By Alex Morales

March 9 (Bloomberg) — Global “green stimulus” spending may triple this year as the U.S., European Union and China pay out money pledged to encourage renewable power and energy efficiency, HSBC Holdings Plc said.

Government promises to boost wind and solar power, build more efficient electricity grids and encourage lower-carbon forms of transport amounted to $521 billion the past two years, the London-based bank said today in a note to investors. About $82 billion of that was spent last year with $248 billion more likely to be disbursed this year, HSBC said.

This year is “set to become the year of delivery, with China, the U.S. and the EU leading the pack,” HSBC said. In terms of new pledges, “policy attention has shifted from stimulus to austerity,” it said.  Read more

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Op-Ed Columnist  March 7, 2010

The thing I love most about America is that there’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word — somebody who doesn’t understand that in a Great Recession you’re supposed to hunker down, downsize and just hold on for dear life. I have a couple of friends who fit that bill, who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things.

They both happen to be Indian-Americans — one a son of the Himalayas, who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars; the other a son of New Delhi, who came here and found the Sun, Sun Microsystems. Both are serial innovators. Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers. They don’t know from hunkering down. They just didn’t get the word.

As a result, one has produced a fuel cell that can turn natural gas or natural grass into electricity; the other has a technology that might make coal the cleanest, cheapest energy source by turning its carbon-dioxide emissions into bricks to build your next house. Though our country may be flagging, it’s because of innovators like these that you should never — ever — write us off.  Read more

By JEFFREY BALL MARCH 8, 2010

One thing is certain in the race for a cleaner energy system: Nothing is going to be certain for quite a long time.

ECO:nomics: Energy Secretary on Bureaucracy

7:46

Energy Secretary Steven Chu explains to WSJ’s Robert Thomson why it takes so long to approve loans and take other steps needed to move policy toward next-generation energy.

In Washington last week, the Obama administration abandoned the long-running plan to bury nuclear waste below Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, another potential barrier to new nuclear power plants in the U.S. Big questions loom about the viability of electric cars and of futuristic power plants that would shoot their greenhouse-gas emissions underground instead of skyward. And concerns about unintended environmental consequences are thwarting plans for wind and solar farms from Wyoming to the Mojave Desert.

Don’t expect clarity from the government, the financial world or even the scientific lab, said the chief executives and entrepreneurs who gathered last week at ECO:nomics, The Wall Street Journal’s third annual conference on the business of the environment. But, they advised each other, don’t dally in trying to dominate the new energy market, because the spoils will go to those who exploit the uncertainty the best.

The Journal Report

See the complete Environment Report.

Podcast: Highlights From the ECO:nomics Conference

When the Journal held the first ECO:nomics conference, in March 2008, things seemed clearer. Oil prices were high, investors were showering money on renewable-energy developers, and federal lawmakers were pushing to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently had won the Nobel Peace Prize for a report concluding that global warming was “unequivocal” and was “very likely” caused by human activity, so the debate over climate science appeared largely done.

All that has changed. Oil prices, though rising again, are just above half their mid-2008 highs. Tough economic times are pinching clean-energy investment and prompting new opposition to a mandatory carbon cap. And the IPCC has said it will appoint an independent committee to investigate questions raised recently about its widely watched climate-science reports.  Read more

Greentech Media announces the top 50 startups in greentech

GTM Staff March 8, 2010

Venture capital firms have invested almost $20 billion into hundreds of greentech startups since 2005.  All of these firms are looking to launch a disruptive force into their target markets, scale rapidly and grow quickly.  Very few of these firms will actually make it.

We put our energy analysts, reporters and editors to the task of picking fifty VC startups in greentech that have at least a fighting chance of succeeding as VC-funded startups and making an impact on our energy-intensive lives.

Selection criteria:

• Technological edge
• Potential to severely disrupt the market
• Great management team
• Massive market opportunity
• Substantial war chest
• Feasible exit strategy
• Sheer hype power
• Only venture-backed private firms

Methodology:  We spread the names of 500 VC-funded firms on the Greentech Media dance floor and cut the head off of a chicken.  Wherever the chicken landed – that was a winner.  We stopped when we ran out of chickens.   Read more

By Simon Lomax

March 8 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration has no plans to set up a “cap-and-trade” program for greenhouse gases under existing law if Congress doesn’t pass legislation doing so, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.

Some people are “over reading” the EPA’s budget request for fiscal 2011, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in remarks at the National Press Club in Washington.

Cap-and-trade legislation, which is stalled in Congress, would create a market for carbon dioxide permits that lets companies buy and sell the right to pollute. The agency’s Feb. 1 budget request, which is subject to congressional approval, calls for $7.5 million to examine greenhouse gas regulations that may include “market-oriented mechanisms.”

“I don’t think you should read into that that we have some plan that folks don’t know about to enforce a cap-and-trade regime,” Jackson said. “We don’t at all.”   Read more

Mar 5 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Teresa Shane The Daily Star-Journal, Warrensburg, Mo.

More than 250 area residents have called Sen. Claire McCaskill’s office during a three-day calling campaign by Repower America and other organizations.  Missouri’s Repower Communication Director Gretchen Wieland said Thursday that volunteers across Missouri made more than 2,000 calls to McCaskill’s constituents.

The group made phone calls at Java Junction, 112 N. Holden St., asking people to call McCaskill. “We are asking them to voice their support for clean energy legislation,” she said.

Sens. John Kerry, D-Maine, Joe Lieberman, Independent, Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are working on legislation, Wieland said.

“People know clean energy is an issue and we found a majority support clean energy,” she said. “We want to let them know that clean energy creates jobs, reduces dependence on foreign oil and also helps national security.”   Read more

Mar 6 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – John Burgeson Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

Mayor Bill Finch on Friday took the wraps off a major environmental and economic “greenprint” initiative, which aims to get the city and its residents on the road to environmental sustainability by 2020.

At the same time, Finch announced that the Burroughs-Saden Building, the main branch of the Bridgeport Public Library that dates back to 1927, will get a $3.03 million energy-conserving retrofit that will include new windows, boilers, a “green” roof, air-conditioning systems and other features designed to enhance energy efficiency.

The money would come mostly from “energy-performance contracts” in which the city would enter into an agreement to improve efficiency in which the improvements are paid over time, typically 10 years, through the savings on energy bills. Other money for the project would come from a federal Energy Block Grant and the United Illuminating Co.’s Conservation Fund. The library project might began as early as this summer, the mayor said.

“This will save taxpayer money and will reduce our carbon footprint,” Finch said in unveiling his 44-page “BGreen2020″ initiative, which includes everything from getting storm runoff out of the sanitary sewer system to promoting urban farming.  Read more

Mar 5 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Paul J. Nyden The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller introduced legislation on Thursday to suspend potential Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources, such as coal-fired power plants, for two years.

“Today, we took important action to safeguard jobs, the coal industry, and the entire economy as we move toward clean coal technology,” said Rockefeller, D-W.Va.   But Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., does not plan to cosponsor the legislation.

“I was encouraged by the response last week from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to a [Feb. 19] letter that I signed along with other senators that would delay the implementation of any regulation of greenhouse gas emissions into the next year,” Byrd said.  Read more