Solar Mosaic, a solar microfinancing outfit that received a $2 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant last summer and exploits a 30 percent federal tax credit, officially launched its crowd-sourced investment platform last week. Acknowledging that the microfinancing (financial services for small projects or businesses) model employed by Solar Mosaic …
Michael Goggin, manager of transmission policy at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), posted a second response to my report “Wind Intermittency and the Production Tax Credit: A High Cost Subsidy for Low Value Power.” As before, Goggin does not respond to my analysis, leaving my main point unanswered. In …
A venture capital executive with ties to defunct solar company Solyndra has been hired as the new chief of the Defense Department program heading up the Pentagon’s renewable energy push. Arati Prabhakar, a former partner at U.S. Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that backed Solyndra, has been …
Scribe has reported extensively on the tendency of large government spending projects to reward the politically connected. It’s a virtual constant of federal interventions in the market, and perhaps nowhere is it more evident than in the Obama administration’s “green jobs” push. Writing on National Review Online today, I detail …
Finally giving up some ground to reality, Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled her energy package and conceded more than early reports indicated she would. But despite headlines like “Democrats Reluctantly Embrace Offshore Drilling,” it is exceedingly important that conservatives keep their eye on the ball. Earlier this week, the House leadership …
Unintended consequences of the federal government’s energy policy are nothing new. Think about ethanol. The United States is now committed to using 9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2008, which will rise to 36 billion by 2022. No one thought it would be responsible for pushing 30 million people into …
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s energy administration is proposing one of the most ambitious yet costly energy conservation packages, including goals to reduce electricity consumption by 15% and to mandate state utility companies to purchase 20% of their energy from solar, wind and other renewable fuels by 2022. If the companies …
