This is better than nothing, but is really goofy, in the sense that it will do nothing to encourage clean energy deployment.  Getting one year of production tax credits serves only to provide additional cash to projects that were already in development and going forward.  With ~1+ year development times on just about any energy project (and another year to build), it just isn't possible to move quickly enough so that a one year tax bill changes any behavior.

Note that this is not a criticism of clean energy incentives per se - simply that this is a pretty JV way to do it.  (As I said to a geothermal developer I was with in DC yesterday, given the choice between  "would you like congress to F up a lot, or F up a little, the latter is clearly preferable.  But they're still f'ing up.)

It is better than the alternative Sean, no PTC.

The assumption by investors will be that a more GHG free energy policy will come in with the fall election.  And that this short term PTC extension will bridge the gap.

But will they wait until the actual election results to fund new projects?  Probably.  Having gone through the 2000 "appointment" fiasco, Watching stock markets dip and dive with every new legal opinion on the Fla "hanging chad" migration.

The effort to divert a paltry 13 billion over 10 years from oil company subsidies to subsidies for renewables and conservation was narrowly defeated.

I think politicians are waiting for a chance to institute cap and trade, with cash aquired from the sale of carbon emission permits going to their favorite allegedly green pork projects, like ethanol fuel farming, clean coal, and nuclear power.

A big sell out of the environment and the movement is in the works.  The hedge fund managers and big DC eco-lobbyists are salivating.  Will this mean new mistresses for the lot of 'em?  Yep.  Don't be a player hater, these lowlifes are soo horny, hehey.

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Sean,

Your impulse is correct, but extending the PTC for another year does not mean extending PTC payments for just one more year.  

The PTC is a 10 year tax credit that triggers for a project on the date it is placed in commercial service.  What a PTC extension does is it extends the placed in service sunset date for another year.  In other words, a wind project developed in 2009 will no be entitled to 10 years worth of PTCs.

Like I said, your impulse is correct, though.  Significant renewable energy development won't occur unless there is a longer period of PTC certainty.  Projects that take 3-4 years to develop need to know that the PTC will be there at the commercial operations date.  If the PTC is uncertain, the project never happens.

We couldn't pile on Craig for being gay, only for hypocricy.  Our side is too tolerant to use the tactics of the real haters.  The Rove, fauxnews, limboob wing nut squad.

There is nothing at all wrong with being gay.  It's a fact!

People like John Waters, Rachel Maddow, Barney Frank, to name only a few mighty earth shaking gay culture heroes highlight this obvious truth.  We just can't throw out principle, even to put an ass like Craig out on his ass.  

We'll have to wait, once again.  

But you know without some important enlightenment  on the right GHG free energy and ag policy, even a democratic sweep will just boost the wrong stuff.  Namely ethanol fuel farming, nuclear power, and clean coal.

I'd say the time frame to get to all our democratic incumbents and democrats about to be elected with the real cure for climate disaster is about the same as the time to the next election.  So every donation ought to be paired with a clear statement on real energy and ag policy reform.

Politicians listen to cash.  Send 10 bucks at a time with a nice crisp note dissing nukes, ethanol, and coal and boosting direct subsidy diversion to solar, wind, and farm biogas zzzaping through a renwable distributed smart grid to power plugin hybrids and geo heat exchange building heating/cooling systems.

That's the ticket, millions of messages with cold hard cash backing them up.  send one to each of your reps and candidates each month from now until the election.  If millions did it?  Well?  100 millon bucks or so?  With 10 million notes?

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