The GOP is holding the federal government hostage. Unless their demands to kill funding for Planned Parenthood and EPA enforcement of clean air standards are met they intend to shut down the federal government. Harry Reid said that the only thing hanging up negotiations is ideology.
Mr. Reid said that Republicans had “drawn a line in the sand” on issues of abortion financing and changes to the Clean Air Act, and that those issues could not be resolved in the hours left before a government shutdown.
“The numbers are basically there,” Mr. Reid said on the floor of the Senate, adding that “the only thing holding up an agreement is ideology,” referring to the policy provisions, which he said “have no place on a budget bill.”
Strict enforcement of the clean air act, including court mandated enforcement of standards that limit CO2 pollution, is the stick encouraging industry to develop electric cars and renewable energy. Economic stimulus funds were the carrot that has spurred green job growth across America. Michigan manufacturing, which was left for dead in the Bush years, is resurgent under President Obama's leadership. Tens of thousands of new jobs in wind, solar, advanced battery development, and green technology are coming on line in response to the stimulus and tax credits.
Former Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, whose second term ended in January, said in an interview that Michigan businesses are expected to create more than 150,000 clean energy jobs in the next decade from $14 billion of projects in the pipeline.
The jobs will stem from 17 advanced battery companies and nearly 50 solar, wind and biofuels companies that came to Michigan from August 2009 to December 2010, lured by state tax credits and federal stimulus grants, Granholm told SolveClimate News.
From a decade of despair caused by Republican abandonment of American manufacturing and green jobs, Michigan now has the most improved jobs growth in America. Democratic policies of environmental enforcement and green tech development are paying off.
For the first time in a decade, Michigan is projected to gain jobs and break its unprecedented string of rising unemployment, according to April 4 figures from the University of Michigan's economics department.
This week, the department updated its earlier projections of 20,000 new positions for 2011. Economists now anticipate Michigan will add 64,600 jobs in 2011 and 61,500 more in 2012. The increase reflects "in part a bounce in manufacturing following the traumatic situation of the recent past," they wrote.
GM, which was saved by President Obama despite Republicans opposition is leading the way. Earlier this year GM doubled the size of it's advanced battery lab.
GM battery chief Micky Bly inside the GM Advanced Battery Lab. image source: Edmunds.com
While the costs of solar power continue to halve every ten years, the costs of oil, gas and coal continue to rise inexorably. As the resource quality declines with exploitation, fossil fuel production becomes more expensive and more environmentally destructive. Solar power, however, gets cheaper and less resource consumptive as technology improves. The jobs of the future are in solar power not fossil fuels. Bloomberg reports that solar is already competitive in key high peak power cost areas such as the mid east and California.
“The most powerful driver in our industry is the relentless reduction of cost,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of New Energy Finance, said at the company’s annual conference in New York yesterday. “In a decade the cost of solar projects is going to halve again.”
Installation Boom
Installation of solar PV systems will almost double to 32.6 gigawatts by 2013 from 18.6 gigawatts last year, New Energy Finance estimates. Manufacturing capacity worldwide has almost quadrupled since 2008 to 27.5 gigawatts, and 12 gigawatts of production will be added this year. Canadian Solar has about 1.3 gigawatts of capacity and expects to reach 2 gigawatts next year, Qu said.
The stimulus has spurred the growth of jobs for electricians in California and the southwest, installing new solar power systems in places the sun shines almost every day. These are the good jobs of the future providing reliable, safe power
As part of Southern California Edison’s 250 MW solar initiative, Cupertino Electric’s Energy Alternatives Division is installing a 6.7 Megawatt (MW) solar farm based on ground-mount, fixed-tilt structures in Porterville, Calif. At the time of construction, the solar farm for one of the nation’s largest utilities is also one of North America’s largest ground-mount solar systems.
The project, which would typically take nine months to complete, given its size and scope, is being completed in an unprecedented three-month period. Despite the project’s fast-track status with experienced electricians working around the clock, there have been no significant recordable injuries on the project.
The more than 29,000 solar modules at the SCE site are expected to generate roughly 2.47 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity over a 25-year period. This grid-tied system will have the same impact as reducing the annual greenhouse gas emissions of nearly 34,000 passenger vehicles.
On islands, such as the Virgin Islands and Kauai the skyrocketing cost of diesel fuel is strangling their economies. Solar power is already cheaper than diesel power. Local leaders on islands are turning to renewable energy because there's no future in fossil fuels.
A case in point: the U.S. Virgin Islands, where electricity prices jumped to 54 cents per kilowatt-hour, quadruple the national average, when oil prices spiked to $140 a barrel in 2008. "These are not rich communities," says Adam Warren, group manager for the deployment group of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). "It really put people in a bind. I think [island leaders] know if oil goes back up to $140 a barrel and they haven't done anything, they'll be held responsible."
But House Republicans want to keep big tax breaks for oil companies while killing high speed rail, renewable energy and EPA clean air regulations. If they were concerned about the deficit Republicans would cut the huge tax breaks for big oil. This isn't about the deficit. It's about corrupt Republican politics and ideological extremism.
China is building high speed rail, solar power systems and wind power systems. China is developing jobs, scientific research, public infrastructure, and a manufacturing base. China is investing in the future. Republicans are demanding we cut investments in the future. They call it wasteful government spending. The Chinese aren't that stupid. China has grown rapidly through investing in the future by smart government spending. They are investing in the jobs of the future. Republicans will send our jobs to China....again....if we don't stop them.
Shanghai, China maglev train, source: Wikipedia