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Clean batteries, dirty coal: your tax dollars at work

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

How would you like to invest in a start-up that makes advance renewable energy storage systems?  Before investing, you should know that this particular company has:

  • -Never made a profit.
  • -Piled up  losses of $44 million since going public in 2007.
  • -Replaced its CEO because he was paid both as an employee and independent contractor.
  • -Seen its stock tumble from $6 to 70 cents a share since going public in 2007

President Obama at ZBB EnergyActually, you’ve already invested. The company is called ZBB Energy, and it’s seeking to commercial zinc-bromide technology developed in Australia back in the 1980s. This week,  President Obama visited its U.S. headquarters in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. According to the White House:

ZBB Energy Corporation is using $1.3 million in Recovery Act State Energy Program loans to fund a $4.5 million factory renovation to triple their capacity to manufacture flow batteries and power systems.  As a result, the company has already retained a dozen workers and will hire about 80 new workers over time.

“Companies like this,” the president said, “are showing us how manufacturing can come back right here in the United States of America, right back here to Wisconsin.”

Well, maybe–but the company will have to find some customers and generate some profits for its  comeback to be meaningful. The $1.3 million may sound like pocket change, and it is, but ZBB also has secured a $14.68 million Recovery Act 48c Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit to build a new factory. It’s one of 183 projects in 43 states to get $2.3 billion in Recovery Act tax credits for clean energy manufacturing projects. The Wall Street Journal editorialized about ZBB today under the headline Uncle Sam, Venture Capitalist.

Meanwhile, another energy-related business in Wisconsin is enjoying an Obama administration subsidy–and this time, the controversy is being generated by the left. Bucyrus, which is based in South Milwaukee, manufactures mining equipment. Unlike ZBB, it doesn’t need government help to survive; the company’s equipment helped excavate the Panama Canal and it generated $2.6 billion in revenue and $312 million in net income last year.

The controversery has arisen because the Export-Import Bank of the United States is moving forward with a $600-million loan guarantee to support the sale and export of Bucyrus mining equipment to a company called Sasan Power Ltd., for a 3,960 megawatt (meaning very big) coal-fired power plant in Madhya Pradesh, India. You read that right–while it’s becoming increasing difficult, thank goodness, to build new, polluting coal plants in the U.S., your government is supporting the construction of a coal plant in India. It agreed to go forward when the project’s backer, Reliance Power, agreed to develop a 250 megawatt renewable energy facility as well.  The Ex-Im Bank, as it’s known, is also considering backing a 4,800 megawatt coal-fired plant in South Africa.

The rationale for the government loan guarantee is, of course, jobs. In a news release, Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan praised Wisconsin’s governor, senators and congresspeople for helping to persuade the Ex-Im bank–which initially turned down the loan for environmental reasons–to reverse itself. “The nearly 1,000 U.S. jobs supported by the project include over 300 family-supporting jobs in the Milwaukee region and approximately 650 additional U.S. jobs in Bucyrus’ supply chain,” the company said.

But jobs at what price? Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club and a group called Pacific Environment all oppose the loan because of the new plant will be one of the largest sources of global warming pollutants on earth. Doug Norlen of Pacific Environment said:

The Ex-Im Bank’s ongoing fossil fuel binge indicates a clear unwillingness of the agency to adhere to Congressional climate change directives and systemic bias towards financing fossil fuel projects.

Writing at Huffington Post, Michelle Chan of Friends of the Earth says:

What’s particularly worrying is the precedent that this investment will create. The Sasan deal was the first major test of Exim’s new carbon policy (which resulted from a 2002 lawsuit that Friends of the Earth filed in response to the agency’s failure to consider the greenhouse gas implications of its financing activities). Although the policy is not nearly as robust as Friends of the Earth would have hoped, it does empower the Exim Board to reject applications at an early stage because of their carbon emissions. The fact that congressional and White House pressure caused Exim to reverse course on a decision made under this new policy does not bode well for the other four big coal deals in the Exim pipeline, including the 4,800 megawatt Kusile coal power project in South Africa, which would emit 30.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Needless to say, ZBB Energy will have to make a whole lot of clean energy storage devices to offset the emissions of big coal plants in India and South Africa, which, to be fair, will probably deliver electricity to lots of people who need it.

What’s most worrisome here is the big picture: The Obama administration, which already owns big chunks of GM, Chrysler and Wall Street, is during a time of record budget deficits intervening in ever-more specific ways in the economy. This is industrial policy at its worst, picking winners and losers, usually in the name of jobs, whether green or in the case of Bucyrus, coal-black. Funny thing, but these loans and grants also have a way of flowing towards politically-connected projects in swing states.

This isn’t to say that the government should keep its hands off the energy business. That’s a pipe dream, pun intended. But if the administration invested lots more in basic energy research and higher education, enacted a stiff  revenue-neutral carbon tax and used the proceeds to reduce payroll taxes, its chances of creating sustainable jobs would be a lot greater. There’d be fewer ribbon-cuttings, for sure, but more prosperity and less waste.

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Posted in Climate Change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Politics, Sustainability | 3 Comments »

American deadbeats

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Some years ago, we decided to cover up a small indoor swimming pool (don’t ask) in our home in Bethesda, Md., and turn it into a sunroom. The cost was about $25,000 and, although I tend to be averse to debt, we applied for a home equity loan to pay for the renovation. We had, by my reckoning, a couple of hundred thousand dollars of equity in the house,  perhaps a bit more. So we asked Bank of America, our mortgage holder, for a home equity line of credit for $25,000.

No problem, said the banker who called me back. We’re giving you $250,000. Assuming that an extra zero had been added to the loan amount by mistake, I told him we’d asked for $25,000. Yes, the banker said, but we’ve qualified you for $250,000, and so the line of credit will be $250,000. You’re under no obligation to use it, he added, unnecessarily.

Is this predatory lending? Carelessness? Rational behavior? Or some mix of all three?

Regardless, we know now that banks across the country were acting the same way–throwing money at some people (like us) who didn’t want it and at others who would soon prove unable to pay it back. I’ve read and thought a lot about how and why this happened; my three favorite accounts are Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, the radio broadcast The Giant Pool of Money by Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson, of NPR’s Planet Money fame and a paper and podcast from economist Russ Roberts of EconTalk called “Gambling with Other People’s Money: How Perverted Incentives Created the Financial Crisis. All are eye-opening and fascinating–I kid you not.

The housing meltdown is, needless to say, still with us today. It’s the single biggest reason why millions of Americans are unemployed, people aren’t spending and the economy remains choppy, at best. It’s also a cause of what, at the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, looks to me like an erosion of moral values, as many thousands of borrowers simply refuse to pay what they owe.

Under the headline Debts Rise and Go Unpaid, as Bust Erodes Home Equity, The Times reports today that delinquency rates on home equity loans are soaring, in part because people choose not to pay them back: (more…)

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Posted in Economics, Media, Politics | 4 Comments »

Brazil’s climate guy is green but blue

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Sergio Serra

A cell phone rings. It belongs to Sergio B. Serra, Brazil’s ambassador for climate change, a longtime diplomat with a professorial manner. Actually, it doesn’t ring. It croaks. Sounds like something in the rainforest.

“It’s a frog,” Serra says, laughing, during a meeting today with a group of visiting reporters. “Very politically correct.”

Serra is a green. But he’s also blue.

Green? Brazil will commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, even as a developing country, in the next round of climate negotiations. Brazil gets nearly half of its energy from renewable sources, mostly hydropower and sugar cane ethanol. Brazil is even winning the battle against deforestation in the Amazon.

That’s green.

Blue? Well, even though Serra is spending virtually all his time promoting a global climate treaty—this weekend, for instance, Brazil is hosting a meeting of the so-called BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) to talk about climate change—he has modest expectations for COP16 in December in Cancun, the next big UN meeting on climate. Nor does he have much hope that a global climate treaty with binding caps on carbon emissions, the kind of deal that will likely be needed to deal with the climate crisis, can be negotiated in the immediate future.

No wonder he’s blue.

The biggest obstacle to a global deal is the U.S. Congress, which has yet to pass a law capping climate pollution in the U.S. and, even if it does, may resist a UN-administered treat. Other counties won’t go forward without a commitment from the U.S., the world’s No. 2 emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China.

The U.S. is pivotal, Serra said: “Just as pivotal as the U.S. thinks China is pivotal.”

Serra, who speaks near-perfect English, spent about 90 minutes chatting with the visiting reporters, and provided an insider’s view of the thorny politics of climate action. He was in the room, representing Brazil, when President Obama personally tried to broker a deal last December in Copenhagen, and he moves easily between the western powers and the poor countries of the global south, no surprise since Brazil is somewhere in between.

Climate is the biggest and most complex collective action problem ever. No action by an individual, a company or even a country to curb its greenhouse gas emissions will solve the climate crisis until most everyone agrees to do so. Each country’s circumstances and history differ, leading to arguments about who is obligated to do what. And the climate crisis creates risks for politicians because the costs of action are short-term and significant, while the benefits are long-term and uncertain.

Unlike some enviros in the U.S., Serra acknowledges the cost issue in a straightforward way.  “There’s a price for being responsible in terms of climate,” he says. “Especially because much of the evolution towards a green economy depends on technology.” Developing countries can’t be expected to foot the bill, he said, because, one, they’re poor and two, they didn’t make the climate mess; the rich countries did.

He explained:

This is the concept of historical responsibility, and it’s not that complicated. The situation we are in regarding global warming is due mostly to the burning of fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial revolution. So the countries whose industries which industrialized later are much less responsible for global warming.

China is now the world’s No. 1 emitter but “they have much less of a historical responsibility than the U.S.,” he said.

Post-Copenhagen disappointment, if not dismay, led some critics to suggest that the UN process itself, which seeks to reach a global consensus, is to blame. Why not let the world’s 20 biggest countries work on a deal, I asked Serra.

“We will get nowhere if we don’t try to make the negotations as transparent and inclusive as possible,” he replied. He said “consensus is not exactly unanimity” because some countries can express their consensus with their silence. Besides, he said, poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America “that are more vulnerable, that are most affected” are not part of the 20 major economies, and they need to help shape a  global deal.

Serra expressed two hopes for Cancun. First, that an agreement could emerge around REDD (Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation) that would provide financing to developing countries, like Brazil, that protect vital forests. Second, that rich countries could work out details of a $30-billion financing commitment they made at Cancun to help poor countries adapt to climate change and develop new technologies. The financing deal is ridiculously complicated, with disagreements about who should administer the fund, how spending should be monitored and where the money would come from.

As if that weren’t enough, the global economic crisis has left rich countries feeling  less rich, although my travels in Brazil, where you can see people living in conditions that would not be tolerated in the U.S., made clear that even in these tough times, most Americans are very, very well off by global standards.

When our discussion ended, I checked my email and learned that Senate Democrats have given up on a climate bill this summer.

Barring a stunning performance by Democrats in this fall’s midterm elections, that means no climate legislation until 2013, if then.

Now I’m blue.

Disclosure: My six-day trip to Brazil was organized by Apex-Brasil, a government-backed agency that promotes trade and investment, and sponsored by Petrobras, Electrobras and Banco do Brasil.

Posted in Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Global Poverty, Politics, Sustainability | No Comments »

Greening the world’s biggest supply chain

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

The U.S. government is going to ask its suppliers to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not going to require it. It won’t happen right away. But this is a big deal.

government_uncle_sam_go_greenIt’s a big deal because the government is by far the nation’s largest single buyer of goods and services: It occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services. The General Services Administration, which is more or less the government’s purchasing department, buys more than 12 million products and services–an astonishing number, when you stop and think about it. And almost 600,000 companies are registered to do business with the government. Yes, 600,000!

In any event, although they won’t be required to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, and although it’s not clear when or how or even if the government will give preference to companies or products with a lower carbon footprint,  you can be sure that many, if not most, of those 600,000 companies will soon think seriously about counting carbon. Once they do, they’ll begin to look at opportunities to curb their energy use–by operating more efficiently, opting for greener offices, promoting tele-community, whatever.

To learn more about how this might work, I spoke by phone with Steve Leeds, who is the Senior Counselor to the Administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration as well as the GSA’s senior sustainability officer. (more…)

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Posted in Climate Change, Environment, Politics, Sustainability | 5 Comments »

Fred Krupp: Seemingly indestructible

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

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Fred Krupp is like a Timex watch.

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He takes a licking but keeps on ticking.

Those of you old enough to remember the commercials when Timex tortured its seemingly indestructible watches, using high divers, water skiers, dishwashers, jackhammers, and the propeller of an outboard motor, know what I mean.

Except that the instruments of torture that Fred has endured as he has labored, literally for decades, to get climate change legislation through Congress include coal-state Senators, Republican obstructionists, Washington trade associations, a largely indifferent press corps  and left-wing green groups that accuse the Environmental Defense Fund, which he leads, of selling out to big business.

If nothing else, you’ve got to admire his persistence.

It can’t be easy to calmly discuss the need for cap-and-trade legislation and the challenge of getting 60 votes in the Senate while oil is fouling the Gulf of Mexico, global temperatures are rising and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are reaching dangerous levels.

Yet that’s Fred–calm, rational, pragmatic and seemingly undeterred by the fact that there appears to be only an outside chance that climate-change legislation will be passed this year, that next year looks a whole lot worse and that the congressional clock is ticking down.

Today, EDF invited reporters to the Washington offices of the Glover Park Group to hear Fred and Steve Cochran, the group’s chief lobbyist, make a last-ditch plea for a scaled-back bill, one with an emissions cap that initially covers only the utility industry.

They conceded for the first time publicly that EDF won’t get the economy-wide cap that it really wants and also, for the first time, gently criticized  President Obama and urged him to back up his climate-change rhetoric with action. (more…)

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Posted in Climate Change, Energy, NGOs, Politics, Sustainability | 2 Comments »

Can a coal-carrying railroad be green?

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

UNION_PACIFIC_Y2513_20070228Recently, FORTUNE sent me to Omaha to write this story about the Union Pacific, America’s biggest railroad. Impressive company in a fascinating industry without which our lives would be very different. Here’s how the story begins:

The strawberries on your cereal. Your laptop, cell phone, and TV. The coal that’s burned to power them. The car you drive. The roof over your head. We may work in a knowledge economy, but Madonna had it right: We live in a material world.

That’s why the Union Pacific railroad, No. 164 on the Fortune 500, has played a vital role in the U.S. economy since 1862. With $14.1 billion in revenue last year, the UP, which is based in Omaha, is America’s largest railroad. Close behind is its chief rival, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) (2009 revenues: $14 billion), headquartered in Fort Worth, which was acquired this year by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) for $26.4 billion. The deal put a spotlight on the often troubled railroad business — in a good way. “It was a vote of confidence in the industry,” says Jim Young, the 53-year-old chairman and CEO of Union Pacific. “He sees the long-term value in the rail franchise — how unique it is in America.”

The story goes on to talk about how Young led a turnaround at the railroad, which suffered from lousy service, not once but twice–in the late 1990s after its merger with the Southern Pacific and again in 2004-2005 when the company cut back too deeply on equipment and staff and wasn’t prepared for a burst of economic growth. As Young told me: “We were the best marketing arm of our competitor.” The UP’s competitors include the Burlington Northern, which also operates in the west, and, interestingly, long-haul trucks.

In its battle for market share with trucks, the railroad industry is touting its environmental advantages. (more…)

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Posted in Climate Change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Politics, Sustainability | No Comments »

PSEG’s Ralph Izzo: Greening the garden state

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Before we discuss big issues like global warming, carbon pricing and renewable energy, I toss a couple of “lightning round” questions at Ralph Izzo, the chairman, president and CEO of  New Jersey-based PSEG, a $13.3-billion a year energy company with strong commitment to solar power and action to curb climate change.

Izzo, Ralph1First, Yankees or Mets? Izzo grew up in Queens (Mets country) and pitched for the baseball team at Columbia University (Yankee territory), where he earned an B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineer and a Ph.D in applied physics. “Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, Giants,” Izzo replied. He’s still a big sports fan.

Second, Democrat or Republican? After a stint as a research scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Izzo worked as a science fellow in the office of Sen. Bill Bradley, a New Jersey Democrat, and then as an energy-and-tech policy adviser to New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, a Republican. “Independent,” he said. “Pretty much down right down the yellow stripe.” True enough–he’s given money to George Bush and Hillary Clinton.

Third, nuclear power or “clean coal”? Much as it would be nice to light up the world with wind, solar or geothermal power, odds are that the U.S. will need nuclear power, coal or natural gas to provide baseload (i.e., round the clock) electricity for the foreseeable future. Izzo, as  a utility CEO and a scientist, gave nuclear his qualified endorsement over clean coal.

“The technology is in existence already,” he said. “It has a more benign environmental footprint. It doesn’t have the mercury, NO2, SO2 or carbon baggage. Having said that, all of our investments right now are in natural gas.” (more…)

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Posted in Climate Change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Politics, Sustainability | No Comments »

The Gulf disaster, and the future of coal

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

If you like the BP oil spill…

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you’re going to love carbon capture and storage.

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Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is the technology that offers the best hope of generating electricity from coal in a way that doesn’t further heat up the planet. When people talk about “clean coal” – a phrase that deserves quotes because coal is never entirely clean — they’re often talking about CCS.

CCS technologies, which can be applied before or after the coal is burned, are designed to capture carbon dioxide, transport it to a secure location, typically deep under the ground, and then sequester it safely for a long, long time, with little or no risk that it will ever escape.

Get the connection? Just as the oil industry assures that they can safely drill for oil a mile under the ocean, the coal companies and utility industry are very confident that can bury CO2 deep under the ground, with little or no risk that it will ever escape.

Do you want to take them at their word?

I asked Mike Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club and a leading anti-coal activist, about BP and CCS. He replied by email:

The BP deep water oil disaster is an example of how seeking out new and riskier ways of feeding our addiction to fossil fuels leads to new and more catastrophic problems….If there’s a lesson in this, it’s that relying on unproven and complicated methods to sustain our dependence on oil and coal has disastrous consequences.

You may be surprised to learn that CCS isn’t favored just by the coal guys or the utilities. Some environmental groups like the technology, too. David Hawkins, the estimable head of the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which strongly opposes conventional coal plants, says it’s essential that we figure out CCS. Here’s his very thoughtful argument on behalf of CCS, from NRDC’s Switchboard blog:

As a community, we have achieved great success in blocking new coal plants one by one but we need a comprehensive coal policy as well.  Showing CCS is an available tool helps us to convince policymakers that they should oppose construction of coal plants that do not capture their carbon.  Is such a policy as attractive to many in our community as a law that says no more coal plants, period? No.  But we need to ask ourselves — what are the realistic odds of getting Congress or any significant coal-using state to adopt a “no new coal, period” policy in the next handful of years?   I have fought the coal industry for 40 years and in my judgment the odds of a total ban on new coal plants are not large.

The Obama administration is also an enthusiastic supporter of CCS on a grand scale, in the form of a controversial, costly project known as Future Gen. Just a week ago, even as oil was spewing into the gulf, Obama’s DOE  announced that it would spend up to $612 million in recovery act money (to be matched by $368 million in private funding) to demonstrate large-scale CCS from industrial sources (not power plants, although the technology is similar).

One project will store CO2 in a “deep saline formation,” as part of a corn ethanol project. Two others will use the CO2 in “enhanced oil recovery” in the Gulf, believe it or not. Such well-connected companies as Archer Daniels Midland and GE are among the beneficiaries. From the DOE announcement:

·         Leucadia Energy, LLC (Lake Charles, LA)—Leucadia and Denbury Onshore LLC will capture and sequester 4.5 million tons of CO2 per year from a new methanol plant in Lake Charles, LA. The CO2 will be delivered via a 12-mile connector pipeline to an existing Denbury interstate CO2 pipeline and sequestered via use for enhanced oil recovery in the West Hastings oilfield, starting in April 2014. The project team includes Leucadia Energy, Denbury, General Electric, Haldor Topsoe, Black & Veatch, Turner Industries, and the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology.  (DOE share: $260 million)

·         Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (Port Arthur, TX)—Air Products will partner with Denbury Onshore LLC to capture and sequester one million tons of CO2 per year from existing steam-methane reformers in Port Arthur, Texas, starting in November 2012. The CO2 will be delivered via a 12-mile connector pipeline to an existing Denbury interstate CO2 pipeline and sequestered via use for enhanced oil recovery in the West Hastings oilfield. The project team includes Air Products & Chemicals, Denbury Onshore LLC, the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, and Valero Energy Corporation.  (DOE share: $253 million)

·         Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (Decatur, Ill.)—The project will capture and sequester one million tons of CO2 per year from an existing ethanol plant in Illinois, starting in August 2012. The CO2 will be sequestered in the Mt. Simon Sandstone, a well-characterized saline reservoir located about one mile from the plant. The project team includes Archer Daniels Midland, Schlumberger Carbon Services, and the Illinois State Geological Survey. (DOE share: $99 million)

Unfortunately, these subsidies don’t appear to be linked to actual tons of carbon sequestered. They support demonstration projects. Still to be determined are such issues as who “owns” the store CO2, who will be responsible, financially, if it escapes, etc.  To be fair, CO2 has been stored underground for years as part of enhanced oil recovery, but we’ve also been doing deepwater drilling for a long time.

Interestingly, the connection between the BP disaster and CCS was suggested to me,  not by an environmentalist, but by a very sophisticated investor in clean technology. This investor—who asked not to be identified, because he works closely with big companies like GE and with the Obama team—has placed bets on solar power, energy storage and efficiency, so he’s no fan of coal, but he’s also driven by a personal passion around the climate crisis.

Since I can’t quote the investor, I’ll give the last work to the Sierra Club’s Mike Brune:

Relying on carbon capture and storage is like a heroin addict finding a new vein to shoot. It’s not a solution, it’s simply a new way to perpetuate the problem. The Sierra Club has no objection to using private, corporate resources to fund CCS research to see if CCS can ever be done safely, cheaply, and without requiring massive amounts of energy. In the meantime, we shouldn’t be seeking out more expensive and dangerous ways to feed our dependence on oil or coal. Instead, we should be putting our innovation and resources to work in the service of clean energy that will create jobs and keep our coasts, wild places, and communities healthy and intact.

Photo links/credits: duck (Audubon Society of Florida)  coal plant (wikimedia)

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Posted in Climate Change, Energy, Environment, NGOs, Politics | No Comments »

Vestas: Will business be brisk again?

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

“Wind is all we do,” says Martha Wyrsch, the president of Vestas Americas.

93821358_3dfdf9f725That’s great for the planet–wind energy is part of the solution to the climate crisis. It hasn’t been good for the company’s bottom line, at least not lately. But Vestas sees better days ahead.

Vestas, as you may know, is a global company, based in Denmark, and the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines. (It installed 5,581 MW of capacity  in 2009, which represents 12.% of the global market.)  Two of its biggest wind industry competitors—General Electric and Siemens—also make plants and equipment to burn coal and natural gas, and they are diversified beyond the energy business as well. They aren’t as “green,” at least in the environmental sense of the word, but they don’t depend on wind.

Vestas does, and so the company has taken a hit  because of a global slowdown in the wind industry, driven in part by the 2009 recession and credit crunch. Low natural gas prices are a problem for wind-turbine manufacturers, because utilities build gas-fired plants instead. So are the continuing uncertainties of energy policy in the U.S.–an investment tax credit that is crucial to wind projects is set to expire this year. Another worry for the biggest players: China, a huge market,  has become intensely competitive, with dozens of local competitors entering the fray.

As a result, in the first quarter of 2010, Vestas took a hit. The company booked revenues of  755 million Euros, down from 1,105 mEUR in 2009. It reported a loss of 96 mEUR, which compares with 76 mEUR in EBIT during Q1 of 2009. The stock is down by more than 20% in the last year.

Wyrsch says things are looking better for the year ahead. “We see orders picking up again,” she says. (more…)

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Posted in Economics, Energy, Environment, Politics, Sustainability | No Comments »

Cut carbon, get healthy!

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Today, some free advice for readers:

Eat more vegetables, and less meat.

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Instead of driving, ride a bike or walk.

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Use wind, solar or nuclear power instead of coal-fired electricity.

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Why, you may ask?

To slow down global warming? Or to live a healthier life?

Actually, both.

And therein lies an opportunity.

Environmental advocates, politicians and companies could all gain by better understanding the connection between climate change, public health and personal health.

After all, we’ve heard lots of arguments from enviros and politicians who want Congress to enact climate change legislation. Some talk about saving the planet. Others tout the benefit of “green jobs.” Others talk national security, or energy independence. None seem to be working very well. (The Times today all but wrote an obit for a climate bill this year.)

One argument we haven’t heard nearly as much is that acting to curb the climate crisis will be good for our health. This could be a relevant, personal and powerful message. (more…)

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Posted in Climate Change, Consumption, Food, Politics, Sustainability | 1 Comment »

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