$1.4B Per Year in Government Cleantech/Green Energy Investment is Not Enough
Does the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill stifle innovation by underfunding cleantech?
We’ve been on this horse for a while now, arguing that too few of the emissions allowances in both the Kerry-Boxer bill in senate and the Waxman-Markey measure in the house go to energy innovation.
The Vine blog over at The New Republic, aided by The Breakthrough Institute, has helpfully put a dollar figure on those emission allowances and it doesn’t look good.
At EPA-projected allowance prices, Kerry-Boxer reserves about 12.6 percent of permit value or $8.6 billion per year for renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean vehicle technology, building codes and retrofit programs.
That compares unfavorably with Waxman-Markey’s 13.8 percent or $9.7 billion a year.
Neither figure is enough government investment to spark a clean energy revolution.
Drilling down to pure R&D numbers, The Vine finds that Boxer-Kerry will devote 1.9 percent of revenue, or $1.4 billion, versus Waxman-Markey’s 1.5 percent, or $1 billion.
GMAC alone burns through more than $1.4 billion of taxpayer’s cash a month.
These numbers come from an analysis by The Breakthrough Institute and are based on an average per year over the first 10 years, since the numbers fluctuate.
Of course, there will be other forms of investment from government programs but this is not even really an adequate start. But the challenges these bills are trying to address will require Marshall Plan/space race type investment… times ten.
As Steven Chu said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday.
China is spending about $9 billion a month on clean energy. It is also investing $44 billion by 2012 and $88 billion by 2020 in Ultra High Voltage transmission lines. These lines will allow China to transmit power from huge wind and solar farms far from its cities. While every country’s transmission needs are different, this is a clear sign of China’s commitment to developing renewable energy.
The United States, meanwhile, has fallen behind.
It’s hard to see how the Kerry-Boxer or Waxman-Markey bills, in their current forms, will help change that.
