Photo by Kyle Field | CleanTechnica

Democrats Get Stuff Done — Vote Wisely!

November 4, 2024November 5, 20242 months ago Zachary Shahan 0 Comments

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… And They’re USA’s Only Hope For Competing With China

There’s no doubt about it — China is absolutely demolishing the US on the clean technology economy, and the world is a clean technology economy more and more every day and will be for decades to come. China has strong, guided, clear pro-cleantech policy, and it now dominates solar panel manufacturing, electric vehicle manufacturing and sales, EV battery manufacturing, and more. Europe is doing quite alright itself in the EV realm thanks to strong policies requiring that automakers cut their fleets’ CO2 emissions more and more. The US is split in half on cleantech policies, and we’re thus well behind China and Europe.

In the past 47 years, Democratic presidents have consistently supported cleantech, while Republican presidents have consistently opposed it. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House, among other things. Ronald Reagan took those solar panels down, among other things. Fossil fuel industries heavily swayed to the GOP side of the aisle — being the most unbalanced industry in the country in terms of political donations. In the past couple of decades, President Obama stimulated massive investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency, particularly through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Here’s a snippet from that linked fact sheet:

“Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), President Obama made the largest single investment in clean energy in history, providing more than $90 billion in strategic clean energy investments and tax incentives to promote job creation and the deployment of low-carbon technologies, and leveraging approximately $150 billion in private and other non-federal capital for clean energy investments.

“Clean energy investments made up over one eighth of total Recovery Act spending and provided a meaningful boost to economic output. A new report released today by the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) estimates that the entire Recovery Act raised the level of GDP by between 2 and 3 percent from late 2009 through mid-2011. In addition to providing a stimulus, the funding helped address market failures in clean energy markets. The funding reached nearly every aspect of the value chain for numerous key clean energy technologies, including advanced vehicles, batteries, carbon capture and sequestration, and technologies to enhance energy efficiency. These investments were a down payment toward an innovative sustainable 21st century clean economy and helped the country take a large step forward to reducing fossil fuel consumption and reducing carbon pollution.

“These investments transformed America’s clean energy economy by:

- Supporting Job Creation: In a new report released today, CEA estimates that the Recovery Act clean energy-related programs supported roughly 900,000 job-years in innovative clean energy fields from 2009 to 2015. In fact, the Recovery Act provided funding for 180 advanced energy manufacturing projects, including Saft America in Jacksonville Florida where the President is visiting tomorrow, bringing direct and indirect jobs to communities across the country.
- Scaling up Renewable Energy Generation: Through loan guarantees to support more than $40 billion of investment as well as tax credits, the Recovery Act spurred a major expansion of renewable energy generation through more than 100,000 projects across the country, including one of the world’s largest wind farms and the first large scale solar projects. These investments have helped lead to dramatic increases in renewable energy generation and reduced carbon pollution. Since 2008, solar electricity generation has increased over 30 times and wind generation has increased over three times. In fact, renewable energy accounted for more than half of new installed power sector capacity in 2015.
- Reducing Costs: The Recovery Act funding supported a plunge in technology costs for many clean energy technologies, making them even more competitive against fossil fuel generation. Since 2008, the cost of utility-scale solar PV installations has fallen nearly 60 percent. In fact, solar is currently at grid parity in 20 U.S. states and 42 states are expected to reach that milestone by 2020 under business-as-usual conditions. Battery costs for electric vehicles have fallen from almost $1,000/kWh in 2008 to under $300/kWh in 2014. The cost reductions for these and other technologies resulted from a number of factors—including economies of scale, technology learning, and new business practices—that were assisted by the widespread deployment made possible through the Recovery Act.
- Driving Innovation: The Recovery Act provided the seed funding needed to start the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program. Today, the Administration is announcing that the program has invested in 475 transformative energy technologies and its projects have secured $1.25 billion in private sector follow-on funding. ARPA-E is also announcing up to $30 million in funding for a new program called Integration and Optimization of Novel Ion Conducting Solids (IONICS) that seeks to create innovative components for the next generation of batteries, fuel cells, and other electrochemical devices.
- Improving Energy Efficiency: The Recovery Act funding for Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program improved the energy efficiency of low-income residences by weatherizing more than one million homes. On average, these improvements are saving families more than $3,000 on their heating and cooling bills over the lifetime of measures installed.
- Promoting Grid Modernization: Recovery Act funding for the Smart Grid Investment Program helped to support the installation of 16 million smart meters by 2016. Smart meter projects around the country can help consumers understand their energy use and pricing, helping to facilitate the transition to a more resilient electric grid infrastructure.
- Increasing Advanced Vehicle and Fuels Technologies: Fuel efficient vehicle choices for consumers have increased dramatically due in part to the Recovery Act. When the Recovery Act was signed into law, there were very few electric vehicle options available to consumers and a limited number of hybrids. Now we have a huge set of options for consumers to choose from with more models to come. Today, 16 manufacturers offer 28 electric vehicle models, presenting consumers with real choices as they look to adopt new technology, enhancing the competitive position of U.S. industry, driving job creation through American innovation, and increasing the number of plug-in electric vehicles on U.S. roads to 400,000 at the end of 2015. Recovery Act investments have also supported public transit through the purchase of 12,000 buses, vans, and rail vehicles and the construction or renovation of over 850 transit facilities.
- Stimulating the Growth of Energy Storage: While the deployment of renewable energy like wind and solar continues to accelerate, thereby reducing the use of carbon-intensive fossil fuels, it is critical that we have storage capabilities to successfully integrate new power sources into the electric grid. Due in part to investments made during the Recovery Act, we’ve made a lot of progress. According to a new report that will be released next week, the amount of battery storage increased by 500 percent from 2012 to 2015. And this occurred while, according to external analysts, the average lithium-ion battery price fell 53 percent between 2012 and 2015, and by 2019 prices are forecast to decline by half again. As more renewable energy comes online, we expect the amount needed for storage to accelerate substantially. External analysts have projected that storage installations in the US over the next four years will total nearly 10 times what is currently deployed. These estimates could be even higher due to the extensions of the renewable energy tax credits.”

Moving on to Trump, well, he got almost nothing done. Not just concerning cleantech, but concerning anything. The only significant legislation he got passed was massive tax cuts for the super rich and corporations. This spiked the US deficit while not doing anything for most Americans. Corporations, which many warned would use the money for stock buybacks, used the money for stock buybacks. Unsurprisingly, the tax cuts have not at all led to the economic benefits that were promised. It was a con, but what else can you expect from a career con man?

Joe Biden became president and surpassed Obama by passing the strongest, biggest cleantech and climate solution laws in US history, via the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These have stimulated enormous investments in solar technology production, EV battery production, EV production and sales, EV battery cell production, EV battery mineral mining and refining, and much, much more.

These massive accomplishments are reviving and stimulating blue-collar and high-paying manufacturing jobs in the country — something the country has been losing for decades. They’ve also pumped money into critical infrastructure projects, including EV charging infrastructure.

The Biden–Harris administration also brought down prices of important medicines, like insulin, and forced much more competitive and affordable pricing for prescription drugs by giving Medicare the power of negotiation. Okay, we’re getting into non-cleantech territories, but the point is clear — Democrats get stuff done for normal Americans. They work to create a better economy for the masses, not just for the super wealthy. They actually pass laws that make the country more competitive and that lower costs for most Americans.

In terms of the industries of the future, Democrats are the country’s only hope on the federal level for continuing to preserve and advance policies that make us more competitive with China. Some people talk a big talk and then do nothing. Others are doers and truly make things happen. In terms of national-level US policies, only one party has been out there doing things for normal Americans in recent years. If you haven’t done so yet (and you’re American), vote wisely tomorrow (November 5). Let’s make the coming years prosperous and positive.

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Zachary Shahan