Making sense of NREL's budget math and job creation
The story surrounding NREL’s possible $8 million reduction in 2012 doesn’t make sense. Is it a “savings” or a “cut”? Does NREL “create” green jobs or not? And NREL spokesman Bob Noun’s comments have not helped to clarify. Consider this story from CBS 4 Denver where Noun was questioned about NREL‘s funding and stimulus money it received: Noun […]
Skeptical of the Big Green Empire
Headline: “Golden’s NREL to shed more than 10 percent of workforce” Denver Post, October 3, 2011 Well maybe. Read my take on the rest of the story. Golden’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) dreams of a global green empire may have to be scaled back but just a wee bit. According to the Denver Post‘s […]
Salazar approved solar project a bust
Almost a year ago to the day the Department of Interior issued a press release boasting that Secretary Ken Salazar had “approved the first large-scale solar energy plants ever to be built on public lands.” As with Obama administration renewable energy initiatives, there were the promises of massive amounts of electrical power and “green jobs.” […]
NREL: Big Green Empire
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) located in beautiful Golden, Colorado, is the federal government’s primary research facility for renewable energy for the Department of Energy (DOE). According to its Web site, NREL has enjoyed an enormous budget increase over the last two years. As the economy slowed in 2007, NREL saw its budget decrease […]
Mining for green jobs
Another day, another story about a solar company moving part of its operation to China. This time it’s Advanced Energy in Fort Collins, which will lay off 5 percent of its labor force and move “more of its manufacturing to China as it works to increase profitability,” according to the Coloradoan. Advanced Energy was one […]
Abound Solar's connections to $400 million
This column appeared originally on Townhall Finance. Crony capitalism Abound: anatomy of a taxpayer-guaranteed loan By Amy Oliver Cooke By now it’s obvious that the Solyndra scandal never should have happened. It’s not even a case of Monday morning quarterbacking. A number of people involved could see the disaster coming. There is a larger principle […]
Boulder's ballot measures won't stop global warming
Bummer for Boulder — the city’s ballot measures likely won’t have any impact on global warming. Supporters of 2B and 2C hope that they can reduce the city’s carbon emissions and thus help save the planet by establishing a municipal utility that generates power from a combination of renewables and natural gas. But these efforts […]
Boulder's Utopian Utility Effect
Utopian Utility Effect (UUE): a romanticized perception that a group, such as a municipality, can provide reliable, reasonably priced, global warming-friendly electricity more efficiently than its current power provider. Specifically for supporters of 2B and 2C, Boulder’s ballot measures to form its own utility, UUE seems to mean, “a local energy utility can reduce our carbon […]
Solyndra: Is an apology too much to ask?
Please send out an APB for common decency because it’s gone, along with the $535 million in taxpayer-guaranteed money that the Obama administration wagered on the California-based solar start-up Solyndra. The high-priced, pet green project – the centerpiece of the president’s green jobs initiative – went belly up, and the F.B.I. raided the homes of […]
Dissatisfaction with Xcel should worry lawmakers, PUC
Colorado residential natural gas customers don’t like Xcel Energy according to a recent J.D. Power and Associates survey. The Denver Business Journal reports, “Among large natural gas utilities in the West, Xcel Energy was ninth on a list of nine.” This should worry lawmakers because the investor-owned utility has had its way with the state […]
Obama decision also a rebuke of Ritter admin
President Barack Obama put a halt to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed air-quality standards just before the Labor Day weekend. The Wall Street Journal opined that the president cited the struggling economy as his main reason for not wanting to tighten ozone regulations at this time: Come January 2010, the Obama EPA said it […]
Xcel admits what "clean energy" advocates won't
Normally reading an energy compliance plan is about as exciting as watching low VOC paint dry. But Xcel Energy‘s 2012 Renewable Energy Standard Compliance Plan, filed with the Public Utilities Commission in May 2011, has some pretty powerful stuff in it including admissions about Colorado’s “phantom carbon tax” and the cost effectiveness of renewable energy. […]
