Sunny California is prime real estate for solar energy, and a number of California rebates make home solar systems highly affordable for Golden State residents. The only downside to these programs is that some have limited funding. Homeowners interested in solar panels will want to act soon to take full advantage of all the savings.

Here are five solar incentive programs that every California homeowner should know.

1. The Federal Incentive Program

The government offers the most generous program. The federal incentive program pays for up to 30 percent of the cost of installing a residential solar system in the form of a tax credit. The program is currently set to expire at the end of 2016.

2. California Solar Initiative

The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) has transitioned its residential rebate program over to your local utility companies. The CPUC oversees the program. The state still exempts renewable energy home improvements from property tax assessments, so installing a PV system won’t raise your property taxes.

The new program offers per-installed-watt rebates from the state’s three major utilities, Southern California Edison (SCE), Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E). It’s a tiered program, with rebates that step down in price as more utility customers participate in the program.

Currently, PGE and SDG&E are at the ninth step of the ten-step program, offering rebates of $.25 per watt. SCE is at the seventh step of the program, offering $.65 per watt.

Municipal utilities offer rebates as well, some of them substantially more generous than those offered by the larger utilities, although annual funds are generally limited. Of course, if you live in one of California’s top solar cities, your rebates are likely generous. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for example, just moved to step six of their ten-step program, offering $1.62 per watt.

3. Single-family Affordable Homes (SASH) Program

Low-income Californian homeowners may be eligible to receive free or greatly-discounted home PV systems under the CPUC’s SASH program. Residents must be PG&E, SCE or SDG&E customers to qualify and must meet income requirements.

Generally, households earning less than 50 percent of the area’s median income levels may apply for a free 1-kilowatt home solar system. Households earning between 50 percent and 80 percent of median incomes may qualify for $4.75 per watt to $7.00 per watt rebates. SASH is administered by the non-profit organization GRID Alternatives.

4. New Solar Homes Partnership

The CPUC offers cash rebates to home builders who build houses with solar electrical systems built in. The New Solar Homes Partnership has been a huge success, and it’s likely the program will meet its goal of 400-megawatt capacity by 2016.

5. Thermal Rebate Program

The three major Californian utilities offer tiered rebate programs for solar water heating systems, too. Currently, all three utilities are in the first of a four-step program. Homeowners who replace a natural gas system can expect rebates of about $1,500. Those who replace electric systems can expect about $1,000.

Photo via joncallas

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Companies are constantly looking for a way to obtain competitive advantage in the marketplace. In fact, the more points of advantage, obviously, the merrier. Options may include lowest price point, market-changing widget, halo branding, introduction of a never-before-seen technology or idea and even favorable legislation, tax breaks, entry into a new market and below-average rate for capital.

In fact, this can be traced back to the beginning of capitalism; bigger, better, best – not to mention cheapest – wins the day. However, what is new this time around is that this edge is happening because companies are leveraging green or sustainability as opportunities to transform the business and not to just simply comply with regulations.

An example is outdoor flooring manufacturer Trex. It uses 50 percent recycled plastic and 50 percent reclaimed wood, most of which would have gone into landfills. Thanks to that green production “recipe,” the materials last longer, with less maintenance. Leader of green in the hospitality industry, Marriott attracts more business than competitors because its corporate customers such as ING can share in that glow of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

However, Trex and Marriott remain atypical. Too many other companies have been unable to figure out how to reconfigure green mandates into strategic homeruns for their enterprises. Many see going “green” as an expenditure, rather than savings.

That’s because, a study by MIT and Boston Consulting Group found, making that journey from green-is-good or green-is-required to green as source of competitive advantage has a learning curve.

Take the multi-dimensional business edge GE has gained through EcoImagination. That was started in 2005 by Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt. But it was built on the green platform established by the previous CEO, Jack Welch, through Six Sigma which cut out steps and materials in processes. Otherwise, EcoImagination wouldn’t have made such rapid strides.

Another example is the building industry. It has been getting out there and experimenting with everything from how to apply for a permit and tax credits to what materials to use and how to reduce waste. As a result, the National Apartment Association reports competitive advantages for some of its members who mastered the green game. Those include fast-track permits, Energy Efficient Builder Tax Credits, and lower cost for materials and labor. Consequently, they can provide incentives to renters such as lower utility bills and better quality indoor air. In itself, those lower the cost of filling those apartments.

What is preventing more companies from being able to make progress on the learning curve? According to the MIT-Boston Consulting study, a key obstacle was a reactive mindset. The attitude was that government regulations as well as consumer green concerns demanded compliance. End of story. That defensive approach closed off access to seeing these developments as opportunities for new products and services, processes, pricing, and marketing. This happens primarily because organizations have not taken the time to analyze what sustainability means to their very specific business.

Any understanding begins with what is. Smart companies monitor what kinds of energy are being used, how much of it, and what are the impacts on the environment. Online, up-to-the-minute energy monitoring should be a must-have tool in every company’s going-green toolbox.

Article by Bari Faye Siegel, a technology writer and marketing consultant at Noveda Technologies, an innovative leader in real-time, web-based energy management, solar PV monitoring and water management. Noveda also offers real-time collaboration tools that leverage social media to educate and empower stakeholder communities and make the smart grid a reality today. For more information, visit www.noveda.com.

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The fact is, governments have long provided massive subsidies for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries–and despite the fact that these industries are amongst the most profitable in the world, and continue to raise prices while inflicting tremendous damage to the environment, these subsidies continue unabated.

IEA reports that fossil fuels get six times the level of subsidies of renewables. And according to the most recent report on energy subsidies by the U.S. Energy Information Administration in 2007, subsidies to nuclear were 9.6 times higher than those for solar; natural gas and petroleum subsidies were 11.2 times higher; and coal subsidies were 22.2 times higher than solar.

In 2010, despite the ARRA, coal subsidies were still 20 percent higher, nuclear subsidies 120 percent higher, and natural gas and petroleum 148 percent higher than solar subsides. Moreover, 93 percent of the fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies were permanent, whereas almost 70 percent of the solar subsidies were temporary stimulus bill subsidies, and will expire if not renewed.

The EIA study itself notes that it includes only direct grants and tax subsidies available only to energy companies, and excludes many categories of subsidies provided to other companies, most of which favor conventional fossil and nuclear fuels more than renewables. For example, EIA does not count reductions in taxable income for American manufacturers, including domestic oil and gas producers and refiners; subsidized credit for energy infrastructure projects by export credit agencies; and tax-exempt municipal bonds used for energy projects.

EIA also acknowledges that it does not include the nuclear industry subsidy resulting from limits to liability in case of a nuclear accident provided by the Price-Anderson Act. And EIA does not include the enormous subsidies to fossil fuel companies from allowing them to emit harmful pollution into the air, water, and land, and into our lungs and bodies. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman recently wrote, “letting an industry impose costs without paying compensation is in effect a huge subsidy.”

The National Academy of Sciences National Research Council has found that damage to human health from coal-fired power plants amounts to $62 billion per year, or $156 million per plant, with a mean value of 3.2 cents per kWh. They did not include additional damage from air toxics, like mercury, or from carbon dioxide’s contribution to climate change. A more recent analysis by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Paul Epstein, which included air toxics, carbon dioxide, and more recent studies on the health effects of air pollution, concluded that life-cycle damage from US coal power plants (including mining, fuel refining and transport, and waste disposal as well as power plant emissions) costs over $300 billion per year, or almost 18 cents per kWh.

Fossil fuel and nuclear energy companies argue, however, that they receive lower subsidies per unit of energy generated. The EIA report finds, for example, that renewable energy technologies generate 10.3 percent of US electricity but collectively receive 55.3 percent of the subsidies. As mentioned above, this analysis excludes environmental and health damage. Even without considering such externalities, however, some of the difference per kWh is a result of ARRA subsidies being front-loaded in order to create jobs and stimulate the economy during the recession, and because many companies did not have the taxable income to utilize tax credits which had previously been spread out over ten years.

More importantly, however, a fair comparison of subsidies among different energy sources must look at comparable stages of energy resource and technology development. A primary purpose of energy subsidies, after all, is to help new energy competitors get off the ground by funding basic research and development, and fostering the economies of scale new technologies need in order to reduce prices and compete with mature technologies and industries.

A study by DBL investors found that:

[a]s a percentage of inflation-adjusted federal spending (eliminating increases in new programmatic spending since the introduction of early oil and gas subsidies in 1918), nuclear subsidies comprised more than 10% of this normalized federal budget over their first 15 years, and oil and gas subsidies constituted 5% percent of the total budget. Measured on a similar scale, renewables constituted only about one percent. That is to say, in an apples-to apples comparison, the federal commitment to O&G was five times greater than the federal commitment to renewables during the first 15 years of each subsidies’ life, and it was more than 10 times greater for nuclear.

As a sidebar, Lee Raymond, the former head of Exxon Mobil, made $144,357 a day, or about $100 every second.

But the important thing is that we don’t pick winners.

Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.

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Solar power has many unique advantages that help with solar sales and marketing.  All it takes is a sunny day and a rooftop for solar panels to produce clean green electricity.  They have no moving parts, make no noise, and can produce clean energy for decades right on your roof.  For those who love everything green simply because it’s green, solar power has always seemed like an obvious choice, but selling solar power takes strategy with most clients, just like selling anything else.  Here are seven strategies to kick start your solar sales, marketing, and communications for solar success.

1.  Make Solar Affordable

The biggest concern most people have about solar power is that it will cost a lot of money.  To address this, your solar sales and marketing need to make the financial advantages of solar clear.  Providing help with financing, solar leases, or power purchase agreements will reduce financial concerns, as well as providing information and assistance with rebates and tax credits.  The solar broker business model for solar sales, getting competitive bids from multiple installers, ensures that clients are getting the best price possible.  Talking about how going solar pays off financially is an approach that a large number of clients relate to.

2.  Make Solar Optimistic

Solar power is inherently optimistic, a part of a better future that we can all help to build.  Your marketing can show how buying solar is a way we can all make a difference in the world, choosing clean electricity by making our own.  Talking about solar as a hope for the future also connects with parents think about the positive step it means for their kids, a powerful motivation

3.  Make Solar Patriotic

Patriotism can be a strong motivator for many, and buying solar is a positive step for our country, moving us toward a clean and strong economy of the future, and away from polluting and costly fossil fuels.  Solar protects our country as well as protecting our environment.  Showing the patriotic side of solar patriotic in marketing can move thinking beyond blue states and red states to make solar sell in every state regardless of its politics. 

4.  Make solar sexy

Sex sells they say, and it’s a time honored strategy for selling just about anything because it often works.  I’m surprised I haven’t seen more solar marketers try this – if bikinis, fun, and sun can’t sell solar, then I don’t know what can.  Except maybe the other six items on the list.

5.  Make solar ordinary

A common preconception about solar is that it is strange and exotic. There will be a day when solar is on every house but for now solar panels are still an unusual feature in many neighborhoods and not everyone wants to be the first house on the block with solar panels.  If your marketing features pictures of every house having solar on it as the wave of the future will help more people get over the idea that it is weird, and start to see how solar will become the norm, opening the door for more people to buy solar.

6.  Make solar simple

There’s a lot involved in buying solar.  There are a large variety of installers, panels, inverters, monitoring, financing, and maintenance that clients need to sort through, all of which can keep some potential customers away from it, intimidated.  The winning companies know how to make it all simple for the client.  The simpler it is, the less anxiety it will generate, and the broader the market will be

7.  Make solar fun

Doom and gloom scenarios of a grim future are not the best way to convince most people to go green.  Quite the opposite – many people are driven away by talking about the scary future we could face.  Making solar fun and attractive in marketing for your solar company will attract customers to have photovoltaic fun in the sun.

Glenn Croston is the author of “75 Green Businesses” and “Starting Green”, and the founder of “Starting Up Green”, helping solar companies and other sustainability businesses with communications and marketing.

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Yesterday, Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) introduced a "comprehensive energy bill" entitled the "Fulfilling U.S. Energy Leadership Act" or "FUEL."  The bill is available for download here. 

According to his press release:

Senator Kent Conrad today introduced comprehensive energy legislation intended to lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce gas prices, and strengthen the national economy.  [The FUEL Act] is a blueprint for a national energy policy that would support domestic oil and gas production, including an environmentally responsible expansion of offshore activity, while also investing in the development of renewable fuels. The bill also promotes more alternative fuels and clean sources of electricity, including clean coal, and nuclear energy.

Regardless of the other positive things the FUEL Act may contain to achieve all of these ends, the bill has almost no provisions that address building energy efficiency, and mostly they simply extend the incentives already in place until 2016.  The only provisions for building energy efficiency in the FUEL Act are Section 601 and 611-614:

Section 601–Authorizing $4.9 billion for the Rural Utilities Service to provide interest-free loans to rural electric cooperatives to provide low interest loans to qualified consumers to implement energy efficiency measures.

Section 611–Increasing to $3.00 and extending through 2016 179(d), the commercial energy efficient property tax credit;

Sections 612-614–Extending through 2016 the existing tax credits for energy-efficient homes and appliances;

According to a McKinsey report, energy efficiency is one of the most cost-effective ways to minimize the dependence of the United States on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing building energy efficiency in the United States by 23% by 2020 would :

• Reduce end-use energy consumption by 9.1 quadrillion BTUs, roughly 23% of projected energy demand;
• Eliminate more than $1.2 trillion in waste—well beyond the $520 billion upfront investment (not including program costs) that would be required;
• Result in the abatement of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse-gas emissions annually—the equivalent of taking the entire US fleet of passenger vehicles and light trucks off the roads.

Despite these facts, it appears that energy efficiency is still the red-headed step-child of energy policy.  It is true, appliance standards, building codes, loan guarantees for energy efficient buildings and other solid energy efficiency proposals are not as sexy as electric vehicles or as viscerally connected to what people pay at the pump.  On the other hand, a cost-effective and achievable 23% reduction in fossil fuel usage should be at the forefront of national energy policy.  

I hope there is a larger strategy at play.  To the extent that Conrad’s bill may get bogged down in politics about fossil fuels, subsidies, domestic drilling and so forth, it may be an advantage that many of the energy efficiency policy proposals contained in ESICA, the energy efficiency bill introduced last month by Senators Shaheen and Portman (described in further detail here) were not rolled into the FUEL Act.  If the FUEL Act does become the leading energy policy, I recommend incorporating the programs in ESICA to make the FUEL Act a more complete energy package.   

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Washington currently provides approximately $5 billion worth of annual tax credits to U.S. farmers growing crops for ethanol production.

The question of ending the subsidies is fracturing the Republican leadership in Washington, National Public Radio reported.

Kentucky Republican Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “This is a very controversial subject. We have members in our conference on both sides of this issue.”

In a key vote Tuesday on Capitol Hill the Senate blocked a measure that would have immediately ended both federal subsidies and protective tariffs for corn-based ethanol fuel.

Leading the charge to end the subsidies is Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn, who has been trying for months to force colleagues to take a stand on ending the ethanol industry tax breaks.

Coburn infuriated some Republican Senate colleagues when last week he tried a Congressional maneuver to force the Senate to consider his legislation, which would end the $3 billion in tax credits still to be paid this year to those who by law are already required to blend ethanol with gasoline. Coburn insists that virtually all the revenue goes to big oil companies, telling reporters, “Here’s something that is $3 billion that the people we’re paying … say they don’t want … and we’re not going to take them up on it? What part of stupid are we?”

Article by Charles Kennedy, appearing courtesy OilPrice.com

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I have posted previously about the Destiny USA debacle, wherein the IRS is auditing a "green" shopping center project that failed to meet its sustainability obligations that qualified it for tax exempt bonds.

Now, according to the Boston Globe, a solar manufacturing plant in Massachusetts that received $4.5 million in property tax abatements will have to pay back a portion of the money. 

On Thursday, the Economic Assistance Coordinating Council, the state board charged with overseeing the tax breaks, unanimously voted to cut short Evergreen’s 20-year property tax break, originally estimated to be worth $15 million, and voided another $7.5 million in state tax credits after the company eliminated the hundreds of jobs it promised to create and retain in Devens.

Out of the $4.5 million in property tax breaks they have received to date, Evergreen will only have to repay the current year’s value, about $1.5 million, and in addition to the property tax breaks, the now almost defunct solar manufacturer also received over $21 million in other grants, the fate of which is uncertain. 

A question which occurs to me is why didn’t the government pull the plug sooner? At this point, it may be all but impossible to recoup the public investment.  To the extent that the public is taking a position in green companies (or any companies, for that matter), someone should be watching to guard the public’s investment.  As early as 2009, the writing was on the wall for Evergreen. According to their 2009 Annual Report:

We cannot assure you that our business will generate sufficient cash flows from operations, or that future borrowings will be available to us in amounts sufficient and on terms reasonable to us to support our liquidity needs. If we are not able to generate sufficient cash flow to service our debt obligations, we may need to refinance or restructure our debt, including our senior convertible notes, sell assets, reduce or delay capital investments, or seek to raise additional capital. We may incur additional indebtedness. If we do so, our increased debt service requirements may adversely affect our ability to meet our payment obligations on our currently outstanding senior convertible notes and otherwise successfully grow and operate our business.

Moreover, Massachusetts rescinded Evergreen’s property tax breaks for failure to create jobs, not failure to achieve environmental goals. The state should have known about this situation well before mid-2011. As early as 2009, Evergreen announced it was moving its manufacturing operations to China. According to its 2009 Annual Report:

In addition to our direct expansion into China, we also announced plans to begin shifting panel fabrication from our Devens facility to China using wafers and cells produced at the Devens facility.

[As a side note, Destiny USA had both obligations--to create 1000 construction and 1500 permanent jobs, as well as install its green features.  The IRS may follow suit and rescind the tax exempt status of the Destiny bonds for jobs reasons, thus avoiding the controversy over whether the green aspects were met]

According to the company’s website, Vanguard Group, Inc., BlackRock Institutional Trust Company,  and Brigade Capital Management, LLC are the top holders of Evergreen stock. To the extent that Evergreen issued tax exempt paper, it will be interesting to see if these entities enter the fray if the tax exempt status of their investments is rescinded. 

Moreover, if Evergreen declares bankruptcy, it will be fascinating to watch whether the public agencies which granted the incentives will be able to recoup any of their investment, particularly where they are competing with private creditors.  

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Forums are a great way to listen to what industry professionals are talking about, to discover what they still need to learn, and to find out what’s on people’s minds. SolarPro is my favorite forum for serious solar professionals. It’s unbeatable.

One of the concerns that has been thrown around a lot lately from solar contractors is about the future of the residential solar market given Home Depot’s entrance into selling solar. The emergence of Westinghouse Solar and Enphase Energy, two companies producing AC modules, has decreased the technical requirement of a system. This begs the question, “Will the entrance of Home Depot, and other big box stores, into the industry negatively affect the future of the residential solar market?”

There are many ways we can look to answer the questions:

Permits: Homeowners may now have more access for buying the products and installing them, but can they pull the required permits? Yes. Homeowners are typically allowed to pull electrical permits and home improvement permits to perform work on their home. Whether they will actually do it remain the question. The answer will depend on a few more variables.

Incentives: Homeowners will be able to purchase solar products and apply for all federal incentives because they are simply tax credits or grants. The question is whether they will be able to reap state benefits. Some states, like Massachusetts, have SREC programs that homeowners can take advantage of. However, some states, like New York and Pennsylvania, require contractors to become “eligible installers” to get state incentives. Due to the licensing and certain state requirements, it would be almost impossible for a homeowner to become eligible in NY or PA.

Insurance: Think of the liability, insurance, and warranty issues that go along with homeowners installing their own solar systems. Who will be responsible for service? Who will take care of repairs of faulty equipment and troubleshooting? Even if they’re able to physically install the system, most homeowners will be incapable of insuring the systems reliability.

Comparisons with Other Trades: Here’s the reality. Homeowners can also purchase shingles, sinks, windows, and wood at Home Depot. Does this mean that they’re going to re-shingle their own roofs, build their own decks, and install their windows? I think not.

There will always be a small number of DIYs that will do the work themselves, but it won’t likely reach the mass market.

Power Purchase Agreements: The solar industry has exploded with the introduction of Solar PPAs on the residential and commercial sectors. A lot of homeowners simply can’t install solar without utilizing a power purchase agreement. Most PPA firms will only work with established companies due to legal, warranty, and quality issues. They will not work directly with homeowners. This is a big deterrent to self-installation.

Here are two more questions to consider when analyzing how the entrance of big box stores will affect the market:

Is it cheaper?

Let’s assume that homeowners can buy a complete solar package (inverter, racking, balance of systems, and solar panels) at Lowes. Would they want to? Regarding the Andalay Sytstem, Lowe’s is charging $893 per AC panel (it’s a Suntech 175W with and Enphase inverter). That figures out to a cost of $5.10 per watt, just for the materials. This cost does not include labor, permitting and all the other related costs that a homeowner would need to cover. Even if the homeowner completed 100% of the labor himself, most respectable contractors can beat this price and still make a profit.

Can Home Depot be a Good Sign?

The major quandary that stood out to me is why contractors see this as a bad thing. Why? I think because most people see Home Depot as low prices and cheap quality, which may or may not be true. However, with Home Depot, Lowe’s and other big box names getting into the game, won’t that legitimize the industry? Although the vast majority of Americans support greater use of solar, many are still skeptical of it. To gain the support of big brands to the solar campaign, it will only add legitimacy, interest and–better yet–dollars behind this type of renewable energy. You can bet that if Home Depot’s solar business starts to go well, they’ll put their money behind keeping it that way and expanding into more states. Perhaps this could even spark the creation of more state-based incentive programs and increase demand. The reality is that there is plenty to go around. For example, in New Jersey there have been a total of 5,582 solar installations as of 3/31/2010. That is nothing! New Jersey the second largest market, is growing quickly and doesn’t even have 6,000 installations. We haven’t even touched the surface. Even if Home Depot gets tons of business, there will be much more work left over for other contractors, especially given a higher demand.

What are your thoughts on the big boxes and major brand entering the solar industry? Good bad, don’t care?

Article by Chris Williams who works with HeatSpring Learning Institute delivering world-class IGSHPA Geothermal Training, NABCEP Solar Training, and BPI Certification training to professionals who are installing, designing or selling renewable energy systems. Cleantechies readers can received a $100 discount off all HeatSpring courses, both online and offline, with the code “cleantechies”. Chris can be reached directly at cwilliams@heatspring.com

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Three years after unveiling his plan for U.S. energy independence, which won praise from environmentalists for its reliance on wind power, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is back with a proposal to convert the U.S. trucking fleet to natural gas. But as his new plan gains traction, questions arise over how green it really is.

Remember the Pickens Plan?

Three years ago, with a flurry of national publicity, billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens outlined his vision of how to help wean the U.S. off imported oil. The crux of the plan was to build a massive, $1 trillion network of wind farms stretching from Texas to North Dakota, which would replace domestic natural gas used to generate electricity. The excess natural gas would then be used to power millions of American trucks and cars, thus freeing the U.S. from the shackles of OPEC oil.

Even some environmentalists swooned over the Pickens Plan, with Carl Pope, then executive director of the Sierra Club, saying, “To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.”

Within a year, however, the wind-power scheme was all but dead, and soon Pickens – and his multimillion-dollar ad campaign – had largely faded from the airwaves.

Now, however, Pickens and his plan are back, although the Texan’s new version is a good deal less green, considerably more dependent on controversial methods of extracting natural gas, and focused tightly on a single immediate goal: converting 8 million of the U.S.’s largest trucks, including its 18-wheel, tractor-trailer rigs, from diesel fuel to compressed natural gas.

In the past two weeks, Pickens and his plan have gotten a boost from none other than President Obama, who in a March 30 speech on energy security praised Pickens’ goal of expanding the use of natural gas in the nation’s transportation sector and called on members of Congress to support legislation that would increase the extraction and use of natural gas “in a safe, environmentally sound way.”

Last Thursday, at Pickens’ urging, a bipartisan group of 76 members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill that would provide tax credits of up to $64,000 per truck or vehicle to convert the nation’s large trucks and corporate and government fleets to compressed natural gas. Pickens predicted that the bill would receive more than 300 votes in the House and could pass as early as May, before moving to the U.S. Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has voiced support for Pickens’ new plan. The nation’s truckers are keeping a close eye on the legislation, saying much would depend on the size of the tax credit. Pickens repeatedly points out that recent events, including soaring oil prices and instability in the Middle East, have considerably strengthened his case for turning to natural gas as a way of breaking U.S. addiction to foreign oil.

With momentum building for the Pickens Plan, Part 2, the question is whether it is good for the nation’s energy security, good for the environment, or just good for T. Boone Pickens. Some transportation and energy experts say that the new Pickens plan indeed has merit and — with a significant caveat — is worthy of support. But other energy experts and environmentalists say it is a misguided attempt to impose a single “silver bullet” solution on the transportation sector and commits the U.S. to a long-term embrace of fossil fuels.

It was probably inevitable that Pickens would not remain the darling of environmentalists.

“It was a big disappointment when T. Boone Pickens walked away from the wind side of his plan,” said David Friedman, research director for the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “He kept saying that this wasn’t about private interests, it was about the nation and the world. But to dump the part that actually had the greatest potential to cut global warming and pollution and help create new jobs in the U.S., in favor of the piece that really does most benefit his bottom line, was a disappointment.”

Although many environmentalists heaped accolades on Pickens when he announced his plan in 2008, it was probably inevitable he would not remain the darling of the environmental movement for long. At heart, Pickens is an oil and gas man whose fortune and business interests are grounded in fossil fuels. As a founder of Mesa Petroleum, he made billions in the oil business, starting in the 1950s. Today, he heads BP Capital, which invests in the oil, gas, and energy sectors.

In a recent meeting with reporters at Yale University, Pickens made it clear that he remains an enthusiastic booster of hydrocarbons, that he doesn’t foresee a transition to renewable energy anytime soon, that he isn’t convinced about human-caused global warming, and that he certainly doesn’t believe that hydrofracking — a controversial practice that extracts natural gas from shale — poses any serious environmental risks.

“You’re stuck with hydrocarbons — come on, get real,” Pickens, the 82-year-old Oklahoma native blessed with a silver tongue and a self-deprecatory, down-home charm, told the reporters. “I’ve been in meetings before where somebody says, ‘I want to cut out all coal-fired plants and go to wind.’ What are you talking about? I mean you’d run the price of electricity 10 times what it is [now]. Realistically you’ve got to use coal and you’ve got to use oil and, no, I don’t approach it from an environmental standpoint. But my record is good on the environment.”

When I asked Pickens whether human activity is causing the planet to warm, he replied, “I’m not saying that we’ve gone that far, but I’m saying we have caused some problems… I think we screwed around with the thing. I don’t know what we’ve impacted, but I’ve seen enough that I believe that we have messed up some things.”

At heart, his plan was not about going green, but about breaking our addiction to imported oil.

Pickens’ proposal has struck a sympathetic chord across the political spectrum, for reasons of both economic and national security. At heart, his plan was never about going green, it was about breaking our addiction to imported oil, and as far as Pickens is concerned, anything that helps end that addiction – natural gas, wind, solar, corn ethanol — is okay by him. “Anything American, I’m for,” Pickens told a large and enthusiastic crowd at Yale University Law School last month.

He said his plan to help jump-start the nation’s wind energy industry fell victim to a simple economic truth: with the growing exploitation of natural gas reserves trapped in underground shale formations, natural gas prices have fallen to the point where wind power is not economically competitive, especially considering the cost of connecting wind farms to the national electricity grid. In 2009, Pickens put on hold his own plans to create a giant wind farm in West Texas, and he is now in the process of selling roughly 250 turbines from his proposed project to other North American wind farms.

Pickens has now shifted his hopes of ending America’s dependence on foreign oil — at least in the next several decades — to the country’s abundant natural gas supplies. His arithmetic is simple. He argues that if a concerted effort is made to shift America’s 8 million tractor-trailers and large trucks from diesel to cheaper compressed natural gas (CNG), the U.S. can largely end its dependence on OPEC oil within a decade. (He refers to OPEC as “the enemy,” since Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have channeled money to Islamic fundamentalists.) By converting government and business fleet vehicles, and even some cars, to natural gas, Pickens says the country can begin to reduce oil imports from non-OPEC countries. “If we miss this opportunity,” he told the Yale audience, “all of us will go down in history as the dumbest crowd that ever came around.”

The House bill introduced last week would cost the U.S. treasury roughly $3 billion to $4 billion in tax credits for converting millions of trucks to natural gas, Pickens said, contending that the shift to CNG trucks and a national CNG fueling infrastructure would be a powerful engine of job creation. Pickens also is urging Obama to issue an executive order mandating that in the future all new federal vehicles run on domestic energy supplies, which Pickens says would further speed the transition to natural gas vehicles.

Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, said he supported Pickens’ plan and the government tax credits. “Should have done it ages ago,” Smil said in an email interview.

Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the nonprofit government watchdog group, Public Citizen, said that even though Pickens is promoting an energy program that would be “enormously beneficial to his fortune,” the plan to convert the nation’s heavy trucks to compressed natural gas has some merit. Large tractor-trailers are too heavy to be powered by electric engines, and natural gas does burn more cleanly than diesel fuel, Slocum said.

The problem is that much of the natural gas Pickens is counting on would come from fracking.

The problem, said Slocum, is that much of the natural gas Pickens is counting on to power the U.S. trucking industry will come from the hydro-fracturing, or fracking, of shales — a process in which a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is forced at high pressure deep underground to free natural gas trapped in shale formations. An increasing number of reports by the media and state regulators indicate that fracking, if poorly done, can contaminate water supplies.

Slocum said the only way the government should support the conversion of heavy trucks to compressed natural gas is if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency begins to strictly regulate fracking under the Clean Water Act; fracking was exempted from the act under legislation passed in 2005 during the administration of George W. Bush. Federal oversight is particularly important, Slocum said, because state environmental agencies are overwhelmed trying to monitor pollution emanating from the fracking boom sweeping much of the U.S.

“I think natural gas has huge advantages if extracted in clean ways, and that is going to entail federal regulation,” Slocum said. “The national security issue of importing 65 percent of our oil is significant. But so are issues of drinking water contamination in a large number of states.”

In his Yale speech, Pickens said that water pollution from fracking is “not an issue” because the shale deposits are far below aquifers. “I do not know of any problems with freshwater aquifers being damaged by hydrofracking,” Pickens said.

Other transportation experts chiefly object to Pickens’ latest plan because it uses government policies to promote a specific technology, rather than leveling the marketplace to enable a host of potentially effective transportation and energy technologies to emerge.

“In general, I do not look fondly upon these technology winner-picking adventures that have been, and continue to be, a hallmark of America’s failed energy policy,” John M. DeCicco, of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, said. “The U.S. transportation energy market is way too huge to create a business case for anything through taxpayer subsidies.” Citing the synthetic fuel initiative of the Carter administration and other U.S. policies, DeCicco added, “How many times does the country have to get it wrong before realizing that such approaches don’t work?”

Friedman of the Union Concerned Scientists agrees with DeCicco that trying to pick a “flavor of the month” in transportation fuels, such as compressed natural gas, is unwise. The better course, he said, is to use natural gas to generate electricity, since new combined-cycle gas turbines at power plants are more than twice as efficient at converting natural gas to energy as a truck or car engine running on compressed natural gas. That electricity could then be used for electric vehicles or to power fuel cells for hydrogen cars.

The fundamental problem, Friedman said, is that Pickens’ plan ultimately represents a “stranded investment,” pumping many billions of dollars into a compressed natural gas technology that will eventually be phased out in favor of more sustainable, long-term transportation alternatives: electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, biofuel- or algae-powered vehicles, or a new technology altogether. For now, he said, a better approach would be to pass tax credits that would reward the trucking industry for reducing emissions, either through designing more efficient trailers, developing hybrid trucks, or improving the efficiency of diesel engines.

Pickens has heard these criticisms before, and as far as the former wildcatter is concerned, it’s time to quit talking and start acting. “With the Mideast in turmoil, you go to sleep at night and you don’t know what you’re going to get in the morning,” he said. “The solution is to get on your own resources.”

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One of the most progressive states in the United States in legislation of renewable energy has long been the state of Washington. Its capacity for renewable energy is right behind California, especially in the fields of biomass and commercial wind energy production. A lot of the success in this state and opportunities created due to the increase in clean technologies is due in large part from its capital city of Seattle.

1) Green Building Sustainable Communities Program. The Department of Planning and Development in Seattle came up with the Green Building Sustainable Communities program to provide much needed support to the sustainable outcome of city project plans. It has been a desire to make green building standards regular practice. This project has been promoted to elevate awareness about making buildings green and the numerous benefits associated, such as tax breaks, financial incentives, more loans, and reducing waste as well as preserving national resources and saving on utility bills and maintenance costs.

2) Seattle Renewable Energy Meetup. Local community participation has been very big within Seattle for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The impact of the participation has guaranteed that energy efficient practices do happen, as well as the utilization of renewable energy resources. The Seattle Renewable Energy Meetup Group meets monthly to discuss important cleantech issues, they also hold speakers and fieldtrips for educational purposes. The local community participation has made it a lot easier to pass renewable energy and energy efficient legislation because of the increased support.

3) Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment. One of the biggest highlights of clean technologies in Seattle could be its acceleration of environmentally sustainable practices. The Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment assists in the creation of environmentally sustainable neighborhood. The office works intimately with other businesses, community based organizations, city departments, learning institutions and nonprofit organizations in the effort to develop and implement numerous important sustainability initiatives, such as in climate protection and forest restoration and management. They have an Environmental Management System which supplies environmental policies connected with various organizational goals, check how changes advance the environment, evaluate activities and environmental impacts, as well as the creation of new sustainable projects that are based on present data trends.

4) Green Up Program. Created by Seattle City Light, Green Up is a voluntary green power program designed for residential customers and businesses interested in purchasing green power for a portion of their monthly electricity. It shows the increasing support in the utilization of renewable energy and all its projects. Individuals receive a portion of their electricity from renewable sources and then get renewable energy credits because they pay on their bill the cost of production and integration. Anyone, even if they do not switch their electricity supplier, can take part in this program.

5) Future Energy Conference. The Future Energy Conference is a yearly meeting whereby numerous topics are covered, including energy policy for jobs and projects, renewable fuels and electricity, and energy efficiency in industry and buildings. According to the official website, “The Future Energy Conference is the place to learn, interact with peers, and do business. Join for two days full of educational sessions, keynote presentations, and an exhibit floor.” It provides an opportunity to learn how to design, finance, and build projects for renewable energy, education on the state of industry, emerging technologies, and policy developments. Anyone can attend, including project developers, government agency representatives, utility managers, researchers, engineers, technology and equipment providers, and economic development professionals.

6) Seattle Steam Switches to Biomass. In 2009, Seattle Steam, a company mainly known for using “old school technology” in now turning to biofuel, mainly wood, to reduce carbon emissions by creating a new boiler that will allow it to derive over half the total fuel source from biomass. This switch will guarantee a reduction in carbon emissions by Seattle Steam by 55,000 tons. Seattle Steam has also applied for funding from the stimulus package for a combined heat and power plant – a move which would increase the percentage of renewable energy over 80 percent.

7) Energy Rebates and Tax Credits in Seattle. In Seattle, there are a number of tax credits and rebate programs available to make the switch to renewable energy and energy efficiency a lot easier to obtain. Some of these programs include residential energy efficiency rebate programs, renewable energy sales and use tax exemption, residential energy conservation subsidy exclusion, energy efficient mortgages, and a USDA high energy cost grant program.

8 ) Building Rating and Disclosure Ordinance. In 2010, the Mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn signed into effect the Building Energy Rating and Disclosure Ordinance. It provided that nonresidential commercial building owners and multi-family building owners (with four or more unity) have to not only benchmark, but also rate and disclose their total energy efficiency using the standards set up by the Energy Star system. These owners must provide this information to prospective and current tenants, as well as potential lenders and potential buyers. According to the economic analysis of this ordinance, around 8,000 buildings will be affected but more than 47 kilowatt hours would be saved per year.

9) Federal Energy Funding. In mid 2010, $20 million in federal funds dedicated to building weatherization efforts in southern Seattle was provided to the city. It is part of the “Retro Ram Up” money provided by the United States Department of Energy. This money will go to support the Weatherize Every Building initiative that will create two thousand green jobs as well as “drive significant demand for conservation in our region, creating new jobs, and spurring growth in our energy efficiency industry that will last for years to come,” director of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council, Stan Price, said.

10) Energy Efficient Real Estate Fund. To increase their return on investment, GSB Ventures, a real estate fund based in Seattle, is looking toward energy efficiency. In 2009, they began their $50 million Efficient Real Estate Fund. The business model is to “identify and purchase distressed homes with values significantly below the area’s median value, determine their Energy Performance Sources (EPS), implement energy efficiency measures, perform a second EPS evaluation and return the house to the market as a rental or for sale.” This is the first energy efficiency real estate fund and within the next year, the company is looking to apply for federal debt funding to benefit from the available energy efficiency rebates and tax credits.

Article by Shawn Lesser, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Atlanta-based Watershed Capital Group – an investment bank assisting sustainable fund and companies raise capital, perform acquisitions, and in other strategic financial decisions. . He is also a Co-founder of the GCCA Global Cleantech Cluster Association. He writes for various cleantech publications and is known as the David Letterman of Cleantech for his “Top 10″ series. He can be reached at shawn@watershedcapital.com

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