From:              info@climatecrisiscoalition.org
Subject:     Earth Equity News (9/30/08)
Date:     September 30, 2008

Click the highlighted headlines for links to these stories.
Bailouts’ Failure May Buy Time for Renewables. By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, September 29, 2008. “Strange as it may sound, the surprise rejection of the Wall Street bailout package in the House may have breathed new life into the renewable energy industry’s waning hopes that Congress will extend important tax credits that expire at the end of this year. ‘Ironically, the failure of the bailout may have given negotiators more time,’ said Paul Bledsoe, communications director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of energy experts. The House was planning to adjourn Monday after passing the bailout package, and possibly not to return until the inauguration of the next president. That didn’t happen, so legislators will be forced to stay on — and they could get other work done in the meantime. Both the House and Senate last week approved broadly similar tax credits for renewables, but there is fierce disagreement over provisions within each bill — including how the credits should be funded. Should the credits not be renewed, Mr. Bledsoe suggested they might be passed next year — and put into effect retroactively. The industry, however, hates this idea. ‘We’ve already seen a downturn in solar and in wind in the last three months’ due to the looming expiration of the tax credits, said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.“

Automaker Bailout Slid By Unheralded. Posted by Jesslyn Taylor, TaylorPaper.com, September 30, 2008. “Only in the shadow of a proposed $700 billion Wall Street intervention could a $25 billion bailout of the auto industry be considered a minor news event and excite little comment. The bailout of the automakers occurred last week. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler say they need help in transitioning from big cars and SUVs to fuel-efficient vehicles. The $25 billion is just half of what the Big Three were requesting. But it still dwarfs the $1.5 billion bailout of Chrysler in 1980. And there are far fewer strings attached than in 1980… There are striking similarities between the automaker bailout and the Wall Street measure; both are a response to bad business practices. In Detroit’s case, the auto industry failed to react quickly to increased consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Now they say they need help responding.”

PV and Thermal: A New Combined Cycle. By Matthew L. Wald, NYTimes, September 30, 2008. “One of the limitations of solar photovoltaic systems is that, at the current state of the technology, no more than a quarter of the energy from the sun is converted to electric current. Most of the rest of the energy is lost as waste heat. But Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and now a technology entrepreneur and alternative-energy venture capitalist, says he’s found a solution that doubles or even triples the energy yield — a gargantuan leap in a field where engineers exult over the most incremental gains. Mr. Khosla is funding a company called PVT Solar, of Berkeley, Calif., where engineers two years ago began trying to harness that wasted heat. In a sense, it was already being collected, either in the solar modules themselves, or underneath. (Solar arrays are often installed at an angle, to face the sun, thus creating a wedge-shaped space below for heat to collect.) PVT’s founders decided the heat could be harnessed and pumped into the home for climate control, water heating and other uses. It is a sort of combined cycle for solar — a marriage of solar photovoltaic technology and solar thermal systems, which gather the sun’s energy in the form of heat.”