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IN TODAY’S REPORT: Whatever happened to “DRILL, BABY, DRILL!”???; Cities help homeowners go solar & make cash; PLUS: Sarah Palin’s new war on wildlife! All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
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Info/links on stuff we talked about on today’s episode, plus MORE green news, all follows below…
- As Oil and Gas Prices Plunge, Drilling Frenzy Ends
- OIL AND GAS: Industry has ‘little obligation’ to produce on leases — Interior IG
- Obama proposes tax on oil, gas from Gulf
- A risk big oil companies can afford to share
- Harnessing the Sun, With Help From Cities
- The Rooftop Revolution: A little-known policy is turning sleepy central Florida into a green energy hub. Could it do the same for America at large?
- Words of Caution on a Renewable Energy Financing Idea
- State’s predator kills are out of control
- Alaska’s predator control program now allows hunters to use bear paw snares
Obama’s proposal, if anything, is relatively modest. ExxonMobil alone set a new annual record for profits last year, at $45 billion. Chevron made a record $24 billion. Royal Dutch Shell made $26 billion. BP made $21 billion. ConocoPhillips, despite major write-downs in asset values, still turned a profit of $16 billion. That alone is $132 billion in profits last year, as a desperate America goes nearly $800 billion deeper into the red with the stimulus package.
More green news not covered in today’s episode:
- Water scarcity ‘now bigger threat than financial crisis’: By 2030, more than half the world’s population will live in high-risk areas
- Children’s bath products tainted with probable carcinogens
- Shell goes cold on wind, solar, hydrogen energy
- From AC to DC: Going green with supergrids
- Could the Volt Jump-Start GM?
- £50bn of European investment needed to kick-start Saharan solar plan
- Low-level waste emerges as hurdle for new nuclear reactors
- New York will bear brunt of uneven sea level rise
Thanks for covering Gainesville’s new feed-in tariff program. That’s an idea worth spreading.
The beauty of the FiT is that it closes a huge gap that tax credits for rooftop solar don’t cover. What I mean is: tax deductions or rebates work great, but only for people who pay taxes. The problem is, many of the buildings with the best rooftop solar potential belong to government agencies (like schools and city halls) and nonprofits (like churches), which don’t pay taxes.
Under a FiT system, the utility pays cash to all producers of solar power, at a rate that covers the cost of producing the power plus a premium (typically 30-40%). And over time, say 20 years, most producers earn a profit of at least 6 or 7%.
That long-term outlook means banks are more likely to finance solar installs, which is critical if we’re going to scale distributed micro-power generation beyond a small pool of early adopters with the moral conviction and financial means to do it just because it makes sense for the planet. It has to make financial sense, too. Feed-in Tariffs take care of that.
With Feed-in Tariffs, everyone can get solar and get paid.