Green stimulus, green jobs 13

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1. 

   CarolMcClelland Posted 10:20 am
   05 Dec 2008

   Watching the green stimulus package unfoldI agree! It will certainly be interesting to watch as the green stimulus package unfolds over the next few months.
   Who will be appointed to handle energy and environmental posts?
   How will the topic be addressed by Congress? This quote (linked to above) from Pelosi is promising.
   "The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said this week that rebuilding infrastructure and creating green jobs was "the first order of business that we will have" when Congress reconvenes in January. Several hearings are planned even before Mr. Obama takes office on Jan. 20."
   An exciting time!
   
   
   
   Carol McClelland, PhD
   
   Founder and Managing Editor of Green Career Central
   
   http://www.greencareercentral.com

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2. 

   GreenMom Posted 1:59 pm
   05 Dec 2008

   It's a new day

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3. 

   amazingdrx Posted 3:36 pm
   05 Dec 2008

   Job lossesWith job losses spiraling the economy into a depression, this is the only way we will pull out of this collapse.
   Money to AIG that produces "credit default swaps" ($26 trillion worth in imaginary electronic corpo-play money) or to Detroit to keep making steel gas guzzlers?  These efforts were doomed before they started.
   Green jobs making green cars and building and retrofitting green homes and buildings.  And growing healthy food and supplying GHG canceling energy from farm waste.  And building out a renewable smart grid.  That's the way back out of this hole the bushwackers have thrown US into.
   It's a simple choice, green jobs or depression.  
   
   http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

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4. 

   GreenMom Posted 3:42 pm
   05 Dec 2008

   "Green jobs or depression"You got that right, amazing...
   I'm hopeful, though.  We may actually do the right thing.

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5. 

   amazingdrx Posted 3:58 pm
   05 Dec 2008

   Me too G-momObama is the right one for the job.  Just like Neil Young predicted in "Living With War".  He exemplifies competent confidence in the face of rough odds.
   Are you going to an Obama volunteer house party next weekend?  Our green troops should be there to connect up green jobs with economic recovery.
   Wouldn't you like to see a new CCC building bike trails and green camping vacation areas that are affordable for financially stressed families?  And maybe cleaing up and recycling wood waste at risk of forest fire.  
   I think an immediate youth (with older layed off or retired skilled leaders and trainers) service program that involves a new CCC and other areas like teaching assistants and daycare workers would be really boost confidence, and the young will spend those wages and buoy the local economy.
   And as we realized, many months ago, green jobs have sex appeal!  that's the ultimate pop culture endorsement.  Everyone wants a partner with a good, fullfilling job where they do good work they believe in.
   
   http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

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6. 

   stopgreenpath Posted 3:06 am
   06 Dec 2008

   We should own the infrastructure ourselvesWith the passage of AB 811 in CA, municipalities and counties have access to the property tax assessment mechanism for repayment of loans to property owners for conservation and renewable generation systems they install (rooftop solar, microwind, etc.).  That's good, and anyone who can pay $8/watt over time and is fine with zeroing out their bill and giving the excess to the utility for free is now set to soften the blow of the initial outlay of cash.  So, maybe a few thousand people can put solar panels on their property while RETI marches onwards with its plans to obliterate millions of acres of wilderness, exercise mass eminent domain, and re-centralize our grid for the Big Energy monopolists.
   At the same time, big utilities are getting really cheap bids for their own rooftop solar programs (SCE paying between $3 and $4/watt, installed).  I see a perfect opportunity here.  Why doesn't LA, for example, put out an RFP for 100,000 5 KW systems to get a bulk price for installation and materials (both locally sourced), re-sell them to homeowners at cost (say, $4/watt, so $20K less CSI of $10K less Fed tax credit of $6K, so net cost to customer is $4K), finance it through the property tax system, and implement a net metering contract to purchase 100% of net excess for 15 cents/kwh for 10 years?  Even when CSI incentives disappear, $14K is a far cry from $40K, and paid over time, is affordable for most people, since they will be getting checks for excess, plus offsetting their power bills.
   ratepayers pay NO additional infrastructure costs, everyone can afford solar on their home and business, no wilderness is killed, 500 MW of in-basin power is generated, lightening the load on the existing grid and requiring no new transmission, and LADWP makes a 100% profit on the peaker power they re-sell for 30 cents/kwH, which can roll over into a program for the next 100,000 homes, until the flat, baking, sprawling metropolis is covered in panels and nearly powering itself.
   the only thing standing between this amazing opportunity and reality is the monopolistic mindset of the utilities, and some smart grid infrastructure upgrades which are needed anyway.  slumping property values increase, tens of thousands of skilled jobs are created (over a much longer period than that of scraping and blasting our deserts for faraway power plants and lengthy wasteful powerlines that destroy rural peoples' lives), money is circulating in the local economy, and the city is 100% guaranteed to get their investment back because the property tax system "insures" it.
   what do you think?
   
   the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

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7. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 4:56 am
   06 Dec 2008

   Green jobsOne thing about weatherizing and sealing. You could weatherize and seal shell and ducts in every residence in the U.S. that needs  it for well under 40 billion.  You would have to train some people to weatherize that many residences, so say including training time you do it over 18 months to two years.  That is not only one heck of a stimulus, it probably would reduce energy for residential climate control by 20%. (The usual savings range estimated for a complete sealing job is 10%-35%.) While people were sealing they could also be training in how to insulate. (Installing insulation properly takes more training than weather and duct sealing.) And once every home in the U.S. was properly sealed, the same people who did he sealing could come back over the course of seven to fifteen years to make sure every uninsulated home was properly insulated - including insulated curtains for homes where other window upgrades did not make sense.

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8. 

   Jon Rynn Posted 9:10 am
   06 Dec 2008

   stopgreenpath --Let me suggest to you that the main problem may not be the utilities, it is more likely the mindset that the government shouldn't get involved, that we have to bend over backwards to give "incentives" to that delicate creature, the "investor".
   However, SF did put together a proposal to put PV on roofs to generate 103 MWs, which basically comes from the city, as I discussed in this post about CCAs, which may be spreading, particularly throughout the SF Bay area.  I don't know if anything like that is going on in southern cal.

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9. 

   ids Posted 10:53 am
   06 Dec 2008

   JobsSteve Cook
   
   , Franklin County, IL, economic developer
   
   "I pray that coal will be king again"
   Clean coal is part of the Illinois alternative energy mix.  Obama lost out to McCain 50%-48% in Franklin.  Hell win them over with more jobs by 2012.

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10. 

    GreenMom Posted 2:31 pm
    06 Dec 2008

    Green Job CorpsHey amazing et. al. -- a Green Job Corps - i.e. a new CCC -- would be just the thing.  
    Get some money to community colleges to teach the classes, and put people to work weatherizing, putting up solar hot water systems, putting up wind farms, greening rooftops, and electrifying truck stops so the trucks don't have to idle all night.
    My local area is chock full of enthusiasm for green building, but we need more help it making it widespread (we're a high growth part of the country, so lots of new construction).
    Revised building codes would be a start.  Incentives for weatherizing too.  Even just helping people to add window overhangs would be huge (we spend more on air conditioning over the course of a year than we spend on heating).

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11. 

    stopgreenpath Posted 4:22 am
    07 Dec 2008

    jon rynni am referring to the SF program (which was a "pilot" for AB 811), and as i mention, that's fine for people who can afford $8/watt with net metering, if it's paid over time instead of up front.  my issue is that not only can most people not afford that, but that it's only about 20% of the program that will work.
    government IS involved - isn't that what this article is about?  isn't that what AB 811 is about?  isn't that what California Solar Initiative is about?  isn't that what tax breaks and (usually unfairly skewed) incentives are about?  isn't that what regulation, economic stimulation, bailouts, "new deals" and paying taxes is about?
    either global warming is urgent enough to ramp up local, point of use solutions (and my solution costs taxpayers and ratepayers NOTHING, while adding enormously to the community's economic base) or it is not urgent enough to justify slaughtering millions of acres of our open spaces for (ahem) "renewable" energy.  which is it?  urgent or not?  which solution will make global warming worse?  right - destroying carbon sinks like the Mojave.  which will enslave ratepayers and use our taxpayer and ratepayer resources to bottle our own sun and wind and sell it back to us at extortionate profits?  right - Big Centralized Industrial Wind and Solar.
    so, tell me again why we shouldn't use market forces, government programs, and smart planning to create the only win/win/win/win solution?  because of Big Energy lobbying.  there are more of us than there are of them, so why are we letting them hijack our democratic process?
    
    the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

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12. 

    Jon Rynn Posted 10:09 am
    07 Dec 2008

    stopgreenpath --The information on AB 811 isn't very good, although I think what it says is that municipalities can sell bonds to put infrastructure on private buildings, e.g., photovoltaics.  You have more information on this than I do, evidently, and I appreciate any wisdom you have to impart on these matters.
    Now, another thing I learned while learning about CCAs was that all cities have the power to allow or disallow any group or company, such as utilities, from providing electricity to their territory.  In combination with CCAs, AB 811 and everything else -- like municipal utilities -- it seems to me that what you have emerging is a counterpower to Big Utilities.  In other words, if you want to counter Big Energy and Big Solar and all the rest, you go for a separate power center, Big City.
    I suppose they could even band together and control electricity generation from beyond their borders.
    Why do I keep bringing up going extra-local?  Because it seems that wind power is what is "winning" right now, to judge from things that Lester Brown and others are saying, and research indicates that a national system of wind power could be used to provide baseload.  Since wind is by far the least environmentally-destructive way to go, it seems to me that, using PV and maybe some local wind (SF plans some local wind) for most electrical needs, plus a baseload from national wind, might work.
    What you suggest is actually similar to what, believe it or not, Bill Clinton has been putting together, that is, buyers clubs of governments, to get "wholesale".  So LA, and even other jurisdictions, could get togther and get a great deal on PV. In fact, maybe they could even buy their own silicon purification plant, that would put a huge dent in costs.
    I wasn't aware that the Berkeley plan still made electricity too expensive for most people -- are you sure about that?  I thought it was basically free to install.  
    Anyway, the original post here actually had to do with Federal funding.  It seems to have crept into many minds that the Feds need to fund infrastructure, but I don't know if that means funding solar PV or other local electricity generation -- that might be considered too much in the domain of the "market".  So although it would be best to combine the market and government in the case of solar, the push needs to be made in the area of arguing for governmental involvement, because that's the part that's lacking

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13. 

    stopgreenpath Posted 7:48 am
    08 Dec 2008

    jon rynnhi again.  firstly, AB 811 is about accessing the property tax system, which basically "guarantees" and amortizes the loans.  cities can finance the work however they like.  some are doing muni bonds, some are partnering with lenders, some are pulling from their General Funds.  In other words, with both Schwarzenegger and Villaraigosa publicly and privately pleading for Federal "infrastructure" funds, this could be what those funds are used for (and they are loans, not costs, so they come back with interest!)...
    the problem with an SF/Berkeley type program is that although it is much cheaper to property owners to install than $8/watt, that is because the city is SUBSIDIZING at substantial ratepayer and taxpayer expense - it still costs $8/watt, the price is just spread over more people.  so every $1,000 saved by a homeowner is assessed at 1 cent across 1,000 ratepayers/taxpayers.  this is an argument often used to object to feed in tariffs and other incentives for rooftop PV, which has the perception of being "too expensive" because the government favors Big Energy with its incentives, so Big wind and Big Solar appear cheaper than they are (just like coal, gas and oil do).  it's a bogus argument in many ways, since we pay for their monopolistic infrastructure, but people are pretty stingy when it comes to paying their neighbor for power rather than Big Energy.  odd.
    in start contrast, all the savings in my proposal are real, and they are inherent in bulk purchasing/contracting.  what i'm proposing will NOT raise rates (unlike Big Wind), will NOT raise taxes, and will not kill off 50 acres per mW of power (hello Big Wind again), while recentralizing Big Energy monopolies.  it's regular market functioning with economies of scale, that nails global warming, conservation of habitats/ecosystems, creates huge numbers of local skilled jobs, props up property values, saves open spaces and water, and ENGAGES RATEPAYERS ON A PERSONAL LEVEL, while also rewarding us for doing the right thing (producing more clean power than we use).
    i think it's bulletproof, but if you see an objection, please, hit me up.  I won't go into the total myth that Big Wind will be our baseload power, or that it's environmentally sound.  Let's tackle Phases 1 - 3 now, and see how the tech evolves once point of use solutions are the focus of all the R & D...
    
    the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

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