The wind energy industry employs about 3,000 people in Iowa and accounts for 20 percent of all electricity generated in the state, according to the Iowa Wind Energy Association.

Bruce Braley

“Investments in Iowa’s wind energy industry have created thousands of jobs and made Iowa a world leader in clean energy technology,” Braley said.  “Extending the renewable energy production tax credit will keep the economic momentum going. Wind energy is still a widely untapped resource in Iowa – and that means there’s still untapped potential for business investment and job creation.”

GOP candidates for president offered very different assessments of the tax credit during a forum Tuesday morning in Pella. The tax credit is due to expire at the end of 2012.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) called for ending the wind energy tax incentive.

But former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) took a different tack, calling for long-term renewals of such programs.

Braley introduced similar legislation to extend the renewable energy production tax credit in 2008 and 2009.

“Wind energy is good for the economy, good for the environment, and good for farmers,” he said. “Our bipartisan bill will promote job-creating wind energy projects and provide incentives to expand wind energy production.”

But backers of the so-called municipalization that would oust Xcel – the state’s largest utility — were buoyed by Tuesday’s narrow victory that wasn’t confirmed until early this morning.

“Congratulations Boulder voters,” reads a message on the RenewablesYES.org website. “We’ve passed 2B and 2C. Boulder’s energy future is in our hands. Well done. Together, we’ll create a brighter future for ourselves and for future generations.”

Proponents have argued for months that the city can do a much better job of diversifying Boulder’s power supply than Xcel, acquiring a much higher percentage of renewable energy than Xcel’s current goal of 30 percent by 2020.

Xcel and opponents of municipalization spent more than $900,000 campaigning compared to $87,000 for proponents, according to the Denver Post. City consultants estimate it will cost less than $200 million to set up Boulder’s own utility, while Xcel put the figure at more than $500 million.

Initially, it appeared that Question 2C, which allows the city to explore its own utility and issue bonds, had passed, but that 2B, which raises a utility occupation tax to pay for setup of the new utility, had failed. In the end, though, 2C passed by 933 votes, and 2B passed by a scant 141 votes.

“Boulder will need to make some early decisions about the path it wants to follow,” Xcel spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo told the Colorado Independent. “We do not want to invest in programs or resources that will not be useful to our state-wide system and other customers if we no longer serve Boulder. We have an obligation to the rest of our Colorado customers to assure we obtain the fair value of all of the assets. They should not be burdened by Boulder’s decision.”

Aguayo again questioned Boulder’s cost estimates.

“We still believe municipalization costs have been significantly understated by the city. We remain skeptical that Boulder will be able to meet the terms of the initiative and match our rates, let alone match the level of renewables we provide.”

In a statement this week the company said that it plans to focus resources on iron mining, its core business.

The facility, located at the Telkite Technology Park near Sawyer International Airport in Marquette, Mich., was constructed to produce high-energy, low-emission biofuel cubes from sustainably collected wood and agricultural feed stocks. Since initial production the plant has not performed to design capacity, nor at a production level that justifies continued operation.

The company, which delivered its first load of biofuel cubes to the Marquette Board of Light and Power this summer, said it will try to find new positions for the 30 people who work at the biomass plant.

No public funds were used in the construction or operation of the plant, the company said.

Other biomass projects are awash in public dollars.

On the eastern side of the Upper Peninsula in Kinross the Mascoma corporation and logging company J.M. Longyear plan to produce 40 million gallons of ethanol annually at the Frontier biofuel refinery project.

That project is expected to receive more than $100 million in public funds as a renewable energy demonstration project.

The U.S. saw $34 billion in private equity invested in the sector last year, a 51 percent jump from 2009, but China received $54.4 billion, increasing the lead it’s held over the U.S. since 2008. Germany last year passed the U.S. with $41.2 billion invested in clean energy.

“The United States’ position as a leading destination for clean energy investment is declining because its policy framework is weak and uncertain,” Pew Clean Energy Program Director Phyllis Cuttino said in a release.

“We are at risk of losing even more financing to countries like China, Germany and India, which have adopted strong policies such as renewable energy standards, carbon reduction targets and/or incentives for investment and production. In today’s global economic race, the United States can’t afford to be to be a follower in this sector.”

The new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives – including Colorado’s four GOP lawmakers – has been systematically trying to dismantle U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clean air standards in recent weeks while simultaneously pushing for further deregulation of domestic fossil fuel production.

Calling EPA regulation of greenhouse gases a backdoor attempt at cap-and-trade, there’s a growing wave of climate change skepticism among Republicans and Tea Party newcomers. Even some moderate Republicans have warned such attitudes will further erode global investment in U.S. clean energy industries.

Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, pointed out the U.S. still leads in areas of innovation but is lagging in investment headed toward actual deployment of renewable energy.

“The United States remains the global leader in clean energy innovation, receiving 75 percent of all venture capital investment in the sector — a total of $6 billion in 2010,” Liebreich said in a release. “But the U.S. has not been creating demand for deployment of clean energy. As a result it is losing out on opportunities to attract investment, create manufacturing capabilities and spur job growth. For example, worldwide, China is now the leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels.”

The U.S. has 104 nuclear reactors which supply 20 percent of the nation’s electricity but no new plant has been brought online in decades.

Talk of a nuclear renaissance was unrealistic, even before Fukushima, industry officials say.

“Even before this happened, short-term market conditions were bleak,” Nuclear Energy Institute vice president Richard Myers told TIME last week.

Nuclear plants are enormously expensive to build, and investors have walked away from several recent projects amid rocketing construction costs.

In a talk at the American Enterprise Institute just days before the Japanese disaster, John Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon Corp., one of the largest U.S. power companies, said that the U.S. should not further expand subsides for nuclear power plants and explained that low natural gas prices and lack of a tax on carbon dioxide make developing nuclear power uneconomic.

Last year, Rowe said that low natural gas prices would postpone the construction of new nuclear plants by a decade or more.

Political leaders from both parties support nuclear power.

President Obama has touted nuclear energy as carbon neutral and has proposed expanding a loan guarantee program for nuclear plants to $36 billion and in the wake of the Japanese disaster he has insisted that nuclear power remains part of America’s energy future.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the industry could not survive without federal subsidies.

“Government subsidies to the nuclear power industry over the past fifty years have been so large in proportion to the value of the energy produced that in some cases it would have cost taxpayers less to simply buy kilowatts on the open market and give them away,“ the group wrote in a February report titled Nuclear Power Subsidies: The Gift that Keeps on Taking.

These subsidies are not popular among citizens.

A Wall Street Journal poll taken the week before the Fukushima disaster showed that cuts to subsidies for nuclear plants was the most popular area for prospective budget savings.

Polls taken since the Fukishima disaster show that most Americans now oppose new nuclear development and would support redirecting nuclear subsidies to support wind and solar development.

Physicist Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute told PBS that nuclear plants actually slow efforts for climate protection because they take a long time to build and are costly.

Each dollar spent on a new reactor buys about 2-10 times less carbon savings, 20-40 times slower, than spending that dollar on the cheaper, faster, safer solutions that make nuclear power unnecessary and uneconomic: efficient use of electricity, making heat and power together in factories or buildings (“cogeneration”), and renewable energy.

[...]

Those smarter choices are sweeping the global energy market. Half the world’s new generating capacity in 2008 and 2009 was renewable. In 2010, renewables, excluding big hydro dams, won $151 billion of private investment and added over 50 billion watts (70% the total capacity of all 23 Fukushima-style U.S. reactors) while nuclear got zero private investment and kept losing capacity.

[...]

A durable myth claims Three Mile Island halted U.S. nuclear orders. Actually they stopped over a year before–dead of an incurable attack of market forces. No doubt when nuclear power’s collapse in the global marketplace, already years old, is finally acknowledged, it will be blamed on Fukushima.

It’s unclear how fast renewables will gain on nuclear power.

“The hysteria that helped run up solar stocks was not warranted by the damage in Japan,” Michael Obuchowski, chief investment officer of the Hauppauge, New York-based firm that owns shares in First Solar Inc. (FSLR), told Bloomberg. “Down the road it may lead to policy changes and the restoration of incentives, but I don’t see that happening yet.”

Benny Peiser, director of climate skeptic group Global Warming Policy Foundation, told the Guardian that he doubted that the accident would benefit renewables. “Japan’s nuclear disaster will only intensify the global race for cheap fossil fuels while most future energy research and development will go into nuclear safety,” he said.

Even as many politicians, environmentalists and consumers want renewable energy and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, a growing number of projects are being canceled or delayed because governments are unwilling to add even small amounts to consumers’ electricity bills.

The reason these projects are being canceled is twofold. First, renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.) currently costs more than traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas. Second, the United States has created uncertainty among investors by neglecting to pass policies at the federal level that incentivize renewable energy use.

The Times has a nice example of the problem lower down in the story:

In April, for example, the state public utilities commission in Rhode Island rejected a power-purchase deal for an offshore wind project that would have cost 24.4 cents a kilowatt-hour. The utility now pays about 9.5 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity from fossil fuels.

The state legislature responded by passing a bill allowing the regulators to consider factors other than price. The commission then approved an agreement to buy electricity from a smaller wind farm, although that decision is being challenged in the courts.

In the example, the cost differential between fossil fuels and offshore wind is staggering. But because cost is not the only factor involved in these decisions (others include public health and welfare), the state legislature passed a bill to broaden the discussion beyond the price issue.

Passing such legislation has proven difficult at the federal level. As it stands now, states offer a patchwork of regulations, but uncertainty abounds without federal rules. This drives investment to China.

The Times said:

In its most recent quarterly assessment of the renewable energy sector, the accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young identified China as the most attractive market for investment in renewable energy.

A White House official said energy would remain a top priority for the administration but would be packaged differently.

“I think you’ll see in the next few weeks the administration say, ‘Okay, you may not necessarily agree with the science on climate change, you may not see tackling greenhouse gases as a real priority, but what we can all agree on is creating jobs and investing in a clean-energy economy that’s going to leave the U.S. more competitive,’ ” said Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate-change policy.

Facing dim prospects for passing cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate, Obama is looking at the low-hanging fruit. On the congressional side, that means energy efficiency, electric vehicles, incentives for natural gas and a renewable energy standard. For more on this, see my post on potential areas of legislative compromise between Republicans and Democrats.

But it’s the regulatory side where Obama can have the most impact. The administration is expected in the next several months to pass new greenhouse gas limits on stationary sources as well as new limits on ozone pollution. But there are a number of lawmakers who are trying to keep the administration from exercising its regulatory authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is likely to win her nail-biter of a re-election race, renewed her call to block the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions yesterday. She tried to pass such a resolution in the Senate in June, but the proposal failed in a 53-47 vote. Now, with more Republicans in the Senate, a new proposal to block the EPA could pass.

It was mostly bad news for House Democrats who voted for the chamber’s cap-and-trade bill. The two most stinging defeats were Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who worked furiously behind the scenes to secure benefits for his coal-dependent state in the bill before finally giving his “yes” vote, and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), who became somewhat of a celebrity on the left for standing by the more liberal wing of his party on a number of key votes, including cap-and-trade. Boucher, from Virginia’s 9th district, lost to his Republican opponent, Morgan Griffith, and Perriello, despite a big last-minute push by environmentalists and President Obama himself, lost to state Sen. Robert Hurt (R).

Politico ran the numbers this morning. At least 12 freshman Democrats who voted for the cap-and-trade bill lost their re-election bids, while at least seven (I noted Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) last night) won, with some races still too close to call. In total, Politico notes, more than 30 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill fell to their Republican opponents last night.

In the West Virginia Senate race, Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, managed to eke out a victory over Republican John Raese. While Democrats can technically put Manchin in their column, he campaigned against nearly every significant Obama administration policy, including cap-and-trade. In one now-infamous ad, he shot the House climate bill with a shotgun.

But there was some good news for environmentalists last night. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, won her reelection bid against Carly Fiorina. Boxer has always been a strong advocate for environmental protections, but her job is likely to get harder in the next Congress. She has already been accused of unwillingness to reach across the aisle, but with more Republicans in the Senate, she’ll have no choice if she wants to pass energy and climate bills.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) survived a tough race against Tea Party darling Sharron Angle. The big question going forward now is what will Reid do on energy and climate legislation next Congress. By now, it’s common knowledge that it will be next to impossible to pass comprehensive climate legislation in the next two years. So it seems Reid will focus on a series of low-hanging-fruit provisions that are popular on both sides of the aisle, including bills to incentivize electric vehicles, improve energy efficiency and weatherize homes.

The fate of two big-ticket items for environmentalists — a renewable energy standard and a much-delayed oil spill response bill — remains unclear. While there’s still time in the lame-duck session to try to pass both provisions, Republicans have more incentive to block the bills until next Congress, as they’ll have more sway later. There is Republican support for an RES, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, but GOP gains in the Senate could make it more likely that Republicans will push to add nuclear power and coal with carbon capture technology to the mix, a nightmare scenario for environmentalists.

It’s even less clear what will happen with the oil spill response bill. More than six months after the massive Gulf oil spill, Congress has yet to pass significant legislation to overhaul offshore drilling (on the regulatory side, the Interior Department has issued its own new drilling rules). A number of contentious issues, like how liable an oil company is for damages from a spill, are sure to take on new significance now that more Republicans are in the Senate.

In other key midterm results, Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative that would suspend the state’s landmark climate change law, failed. It’s a huge win for environmentalists, who funneled millions of dollars into the “No on Prop 23″ campaign, pitting themselves against two Texas oil refiners that campaigned heavily for passage of the initiative. California’s climate law is viewed by environmentalists as the gold standard. Passage of the ballot initiative would have been the icing on the cake of a disappointing year for climate activists.

At the same time, it looks like another California ballot initiative, Proposition 26, will pass. The measure would require a two-thirds majority vote in the state legislature and in local government bodies to impose new fees on industry. Environmentalists say the proposition will make it more difficult to implement key environmental rules, including parts of the state’s climate law. In the last days of midterm election campaigning, as it became clear that Prop 23 would fail, activists’ attention shifted to Prop 26. But it was apparently too late to make a significant difference at the polls.

It’s also worth noting that the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) was defeated last night. Obsertar worked for years to reform pipeline safety and was in the process of developing new legislation to do so in the aftermath of a massive oil pipeline spill in Michigan and a natural gas pipeline explosion in California.

Two other key Senate races remain too close to call this morning. In the Colorado Senate race, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and Republican Ken Buck are still neck and neck. As I noted yesterday in my midterm preview, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have trashed Buck in ads, highlighting his comments questioning whether climate change is man-made. Environmentalists have made Buck the poster child of Republican climate skeptics running this cycle. For his part, Buck’s spokesman said his official position is this: “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.”

Bennet does not support the House version of cap-and-trade, but his campaign said recently that he would support a “well-thought-out, market-based bill.” Buck’s campaign jumped on the comments, saying Bennet’s position on the issue is unclear.

Don’t hold your breath for results of the Alaska Senate race between incumbent and write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), Tea Party favorite Joe Miller (R) and Democrat Scott McAdams. Murkowski appears to be winning, according to early results. Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Though she has opposed cap-and-trade bills in the past, she has a history of working closely with Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the panel’s chairman, on key energy bills, including the comprehensive energy bill they passed in 2009.

The numbers, reported by the American Wind Energy Association, indicate that the third quarter of 2010 was the worst since 2007 for the industry. In total this year, the industry has installed 1,634 megawatts of electric generating capacity, the lowest since 2006.

At the same time, the numbers show that coal outstripped wind in new installed capacity this year. According to an AWEA statement:

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other third-party sources show that wind accounted for 39 percent of new installed capacity in 2009, versus 13 percent from coal; in the first nine months of 2010, however, the ratio flipped, and wind accounted for only 14 percent, versus 39 percent from coal.

AWEA President Densie Bode called on Congress to pass a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Though an RES has picked up a number of Republican supporters in the last month, it’s unclear when such a proposal will come up for a vote in the Senate.

Here’s an graph from the report that sums things up nicely:

The Investigative Reporting Workshop story finds:

Out of 70 major wind farms that received the $4.4 billion in federal energy grants through the stimulus program, public records show that 11, which received a total of $600 million, had erected their wind towers during the Bush administration. And a total of 19 wind farms, which received $1.3 billion, were built before any of the stimulus money was distributed.

Yet all the jobs at these wind farms are counted in the administration’s figures for jobs created by the stimulus.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the wind industry’s trade group, responded to the story last night, arguing that wind projects were stalling in 2008 and the Obama administration ensured that the industry could continue to operate.

In late 2008, wind project developers were laying off workers and stopping projects in mid-construction. The 1603 tax credit program for renewable energy allowed work to resume on these more-than-shovel-ready projects and saved 40,000 American jobs. Due to the program, 2009 was an all-time record year for new wind construction in the United States, and wind energy remained a bright spot in the American economy despite the recession.

AWEA is also pushing back against a series of Republican television ads arguing that the Obama administration’s renewable energy tax credits have sent American jobs to China. In an Oct. 22 letter to the heads of the Democratic and Republican campaign and congressional committees, AWEA CEO Denise Bode said:

One policy of particular importance is the renewable energy tax credit, the 1603 program, a continuation and modification of a policy started in 1992 that has been supported on a bipartisan basis.  Some advertisements are making clearly false statements about the 1603 program.  Statements that the 1603 program sent jobs to China when all projects receiving tax credits under the program were built in the US is clearly false.  This program is a great example of “insourcing” jobs to the United States by leveraging both foreign and domestic investment.  It is the opposite of outsourcing. Accordingly, we urge you to use your influence to praise one the most successful programs to defend American jobs and prevent the surrender of jobs to other countries like China, and not encourage any candidates to criticize this program in misleading campaign ads.

Here’s the full text of the letter:

October 22, 2010

The Honorable John Cornyn                                                                                        The Honorable Bob Menendez

Chairman                                                                                                                          Chairman

National Republican Senatorial Committee                                                              Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

425 2^nd Street NE                                                                                                            120 Maryland Avenue NE

Washington, DC 20002                                                                                                  Washington, DC 20002

The Honorable Pete Sessions                                                                                       The Honorable Chris Van Hollen

Chairman                                                                                                                          Chairman

National Republican Congressional Committee                                                       Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

320 First Street SE                                                                                                          430 S. Capitol Street SE

Washington, DC 20003                                                                                                  Washington, D.C. 20003

Dear Chairmen Cornyn, Menendez, Sessions and Van Hollen:

A number of politically motivated television advertisements are being aired across the country by candidates and party committees that falsely attack policies that are critical to the successful development of renewable energy and diversification of American’s energy sources and we ask that the party committees, which you lead, correct the record and that you refuse to support false statements about renewable energy policies in political advertisements.

One policy of particular importance is the renewable energy tax credit, the 1603 program, a continuation and modification of a policy started in 1992 that has been supported on a bipartisan basis.  Some advertisements are making clearly false statements about the 1603 program.  Statements that the 1603 program sent jobs to China when all projects receiving tax credits under the program were built in the US is clearly false.  This program is a great example of “insourcing” jobs to the United States by leveraging both foreign and domestic investment.  It is the opposite of outsourcing. Accordingly, we urge you to use your influence to praise one the most successful programs to defend American jobs and prevent the surrender of jobs to other countries like China, and not encourage any candidates to criticize this program in misleading campaign ads.

In general, the 2,500 members of the American Wind Energy Association and the 85,000 Americans employed in the U.S. wind energy industry, have appreciated the recent bi-partisan efforts of Members of the House of Representatives and Senate to promote the diversification of America’s energy sources and the development of renewable energy.

Renewable energy tax credits, the 1603 program, is one of the important polices under attack in these partisan political advertisements. As the representative for the 85,000 people working in the American wind industry, we can say unequivocally that this tax credit has been one of the most effective public policies in existence for saving American jobs instead of surrendering them all to China.

At a time when the recession threatened at least 40,000 American wind construction, manufacturing and operations jobs, the 1603 tax credit program restarted stalled projects and saved all 40,000 wind jobs at risk. This year, a study by Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) found that the 1603 tax credit supported enough current projects to save over 50,000 American jobs. The 1603 program actually led to a record-breaking year of 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind in 2009, compared to the 4,000 MW feared prior to the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Today, over 150 small and large wind projects have received the 1603 tax credit, and these investments have led to millions in local taxes for towns and cities, as well as lease payments for landowners willing to host wind farm facilities.

During the outset of the recession and prior to the establishment of 1603, project development and financing for wind farms was nearly impossible to obtain and costly. Many wind projects in mid-development could not complete financing. As a result, wind investment came to a sudden halt, with some projects stopping mid-construction; laying off construction workers and leaving wind towers and blades on the ground.

Every job saved under 1603 was an American job and 100% of projects that receive investment tax credits through 1603 are built in the U.S. as required by law . The program also supports America’s growing wind manufacturing and supply chain industries. As a result of 1603 and other policies over 400 American manufacturing facilities now produce wind components. Contrary to recent campaign ads, these manufacturing plants, projects and policies support American workers.

In the interest of all Americans, we ask that each of you use your influence to correct the record, get these misleading campaign advertisements off the air, and defend American jobs.

Sincerely,

Denise Bode

CEO, American Wind Energy Association