Colorado Governor Bill Ritter

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has made it official: By 2020, utilities in that state must generate 30% of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power. As reported here recently, the Colorado legislature passed HB 1001 to upgrade its Renewable Energy Standard (RES) on March 8th, with strong public support.

Only California has a more aggressive RES: 33% by 2020.

Colorado’s new rules also support distributed power, with a requirement that 3% of electricity comes from home and business solar arrays.

Colorado Raises International Energy Profile

Also on Monday, Leocadia Zak, director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, announced that Colorado would be hosting two renewable energy trade mission with representatives from Latin America.

The “Clean Energy Exchange Program for the Americas-Wind” takes place May 22-29, with meetings held in Golden, CO; Dallas, TX; and Washington, DC.

The “Clean Energy Exchange Program for the Americas-Solar” event will be held October 9-16, with stops in Golden, Los Angeles and DC.

According to Zak, the trade missions are part of the National Export Initiative created by President Obama on March 11. The NEI goal is to double US exports in the next five years.

“As part of the International Business Partnership Program,” explained Zak in Denver on Monday, “the purpose of these reverse trade missions is to bring buyers to the United States.”

Saguaro Solar Thermal Plant

While the Arizona state legislature attempted to end the state’s RES program recently, there is mounting pressure on the Arizona Corporation Commission to at least match Colorado’s standard or risk falling farther behind in the expanding green jobs/green energy movement.

Arizona has been sending mixed signals about its desire to play a leadership role in moving to a renewable energy economy.

Governor Jan Brewer, who assumed office when President Obama named then-Governor Janet Napolitano to head up the Department of Homeland Security, in 2009 signed into law a bill providing tax credits for manufacturers of renewable energy equipment relocating to the state.

Cut and Run

Last month, Brewer prohibited Arizona from participating in a seven-state regional climate program. Sandy Bahr, head of the Sierra Club’s state chapter, called the move “embarrassing for the state of Arizona….It demonstrates a real lack of understanding of how significant of a threat climate change is to the state. We ought to be standing at the front of the line to look at solutions.”

Benjamin Grumbles

Brewer’s top environmental official defended the action. “Arizona needs a green-and-grow approach rather than a cap-and-trade approach,” said Benjamin Grumbles, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Grumbles was a top official at the federal Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush, an administration known for its opposition to environmental regulations.

RES at Work: Grand Canyon Ntl. Park (AZ)

UPDATE: Read updated version “Arizona Set to Abandon Leadership on Solar Power. Big Winner: China” in OnEarth magazine

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

Just seven months after Arizona enacted a law that supporters said would help make the state the “solar capital” of the nation, new legislation has been introduced that opponents maintain could kill the nascent industry.

House bill 2701 “would surely be the death knell for advancing solar energy in the state,” Kris Mayes, chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission, told the Phoenix Business Journal on Friday.

The bill would define “renewable” to include nuclear power (despite the fact that nuclear plants need to be refueled periodically). That change would end what many experts consider the most effective incentive for installing solar and wind generation: the Renewable Energy Standard (RES).

Under current law, the Arizona Corporation Commission’s RES mandates that utilities must generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources by the year 2025. Since the state’s largest utility, APS, already gets approximately 27 percent of its electricity from a nuclear power plant outside of Phoenix, HB 2701 would allow the company to stop adding any new renewable power sources.

Sean Seitz, president of American Solar Electric, one of the largest solar installers in the valley, agreed with Mayes’ assessment of HB 2701. “If this bill passed in its current form,” predicted Seitz, “the current program…would be a skeleton of itself.”

The bill would make Arizona the only state that includes existing nuclear power plants in an RES.

Sponsors say that solar projects would continue even without the RES. A 2007 study from the Berkeley National Laboratory, however, appears to contradict that claim.

The report compared actual solar installations made between 2000 and 2006 in states with and without an RES supporting solar (California was excluded from the study because of its other progressive solar policies).

The difference is clear in the chart below. States with an RES had more than double the solar installations of states lacking such a mandate. (Currently, 32 states and Washington DC have some form of RES.)

The Role of RES in Installed Solar

RES Boosts Arizona Jobs, Technology Innovation

Saguaro Solar Thermal Plant

In 2001, Arizona was one of the first states to adopt an RES. The policy has taken new solar technologies from the drawing board to reality and attracted jobs in solar manufacturing, installation and R&D.

The Saguaro Solar Generating Station

On Earth Day, 2006, APS dedicated the first solar trough system built in the US since 1990. The 1-MW Sagauro station uses giant mirrors to concentrate sunlight on a tube filled with mineral oil. That oil boils an organic liquid, which turns turbine to produce electricity. The Saguaro facility uses six rows of 15-foot-tall mirrors.

According to an APS spokesman, Arizona’s RES “was a major catalyst for the for the solar trough project. We realized that we needed something on a large scale if we were going to meet the goals.”

The maker of the solar receivers used at Saguaro underscored the important role the RES played in developing the solar thermal station.

“The Saguaro Power plant is a significant step forward for Arizona as it seeks to reach its goal of generating 15 percent of its electricity from renewable resources within the next 20 years,” said Udo Ungeheuer, chairman of the Schott Management Board.

The Department of Energy’s Western Area Power Administration called the Saguaro project “the solar comeback story of the year.”

Now, by removing the RES incentive, HB 2107 could be Arizona’s solar fall-behind story of the year. A look at the reasons behind a recent Arizona industry victory shows why.

In November, 2009, Chinese solar manufacturing giant, Suntech Power, announced plans to build the company’s first North American plant in Arizona, with production to begin later this year. In a press release, the largest manufacturer of solar panels in China said it “selected the Greater Phoenix area for its plant because of Arizona’s leadership in research through Arizona State University, and statewide renewable energy policies, particularly its Renewable Energy Standard…”

Arizona Jobs and Renewable Energy Growth

Nationally, several studies have shown the potential for job growth through expanding renewable energy — providing cleaner air, fighting climate change and expanding employment at the same time. Last year, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists examined the link between states with strong RES requirements and the growth of renewable power (and, so, jobs).

RES Powers Megawatts

The study found that if states achieve their RES targets, 76,759 MW of new renewable power capacity will be in place by 2025 — enough electricity to power 47 million homes. HB 2701 would remove Arizona from this pattern of growth.

Fast-tracked

Click on image to download bill (pdf)

Despite the considerations above, the bill appears likely to pass in both the Arizona House and Senate. HB 2701 has 52 sponsors and co-sponsors, including Senate President Robert Burns and Speaker of the House Kirk Adams. (Both are primary sponsors of the bill.)

HB 2701 will almost certainly sail through the two committees to which it’s been assigned: Government and Rules.

The House Government Committee is chaired by Representative Judy Burges (R), one of the bill’s sponsors. Five of the remaining eight members are also Republicans — and also sponsors of HB 2701. None of the Democrats on the committee are sponsors, but there are only three of them.

The committee will take up HB 2701 this Tuesday, February 23, at 2:00 PM Mountain Time.

Next it moves to the House Rules committee where the track appears to be just as fast:

The chairman is Rep. Warde Nichols (R), a sponsor of the bill. The House Speaker, Kirk Adams, a sponsor, sits on the eight-member committee. That leaves six members — three are Republicans (and sponsors). One of the three Democrats, Rep. Jack Brown, is a co-sponsor of HB 2701, leaving only two non-sponsors on the committee.

Check back for updates; The Phoenix Sun will continue to cover HB 2701.

First Solar power plant

It’s always gratifying when independent online news sites scoop the Big Boys of the MSM.

It’s especially pleasing when it’s your site that did the scooping. So, while we are proud of our story early yesterday on First Solar’s plan to build the world’s largest solar power plant in China, today we want to do what independent news services should be able to do best — provide our readers with more in-depth reporting than is available elsewhere.

We’ve put together a complete package of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between First Solar and China, including the detailed information First Solar filed with the SEC (click on the report cover below to open the pdf file).

The planned power plant is important, but not primarily for its size. Yes, the hope is for a solar PV plant with a 2 GW capacity. But, as you’ll see in the MOU, the project is broken up into more or less self contained phases that could result in a number much smaller than 2 GW.

As we wrote yesterday, the fact that the plant will use photovoltaic panels (PV) rather than concentrating solar power (CSP), suggests that PV is not simply going to go away just because CSP is the hot story right now.

Equally important: the PVs manufactured by First Solar use thin-film technology, instead of the traditional silicon-based variety. Thin-film has been popular for industrial use, but last year First Solar began selling for the home-market. First Solar was already expanding its Perrysburg, OH, manufacturing plant in anticipation of a growing market for thin-film.

The deal with China, however, is unlikely to result in many more manufacturing jobs in the US. First Solar has been producing panels in Germany for the European market for some time. In 2007, the company began leasing land in Kulim, Malaysia, for factories to supply Asian markets. Perhaps the most significant news about job creation is within the MOU itself.

“First Solar intends to actively participate in the development of the photovoltaic industry in China. First Solar intends to facilitate expansion of the supply chains in China for thin film photovoltaic module production and for the recycling of photovoltaic modules after use. During the implementation of the Phases covered by the time period from 2009 through 2014, First Solar intends to actively review the possibility of module and supplier manufacturing sites in Ordos . . .”

Still, it’s good to remember that First Solar continues to expand its production facilities here, and will continue to do so as long as the American market for renewable energy continues to expand — and that means government policies that give an incentive to do so. As reported here and elsewhere recently, China is investing far more than we are in solar power. China is using a feed-in-tariff to help fund the move to clean, renewable power. First Solar is responding by creating manufacturing jobs in Asia.

Yet Republican and conservative Democratic politicians and pundits continue to call a climate bill with incentives for domestic solar manufacturing, a “job killer.” All the evidence indicates that they have it backwards: not passing a bill that encourages growth of renewable energy industries sends a clear message to corporations like First Solar: they had better start hiring more supervisors fluent in Mandarin.

English? Not so much.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Monday, former President Bill Clinton challenged Americans to change how the energy/climate debate has been framed by extremists on the right.

The debate so far has been dominated by a need to prove that:

1) Global warming is real.
2) Global warming is caused by human activity.
3) Global warming is bad.
4) Measures to stop global warming won’t destroy our economy and way of life.

In other words, supporters of the energy status quo and their loony mercenary mobs have the adults playing defense at every turn. That framework is reason #1 why the rather weak Waxman-Markey bill barely squeaked by in the House.

In a single phrase, uttered six minutes into his remarks and repeated throughout his one-hour address, Clinton supplied the winning frame for progress on a host of interconnected issues, including global warming, a tanking economy (particularly noticeable in a massive loss of jobs), and a series of disastrous oil wars.

Clinton’s new frame was: “We are still piddling with this.” And by this he clearly meant all of these interconnected issues of jobs, energy and the environment.

I don’t expect to see signs going up across the nation proclaiming, “No more piddling!” But it’s just the kind of phrasing that connects with working class Americans.

Clinton, whose mojo was always about connecting heart and head (or sense and sensibility), went on to discuss in the pure wonk language of numbers, the challenges facing us and the benefits of specific actions. But he always tagged up with a variation on the “piddling” theme.

T.Boone Pickens, Sen. Harry Reid, John Podesta

Low-hanging fruit

Clinton said we need to focus policy – and money – on the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency. Retrofitting older building to make them energy efficient, for example, would provide the most bang for the buck, in terms of lowering GHG emissions and in job growth. Constructing a new coal-fired power plant generates 870 jobs for every $1 billion invested, said Clinton. The same money used to make existing buildings energy efficient would create 6,000 jobs.

A report issued on Monday by the Center for American Progress (a host of the summit), underscored Clinton’s message. According to the study, 40 percent of GHG emissions comes from energy used in building. “Deep building retrofits can cut energy use by 20 to 40 percent with proven techniques and off-the-shelf technologies,” the report continued. “Best of all, they can pay for themselves from the energy they save.”

The report recommends a $500 billion public-private investment to retrofit forty percent of our existing building stock by the year 2020. Such a program would, according to the study, employ over a half million workers and save consumers $32 billion to $64 billion annually in reduced energy costs.

For at least part of that money, Clinton advocated creating a program along the lines of the Small Business Administration. Banks, which Clinton said are sitting on $900 billion that could be available for loans, should be encouraged to make that money available for energy efficiency by government backing of the loans.

“You’ve got to get the banks involved,” he said, “if you’re going to stop piddling around.”

In a small press conference earlier in the day, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu had called energy efficiency “the fruit on the ground” ready to be picked up, even more accessible than “low-hanging” fruit.

The Green Bank

Clinton’s idea is in addition to a so-called Green Bank which was mentioned throughout the day as another avenue routing funding for a new energy economy. One plan for a Green Bank claims that at a funding level of $50 billion, it could:

• Generate enough clean electricity to power 22.9 million cars a year.
• Decrease gasoline consumption by 12.6 billion gallons a year.
• Decrease oil consumption by 642 million barrels a year.

Former oilman turned wind baron turned natural gas proponent T. Boone Pickens, offered another idea:

Mandate that all diesel fleet vehicles including 18-wheel trucks be run on natural gas. Pickens pointed out that natural gas is far less polluting than diesel fuel and that it could provide a bridge to an all clean electric transportation society. Former Vice President Al Gore agreed with Pickens that electric battery technology is not yet ready to replace diesel engines and supported the idea of switching to natural gas.

Such a costly conversion program may be unnecessary, however, even in the short run, after last week’s announcement that the DOE was releasing $2.4 billion to develop electric cars (EVs) and an EV charging infrastructure. $1.5 billion targets improvements in battery technology.

Another Clinton idea is to take the best part of the Cash for Clunkers program and adapt it for EVs. Providing buyers of new EVs with a $10,000 incentive, could, he said, put more clean cars on the road and drive the industry which is still gearing up, to get more efficient, better-designed EVs to market sooner.

The day-long event produced many other ideas for moving to a clean energy economy, creating jobs and making the US the world leader in cutting GHG emissions.

These include:

Former oilman turned wind baron turned natural gas proponent T. Boone Pickens, offered another idea:

Mandate that all diesel fleet vehicles including 18-wheel trucks be run on natural gas. Pickens pointed out that natural gas is far less polluting than diesel fuel and that it could provide a bridge to an all clean electric transportation society. Former Vice President Al Gore agreed with Pickens that electric battery technology is not yet ready to replace diesel engines and supported the idea of switching to natural gas.

Such a costly conversion program may be unnecessary, however, even in the short run, after last week’s announcement that the DOE was releasing $2.4 billion to develop electric cars (EVs) and an EV charging infrastructure. $1.5 billion targets improvements in battery technology.

Another Clinton idea is to take the best part of the Cash for Clunkers program and adapt it for EVs. Providing buyers of new EVs with a $10,000 incentive, could, he said, put more clean cars on the road and drive the industry which is still gearing up, to get more efficient, better-designed EVs to market sooner.

The day-long event produced many other ideas for moving to a clean energy economy, creating jobs and making the US the world leader in cutting GHG emissions.

These include:

• Funding community colleges to train workers (from all backgrounds) in new technology jobs.
• Doing more to create a national smart grid that can efficiently handle power generated from new sources.
• Sensible deregulation to allow energy efficient and environmentally sound project to scale up more quickly.
• Open public land in the Southwest to development of large scale solar power facilities.

I cringed when I heard that last goal. Not because I disagree with its premise. I’m a proponent of solar power, including the large-scale form known as Concentrating Solar Power (CSP). It was the language used at the summit that had me thinking, “here we go again.”

One speaker used the phrase “unlimited potential” to describe the desert’s use for electric power generation. In discussions about natural resources, “unlimited” has typically meant only that the speaker refuses to recognize limits and abide by them until what was once unlimited is destroyed. Then it’s time to move on to the next new thing with “unlimited potential.”

After a final press conference, I told John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, about my concerns and he did his best to reassure me that “they all” understood the environmental values of the Southwestern deserts. “Look,” he said, “in the Clinton administration [where Podesta was Chief of Staff] we preserved more desert lands than any previous administration. We can do CSP in the desert in a thoughtful, environmental way.”

The day ended in the late afternoon on an upbeat note. I overheard one woman leaving the area say to her companion, “I learned so much; I just don’t want to forget it!”

That enthusiasm is important. A large part of the summit was designed to get momentum rolling for passage of a Senate clean energy bill that does not “just piddle around.” That actually improves the House bill.

The only way that can happen is if proponents seize the Clinton frame and get the questions back on track. If the national discussion (or shouting match in recent days) remains fixed on defending the extent and culpability of global warming, we all lose. What we need now, coming out of the summit, is a nation asking its elected officials “When, in God’s name, are you going to stop piddling around on issues that decide whether or not I have a job, about my ability to provide for my family, my kids’ future, our national security, and a changing climate that could devastate large regions of America, and the world?”

The answer better be: “Now.”

[A version of this article appeared first in Mother Jones.]

Green energy jobs — and the new economy they are part of — will be the focus of the “National Clean Energy Summit, 2.0″ to be held in Las Vegas on Monday. The summit, now in its second year, is hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the University of Nevada-LasVegas.

Morning panel discussions will center on the macro economic case for clean-energy investment, energy-efficiency projects, and promoting the market for renewable energy and its infrastructure.

The panels will include representatives from industry, science, government and advocacy organizations, including:

Denise Bode – CEO, American Wind Energy Association
Lucien Bronicki – Founder and Chairman, Ormat Technologies
Dr. Stephanie Burns – CEO, Dow Corning
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Secretary Steven Chu – U.S. Department of Energy
General Wesley Clark – Chairman, Growth Energy

Gov. Schwarzenegger at 2008 climate summit

Former Vice President Al Gore
Nevada State Senator Steven Horsford
Van Jones - White House Council on Environmental Quality
Rose McKinney James – Energy Foundation Boards
Terry O’Sullivan – General President, Laborers’ International Union of North America
T. Boone Pickens – Boone Pickens Capital Management
John D. Podesta – President and CEO, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Marc Porat – Serious Materials and Pegasus Investments
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
Steve Roell – Chairman and CEO, Johnson Controls
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – California
Dr. Keith Schwer – Director, UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research
Secretary Hilda L. Solis – U.S. Department of Labor
Danny Thompson – Executive Secretary Treasurer, Nevada State AFL-CIO
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - Los Angeles, California
John Woolard – President and CEO, Bright Source Energy
Michael Yackira – CEO, Nevada Energy
Former Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) – United Nations Foundation, Moderator

Former President Bill Clinton will address the group before the afternoon session. (Clinton’s speech at last year’s gathering can be found here.)

Sec. of Labor Hilda Solis

In related news, a story in today’s UK Daily Telegraph says that the Clinton Foundation has reached an agreement to build what an Indian official called the “world’s largest solar park,” in Gujarat state near the Pakistani border. According to Gujarat’s energy minister, Saurabh Patel, the project will produce 5,000 MW of electricity. (For comparison, the largest nuclear facility in the United States is the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station, west of Phoenix, with a total capacity of 3,739 MW). As of early Friday evening, the Clinton Foundation had not yet confirmed the story.

The Summit will conclude with an afternoon “town hall” session, a discussion of clean energy policies that will include Al Gore, Harry Reid, T. Boone Pickens, Cathy Zoi (Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, DOE) and moderator John Podesta, Clinton’s former chief of staff, and now head of the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress.

[Phoenix Sun editor Osha Gray Davidson will be in Las Vegas covering the summit for Mother Jones magazine where he is a contributing blogger.]