6: Utility Scale Geothermal developers
Perpetual motion machines, unicorns… utility-scale geothermal?
Unfortunately for geothermal developers, it seems that tapping the earth’s core to generate energy has increasingly been consigned to fantasy land. Swiss authorities shut down one project, backed by former oilman Markus Häring, because studies showed that it could trigger earthquakes and cause damage to properties.
Then Google-backed AltaRock Energy gave notice to the Department of Energy in early December that it was abandoning its Geysers drilling project near San Francisco. Add these setbacks to the enormous cost and inexact science of drilling holes miles in the ground and you’ve got a technology that appears not to be ready for large-scale development.
The DOE remains keen, saying the technology has “enormous potential.” Recently, however, we’ve only seen enormous setbacks.
7: The French Carbon Tax
Back in September, French President Nicolas Sarkozy rolled out a carbon tax, making good on a campaign promise to put his country at the forefront of the climate change fight. The legislation barely passed the French Assembly and was set to go into law this month, that is, until France’s highest court stepped in and ruled that its web of loopholes, benefiting energy companies and energy-dependent sectors like farming and fishing, rendered it ineffective in cutting down carbon and green house gas emissions. Had it come into effect, the law would have raised some 1.5 billion euros ($2.15 billion) in its first year.
The court ruling, which came as a surprise, underscores the hurdles faced by industrial economies as they attempt to clean up their energy consumption by pricing carbon. The French government is now scrambling to get another law into the books. It plans to have a new draft ready by January 20th.
8: Joseph Romm, blogger Climate Progress, Senior Fellow,Center for American Progress
GER’s rankings are a month-by-month rundown of who’s hot in green energy, so most folks appear once and then disappear until they do something interesting again. Not Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm. He’s always hot. Cold December got you feeling like maybe global warming is overblown? Please allow Joe to correct you. Don’t like The Washington Post’s editorial or op-ed pages? Please allow Joe to smack them down for you. Your eco hero, Bill McKibben, doesn’t like President Obama’s performance in Copenhagen? You’re wrong Bill, Joe said so. He sometimes goes overboard with his rhetoric – his attacks on The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin are still a little inexplicable – but if anyone is going to combat buzzsaws like Sen. James Inhofe and blogger James Delingpole, it’s Romm.
9: Copenhagen, home of the United Nations Climate Change Conference
Copenhagen, for two weeks became the home for all things climate change. Had it been successful, the event could have linked the city to a seminal, historical agreement. But China stepped in to ensure that a Copenhagen Agreement was not. Instead, as had been rumored in the weeks leading to COP15, chances of a global binding agreement were dead on arrival. Copenhagen will likely go down in history as a minor milestone in the world’s ongoing quest to cut carbon and green house gases emissions. But, while there will not be a historical “Copenhagen Agreement,” the city and the conference organizers did effectively put the issue of climate change at the forefront, hosting both skeptics and believers.
The failed talks have firmly placed China and the U.S. in the front seat of climate change talks, and put and the U.N. system in the backseat. The city of Copenhagen might not be linked to a much-needed climate change agreement but, at the very least, it could go down in history as the the place that laid the foundations for a more efficient negotiating process that could ensure that a binding climate change agreement eventually sees the day.
10: Earth Capital Partners, cleantech-focused private equity fund
Earth Capital Partners, a London-based clean energy-focused private equity fund, announced last month the first close of its debut fund, the €750 million ($1.125 billion) ECP Renewable Energy Fund One. The fund plans to invest in solar, biomass, biogas projects in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and is managed by a seasoned energy pro, former AES executive Christoph Waltenspul.
With clean energy investments largely tapped from government funds these days, any successful fund raising of private capital is worth highlighting. Cleantech (thanks to unprecedented government backing) is making a comeback in the hearts of private investors, both in the U.S. and abroad.