“Maybe Hunter Biden can be the new CEO [of ACPA], reporting straight to Dad in a Biden presidency. Surely Robert Hunter learned much about energy (still searching) in his previous life.”
This above headline will not be the name of the new powerhouse renewable energy trade group. Instead of ‘crony’ there is ‘clean,’ as in the American Clean Power Association (ACPA).
Here is some background:
Renewable energy companies are looking to strengthen their lobbying muscle in Washington, and they’re creating a new trade association to do it.
More than 30 companies, including GE Renewable Energy, Invenergy, Google, and NextEra, have been working throughout this year to form the American Clean Power Association. The American Wind Energy Association has helped to lead the group’s creation and plans to merge with the new group, according to a statement from the wind energy group Thursday.
The formation of the new group shows the renewable energy industry’s lobbying efforts are evolving.
Wind and solar power aren’t emerging technologies in the energy landscape anymore. There’s big money behind renewables. Utilities are promising to bring on a massive amount of wind and solar in the next decade. Costs of the technology are continuing to fall, and renewables are gaining a greater share of U.S. electricity generation.
Crony energies have unceasing work to do even after several decades of special federal favor–and after promising that increasing competitiveness would mean less subsidies.
In 2019, for the first time in more than 130 years, renewable energy surpassed coal generation, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Big talk–except “renewables” includes hydropower, wood, and biofuels. Get down to wind and solar, and coal remains King.
The article continues:
Renewables haven’t had the same success in terms of federal policy, however: Clean energy has been left out of every coronavirus relief bill so far, despite the sector losing half a million jobs since the pandemic began.
At the federal level, some of the few major policies supporting renewable energy are the wind and solar tax credits, which don’t have the support of many Republican lawmakers. There have been bipartisan efforts to create tax incentives for battery storage, but none of those have made it across the finish line yet.
Lobbying dollars from the renewable energy industry also pale in comparison to the fossil fuel industry. The oil, gas, and coal sector shelled out $104 million on lobbying in 2019, whereas the renewable energy sector spent less than $18 million, according to Bloomberg data.
Check those numbers–the fossil fuel companies lobby on the transportation side, not just the power side. So take out crude oil and oil products right there. And adjust the lobbying dollars to a unit of energy produced.
But it’s politics, not economics.
There’s strength in numbers: The new trade group will represent interests across the clean energy sector, not just wind and solar companies, but also manufacturers, utilities, and corporate purchasers of renewable power.
“Collaboration with our colleagues across different renewable energy industries makes good business sense because success for the renewables energy industry is mutually inclusive of all these technologies working together,” the AWEA statement says.
Whereas tax credit extensions have been the main political request of the renewables industry thus far, the American Clean Power Association plans to lobby aggressively on issues like revising permitting and siting requirements, modernizing the electricity grid, and setting broader carbon policy.
The group’s creation “will help boost the pan-renewable sector’s advocacy capabilities during this critical inflection point for energy and climate policy,” said Gregory Wetstone, head of the American Council on Renewable Energy, a nonprofit that also represents a cross-section of the renewables industry.
And, as we know, crony Joe Biden promises more taxpayer subsidies for dilute, intermittent energies at the expense of mineral energies:
Indeed, a clean energy trade group such as the American Clean Power Association could take on a much larger role in shaping public policy if Joe Biden wins the White House and sets out to achieve his ambitious climate plans, including a zero-carbon power sector by 2035.
Maybe Hunter Biden can be the new CEO, reporting straight to Dad in a Biden presidency. He surely learned much about energy (still searching) in his previous life.
Regarding “clean” power, there is no such thing. The only thing that comes close is nuclear power. Fourth generation nuclear plants will come even closer. One problem is that no definition of clean power is offered.