Partying with Cosby on BlogTalkRadio

Have you heard about Bill Cosby’s LISTENing parties? The New York Times just reviewed ...

Celebrating ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’

In honor of the opening day of New Moon, the latest film in The Twilight Saga, we thought we ...

The Cheryl Behind the Cheryl

Known to many as the long-suffering (ex)wife of funnyman Larry David, the man behind Seinfeld, ...

 

Your show will start playing after this message

Profile

Matt Kangas


Country: United States

Language: English

Follow on Twitter

On Demand Episodes

Friends

  • JohnCSweet

Matt Kangas  

Who wants to be green? What is the green movement anyway? With this blog I hope to help make being green an easy task. Most people, who aren’t green, think that it will take a lot of work to be green. Truthfully, being green is just a matter of learning some new habits. With this blog, I hope to simplify what it takes to live a greener life. From the basics, in simple terms, we will learn, discuss and become educated about what it means to be green, and why we should move to sustainability in our lives, homes, community and the world. It’s for our benefit and for our children’s future. This is our Greeneration.

  • Archived Blog Post

    Date / Time:

    Wind, solar energy trade groups seek new tax-credit policies

    President-elect Barack Obama’s administration is being urged to support a new tax-incentive policy for the wind- and solar-energy industries – a policy that supporters believe would jump-start renewable-energy plant construction and promote job creation in a down economy.

    One proposal would offer the industries “fully refundable credit,” which essentially means providing 30 percent of a project’s cost up front as a credit, before any power has been generated.

    But Congress is more likely to approve a less ambitious, transferable-credits version of existing incentives, according to one Minneapolis wind-energy executive.

    “Obviously it’s great, but you’ve got to be reasonable,” said Ken Valley, founder and president of Minneapolis-based Midwest Wind Energy Finance, referring to the refundable-credit proposal.

    “Transferable tax credits,” while not providing as immediate a boost, could encourage more banks and corporations to invest in wind energy projects, thereby broadening the current investor pool, he added.

    Valley’s comments follow posturing by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), which want the Obama administration to restructure renewable energy tax incentives and extend renewable energy tax credits by five years.
    In late 2008, wind and solar plant developers warned they would have to delay projects if Congress failed to extend renewable energy tax credits into 2009.

    Wind and solar interests won that round, with Congress attaching a tax-credits package to the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill passed Oct. 3. That $18 billion package extended renewable energy credits through Dec. 31, 2009.

    AWEA and SEIA have different types of credits – the Production Tax Credit, or PTC, for wind-energy producers and the Investment Tax Credit, or ITC, for solar energy project investors.

    The PTC, for example, last year gave a 2 cent per kilowatt hour credit for each kilowatt hour of wind energy generated. Over the 10-year life of the PTC, that credit would reduce the cost of a given development by about 30 percent.

    Valley, whose Midwest Wind Energy Finance firm specializes in arranging funding for small- to- mid-sized wind farms, has been part of AWEA’s Community Wind Working Group.

    Congressional approval of transferable tax credits would “open up the market a lot,” he said. “What’ll happen is that a lot more investors will be able to get into this.

    “Right now, the industry is controlled by a few major contributors,” explained Valley. “For these larger products in particular, there aren’t enough PTC investors out there.”

    And some of those investors, such as investment brokerage Lehman Brothers, no longer are in business after the meltdown on Wall Street, he said.

    AWEA and SEIA officials are urging members to e-mail letters U.S. House representatives and U.S. senators encouraging the extension and restructuring of wind and solar tax credits.

    Rhone Resch, SEIA president and chief executive officer, said, “ … due to the recession, projects are now being put on hold, factories are closing and workers face potential layoffs unless Congress refines the tax credits now so they work as originally intended.”

    Denise Bode, chief executive officer of AWEA, said development of wind and solar projects “face a dramatic reduction in 2009 if Congress and the incoming administration do not take swift action to help make renewable tax incentives work in today’s difficult economy.”

    Bode claimed that “thousands of megawatts” of new wind energy projects could be canceled or delayed in 2009 if wind developers, which spend at least $2 million per megawatt on wind-energy facilities, won’t have enough income to use tax incentives with an economic recession under way.

    In 2008, wind energy development added 7,500 megawatts to the domestic power grid, according to the AWEA. Even with the PTC extended, Valley estimated that between 3,500 megawatts and 4,000 megawatts will be added in 2009 – much of it due to the financial market meltdown in 2008.

    That market slowdown even precluded Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens from obtaining financing for a giant 4,000-megawatt wind farm near Sweetwater, Texas.

    Currently, Pickens’ wind farm, which will have three times Minnesota’s total wind power generation capacity when built, is being delayed until financial conditions improve.

    According to the AWEA, Minnesota ranks fourth in wind production, with 1,377 megawatts.

Comments

There are no comments at this time.

Everything Else

Listen

 

 Participate

 

 Services and Terms

 

 Corporate

 

 BlogTalkRadio

 
BlogTalkRadio is a provider of thousands of internet talk radio shows. Our streaming and archived shows are produced by anyone that wants to be an internet radio host.
Give it a listen  and  
© 2009 BlogTalkRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.