Finance | Grist

‘Subprime carbon’: Risk or hype? 1
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago Friends of the Earth argues that carbon trading could bring down the economy, putting climate policy into the hands of Bernie Madoff-style Wall Street bankers. Of course, this isn’t true. It’s not even sort of true. It’s just an attempt to torpedo the Kerry-Boxer clean-energy bill by sowing confusion about an important and sensitive issue.
China’s rearview mirror

China is leaving the U.S. in the dust as it surges ahead on clean energy 14
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
Even as China overtakes the U.S. in the dubious category of “world’s leading greenhouse gas producer,” it is also well ahead of the U.S. in developing the technologies and policies to solve the problem -- and selling those solutions to us at massive profits that could have been ours.
The bank job

If progressives want a Clean Energy Bank, they need better economics 5
Posted 3 months ago
One of the most unquestionably excellent pieces of the climate bill now awaiting defenestration at the hands Senate Blue Dogs is its creation of a Clean Energy Bank that would help finance nascent clean energy projects. Naturally, conservatives are now coming out in opposition to it.
Don't get burned

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: Time to walk the talk on coal 0
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon professes profound concern for our future. He waxes eloquent talking about how JP Morgan Chase is committed to investments in clean energy. But Sierra Club’s diligent researchers have pulled back the curtain and uncovered that his rhetoric doesn’t match his company’s action.
financial meltdown

Nuclear plans hurting power companies’ credit ratings 1
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago
Power companies pursuing construction of new nuclear plants may find it harder to get credit -- meaning ratepayers could end up shouldering a greater financial burden for the costly and environmentally harmful projects.
Another category of DSIRE

Tracking property tax financing programs for renewable and energy efficiency investments 0
Posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago
Berkeley's program for leveraging property taxes to help homeowners finance investments in solar and energy efficiency is taking off. To date, 11 states (and counting) have enacted enabling legislation allowing local municipalities to follow suit. Which ones?
New energy at DOE

Autos, smart grid and clean tech: DOE turns on the money 2
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago
Last week the Department of Energy released part of the $25 billion in loans provided for through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, included in Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The delay in releasing these funds had been one of the longest running scandals in clean tech policy. Upon taking office, the Obama Administration vowed to expedite their release and Secretary Steven Chu had made finalizing rules needed to administer the program a key priority. In the first installment of the loans, Tesla, the VC-backed California maker of an all-electric sports car, founded by Ebay veterans, will receive $465 million to make its compact, all-electric Model S sedan. Ford will receive $5.9 billion to retool 11 factories across five states to improve the overall fuel efficiency of its fleet. Finally, Nissan will receive $1.6 billion to retool a factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, to make an electric vehicle that is being developed and initially manufactured in Japan. The remainder of the money will be released next year.
Climate Savings Bond

Pinko bastion spawns capitalist solution to solar financing 4
Posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago
The hotbed of East Bay Bolshevism has become a wellspring of municipal eco-capitalism that's serving as a model for expanding the use of solar power in less leftist locales.
Simple is as simple does

Myth: Climate policy must be simple 10
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago
Among the weird memes that has grown up around the cap-and-trade debate, one of the most puzzling to me is that C&T is fatally flawed because it is complex. Americans don't "get it." They'll only support a climate policy that is so "simple and transparent" that you can explain it on a napkin. As far as I can tell, that requirement was invented out of whole cloth, specifically for this problem, more specifically for this particular way of dealing with this problem.
Green:Net '09: San Fran will follow Berkeley

Newsom says San Francisco will adopt Berkeley green financing model 0
Posted 8 months ago
While Geithner’s bailout flounders, it’s time to explore other financial models 8
Posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago