This is a podcast of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance In this episode of Local Energy Rules, ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy, John Farrell, speaks to Brian Minish, CEO of South Dakota Wind Partners about a community wind project that attracted over 600 local investors. The project was the brainchild … [continued]
In the next two years, the U.S. may get a lot less solar and wind power than it could. It’s not a shortage of solar panels or the cost of turbines. Rather, it’s a problem of the perverse nature of federal incentives for renewable energy. Right now, the owner … [continued]
The Treasury 1603 grant program– a renewable energy subsidy–was a key strut that kept the US renewable energy growing and creating green jobs in the wake of the near collapse of the US financial system and recession of 2008-2009. This should go a long way towards putting paid to Republican rhetorical diatribe about federal support for clean energy development and job creation, though it almost certainly won’t.
Clean energy advocates should cast aside their worries about increasing Republican scrutiny of energy subsidies. The clean energy industry’s foolish reliance on tax incentives has already handcuffed its expansion.
Unlike the leading nations in the clean energy race, the United States has no coherent energy policy. […]
A coalition of clean energy economy leaders and stakeholders has sent Congress a letter urging them to extend the Treasury Section 1603 grant program through 2012. Enacted to sustain investment flows in the wake of the 2008 financial systems collapse and due to expire at year-end, the 1603 grant program has been central to the continued growth and development of clean energy across the US in all its forms in ensuing years.
A key to sustaining renewable energy economic & jobs growth in the wake of the “Great Recession,” the US Treasury 1603 grant program is due to expire at the end of 2011. A study conducted for the SEIA indicates that extending it for one year would create an additional 37,394 solar industry jobs and some 2,000 megawatts (MW) of new solar installations.
