unit, provides 75 percent of a home’s electricity use each month, she said.

Clerici estimated his 10-kilowatt unit provides 91 percent of a home’s monthly use. He said his system has produced as many as 65 kilowatts per day, which is more than twice what he uses. He sends his unused power back to Connecticut Light & Power and is paid for it. He said the power company gives him credit on his bill, so he doesn’t know the exact rate he is paid. He also receives around $100 every three months from the Mass Energy Consumer Alliance, a Boston-based nonprofit, for producing clean energy.

Mitch Gross, spokesman for Connecticut Light & Power, said an average household uses 700 kilowatt hours per month, for an electric bill of $138.56. According to Smith and Clerici’s figures, 5-kilowatt units could slash monthly electric bills by $103.92 and 10-kilowatt units could cut $126.09.

The Energy Information Administration projects around 41,000 consumers nationwide will cash in on solar power in 2008. Still, Smith said, the monthly benefits are great, but the costly systems take around 10 years to pay off and are not accessible to just anyone.

“These are expensive systems,” she said. “It’s not something people are going to jump up and do tomorrow, especially in this economy.”

Kohl's Department Stores said Monday it is bringing its West Coast experiment with solar power to three Connecticut stores.

The retailer said it started in January to convert stores in New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland following the successful rollout of solar panel technology at 25 of its 88 California stores last year.

There are 17 Kohl's in Connecticut; the Orange, Manchester and Rocky Hill stores will have the panels, according to company spokeswoman Mary Ann Campbell.

Kohl's, which also has stores in Fairfield, Norwalk, Ridgefield and Trumbull, did not disclose why it chose the particular stores.

Kohl's received three Connecticut Clean Energy Fund grants to defray the cost of the installation of the solar panels at their Connecticut sites. The amount of those grants was not disclosed.

Shares of Kohl's rose $1.33 to close at $49.07 on Monday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Kohl's is on a growing list of companies that have installed or are planning to attach solar arrays to their buildings.

Emily Smith, a CCEF spokeswoman, said 72 businesses have won grant approvals to install solar panels. Many have already added the technology, she said, and if all are built, including the 513 residential and small-business projects, the state could have 11,400 megawatts of solar-power-generated electricity available. One megawatt can generally power 750 to 1,000 homes, according to industry standards.

Fairfield-based R.C. Bigelow installed solar panels that now provide about 10 percent of the tea maker's yearly electricity, according to plant manager Jim Gildey.

Even under Monday's gloomy gray skies, Bigelow's array was generating 23 kilowatts of power, Gildey said.

"Green is the buzz word," Gildey said, "but we've been doing green for a long time."

The company installed more-efficient emergency lighting in 1996 and adopted motion detecting light sources in 1999 that switch off lights when people aren't in rooms, he said.

He said owner Cindi Bigelow set the company on the path to being more environmentally friendly years ago, weaving a sense of environmental obligation into Bigelow's corporate strategy. Cutting the electric bill is only part of the goal, Gildey said, adding it will take years before Bigelow recovers its investment. The real reason to adopt solar technology is to cut carbon pollution, he said. Since installing the panels, Bigelow estimates it has stopped about 290,000 pounds of carbon from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Bigelow used a $777,000 Connecticut Clean Energy Fund grant to cover about 55 percent of the cost of its project.

The CCEF provides grants to residents and businesses.

Seymour-based Thule Inc. won a $1.3 million CCEF grant on April 7, 2008, to install solar arrays on its roof that potentially could provide 26 percent of the company's electricity needs.

When Bigelow installed its array, which is a collection of solar panels, those panels were expected to provide about 6.7 percent of Bigelow's needs.

Kohl's said in a news release it expects to get about 30 percent of each store's electricity needs from the arrays it installs.

Those installations are under way.

For information on CCEF grants, visit the Web site of its parent organization, Connecticut Innovations at www.ctinnovations.com.

A Green Energy Industry Takes Root in California
NYTIMES
By MATT RICHTEL and JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 1, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — The sun is starting to grow jobs.

While interest in alternative energy is climbing across the United States, solar power especially is rising in California, the product of billions of dollars in investment and mountains of enthusiasm.

In recent months, the industry has added several thousand jobs in the production of solar energy cells and installation of solar panels on roofs. A spate of investment has also aimed at making solar power more efficient and less costly than natural gas and coal.

Entrepreneurs, academics and policy makers say this era’s solar industry is different from what was tried in the 1970s, when Jerry Brown, then the governor of California, invited derision for envisioning a future fueled by alternative energy.

They point to companies like SolarCity, an installer of rooftop solar cells based in Foster City. Since its founding in 2006, it has grown to 215 workers and $29 million in annual sales. “It is hard to find installers,” said Lyndon Rive, the chief executive. “We’re at the stage where if we continue to grow at this pace, we won’t be able to sustain the growth.”

SunPower, which makes the silicon-based cells that turn sunlight into electricity, reported 2007 revenue of more than $775 million, more than triple its 2006 revenue. The company expects sales to top $1 billion this year. SunPower, based in San Jose, said its stock price grew 251 percent in 2007, faster than any other Silicon Valley company, including Apple and Google.

Not coincidentally, three-quarters of the nation’s demand for solar comes from residents and companies in California. “There is a real economy — multiple companies, all of which have the chance to be billion-dollar operators,” said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor in the energy and resources group at the University of California, Berkeley. California, he says, is poised to be both the world’s next big solar market and its entrepreneurial center.

The question, Professor Kammen says, is: “How can we make sure it̵