SolarTexans.com

By R.A. DYER

rdyer@star-telegram.com

AUSTIN — Proposed regulations relating to the installation of renewable-energy-producing devices at homes and businesses could stymie the development of solar power in Texas, a coalition of conservation groups are warning.

The regulations — some of which are up for consideration by the Texas Public Utility Commission today, and some later in the year — would establish broad guidelines for how the state’s deregulated electric market treats consumers and businesses that invest in solar panels, small windmills or related devices.

A coalition of conservation groups complained Tuesday that the rules would require the acquisition of expensive redundant meters for those who invest in solar panels and hope to be compensated for the excess electricity that would potentially flow back into the state’s power grid.

Preliminary rules also leave open the possibility that those who generate power through solar panels or small windmills would not be compensated properly — or at all — according to the conservation groups.

“These rules protect the utility companies by shifting all the cost of solar power to the customers while giving consumers none of the benefits,” said Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

The three-member PUC is set to consider some of the regulations today. The second set of regulations, which would govern a broad set of related issues, remains in preliminary form and won’t go before the PUC for weeks.

All the proposed regulations relate to House Bill 3693, an energy efficiency bill authored by state Rep. Joe Strauss, R-San Antonio, during the 2007 legislative session. Reed said the preliminary rules set forth by the PUC staff do not conform to the spirit of the law. Strauss was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

But Steve Davis, president of the Alliance for Retail Markets, said the electric company umbrella group supports the staff’s proposed regulations as they relate to the installation of meters for so-called distributive renewable generation, such as rooftop solar panels.

Under HB 3693, “an electric utility shall make available . . . separate meters that measure the load and generator output, or a single meter capable of measuring inflow and outflow.” The law also states that “the distributed renewable generation owner must pay the differential cost of the metering, unless the meters are provided at no additional cost.”

Davis said it’s important to have a method that measures the influx of power into a home or business and another that measures power that potentially flows from solar panels, windmills, or other renewable-energy sources.

Davis noted that the value of the energy flowing in to a home or business and the value of the energy flowing out can be different — depending on factors such as the time of day when the power is produced. That’s why it’s not enough to have a meter that moves both backward and forward, he said.

“The value of the energy that comes in and the value of the energy that comes out are not always one in the same,” he said. “We have to be sure that we’re getting compensated [properly] for our energy that is consumed on the premises.”

He said his organization had not yet formulated positions on others aspects of the pending rules.

Chris Schein, a spokesman for Oncor, which operates the North Texas transmission system, said the company will roll out advanced meters over the next several years that can measure the net power to and from homes and businesses. He said that a separate regulation calls for customers to pay for the meters through a surcharge on bills.

House Bill 3693 calls for regulators to have the rules in place by Jan. 1, according to a PUC spokesman.

R.A. Dyer reports from the Star-Telegram’s Austin bureau. 512-476-4294

Special Alert: Net Metering in Texas at Jeopardy!

Yesterday, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) released a proposed rule in its net metering proceeding. Unfortunately, what started out in legislation as an incentive program for on-site generation is turning into a set of rules that may make it very disadvantageous for Texans to self-generate renewable on-site generation. The PUCT’s proposed rule goes to great lengths to make sure that Texas utilities (TDUs) are compensated for all line charges associated with on-site generation and for whatever metering the TDUs choose to install, including up to two IDR meters on systems over 50 kW. On the other hand, the proposed rule refuses to provide any guarantee that a distributed generation (DG) owner will receive any compensation or credit for energy delivered to the grid. In IREC’s opinion, in the practice of over 35 states and under U.S. code, this is not metering. (IREC is the Interstate Renewable Energy Council)

The PUCT’s net metering proceeding will produce two related rules. The proposed rule released yesterday deals with metering and is being decided on an expedited basis. The PUCT has scheduled an open meeting for March 26^th for interested people to comment on the proposed rule. On the same day, comments will be due on the remaining portion of the net metering rules. Although both are important, the open meeting will be taking up key issues that are key to determining what net metering will mean in Texas. IREC calls on supporters of on-site generation to attend this meeting and voice their concerns. Go to http://www.puc.state.tx.us/calendar/calendar.cfm for more information.

The following summarizes the contents of the proposed rule and the proposed order that accompanies the proposed rule:

Most disturbing, the proposed order determines that netting over a billing period is not consistent with H.B. 3693, the legislation that set the net metering proceeding in motion. This is quite ironic considering that net metering is universally understood as netting over a billing period. According to the proposed decision, “net metering” has various applications in other markets and often refers to “retail roll backs” or “banking” whereby a meter runs backwards. Because H.B. 3693 does not include these concepts and stipulates that metering must be capable of measuring in-flows and out-flows, the proposed order reasons that net metering as it is universally understood is not what the legislature had in mind for Texas. This reasoning ignores comments by IREC and others that meter readings for in-flows and out-flows can be netted to accomplish net metering and that this is in fact the way net metering is accomplished in many states. The commission appears to have been convinced by the utilities that H.B. 3693 can’t possibly call for net metering unless it states that meters should spin forwards and backwards.

The commission also concludes that “[a]bsent the ability to quantify out-flows, there is no basis for the DRGO and REP to determine when the energy is made available and arrive at the time value of this energy in the wholesale market.”  The commission appears to misunderstand its own market. An end of month out-flow reading does not provide any information as to when energy was put on the grid. Nevertheless, the commission uses this as further justification that under H.B. 3693 “it is not sufficient merely to quantify the difference between in-flows and out-flows.” Ignoring the fact that IREC and others have agreed that in-flows and out-flows should be measured, but also netted, the commission nevertheless concludes that a requirement that out-flows be measured is proof that net metering isn’t consistent with H.B. 3693 and therefore no netting should occur.

Following this illogical and seemingly result driven reasoning, the commission concludes that the proposed rule should not include the term “net metering service” because “use of the them ‘net metering service’ could be confusing.” IREC agrees. Use of the term “net metering” in the proceeding’s title has confused IREC into thinking that the proceeding would result in net metering rules.

Also in the proposed order, the commission determines – without providing any justification – that the term “out-flow” and “surplus electricity” are synonymous when used in H.B. 3693 and therefore the commission will use the term “surplus electricity” in instead of the term “out-flow” in the rule. The result is that DG owners will not have to be paid or credited anything for energy put on the grid. This flies in the face of H.B. 3693, which uses the term “out-flow” in the metering section and “surplus electricity” in the retail settlement section. It is a tenant of statutory interpretation that when the legislature uses different terms, it is assumed that the legislature means different things. Ignoring this tenant, the commission’s interpretation substitutes the term surplus electricity for the term out-flow, which had the undesirable effect of suggesting that the legislature was referring to out-flows.

The proposed rule also rejects IREC’s argument that TDUs should be required to install the lowest cost metering capable of measuring in-flows and out-flows consistent with H.B. 3693. Instead, the proposed rule specifies that TDUs may provide up to two interval demand recorders (IDR meters) for systems over 50 kW, despite the fact that a second IDR recorder would be redundant and unnecessary. For customers below 50 kW, a TDU may, at its discretion, install one or two meters of undetermined type with all cost to be paid by the DG owner. The proposed rules even suggest that a TDU may have discretion to install up to two meters for DG customers even if they do not want to measure energy delivered to the grid. This is particularly distressing given that DG owners may not be paid anything for energy put on the grid.

As an additional gift to the utilities, the commission will allow TDUs to assess line charge on all in-flows as opposed to netting in-flows and out-flows as is done in net metering programs in many other states. Despite the fact that H.B. 3693 is completely silent on this issue, the proposed order dismisses IREC’s argument for TDU charge netting as inconsistent with H.B. 3693.

 

 Maybe its time to let the PUC know how important net metering is to the future of Texas and renewable energy

PUC Commissioners

Barry Smitherman Chairman

Julie Caruthers Parsley Commissioner

Paul Hudson Commissioner

paul.hudson@puc.state.tx.us
barry.smitherman@puc.state.tx.us
julie.parsley@puc.state.tx.us

Written by Philip Proefrock
Tuesday, 18 March 2008

Lots of people are getting excited about all the various technologies for using biofuels of one sort or another as a replacement for fossil fuels, and they may present a short-term option. But looking at the various kinds of energy production that are possible gives some insight into the best directions to promote in terms of developing long-term efficient energy production.

A study cited on EV World makes a comparison between different crop- and direct-production methods of generating energy in terms of miles per acre per year, with some eye-opening information.

At the bottom end of the scale is soybean biodiesel, which can provide only 2,400 miles per acre per year. Corn ethanol is more than six times as efficient, yielding 18,000 miles per acre per year. But because of the relatively slow rate of production from plant-based fuels, these options far fall below the productivity of directly produced energy.

The same acre can produce 10 times as much energy from wind as it can from corn ethanol, 180,000 miles per acre per year. But both corn ethanol and wind power pale in comparison with solar photovoltaic, which can produce more than 2 million miles worth of transport per acre per year.

This is not to completely dismiss biofuels out-of-hand. The cost of an acre’s worth of solar PV arrays is far more than 100 times more expensive than planting an acre of corn. Many biofuels can be produced on marginal lands that are ill-suited for solar. And cellulosic ethanol can even be produced from waste, effectively making it a zero land-use fuel. And presumably the comparisons are based on sites that are optimal for each mode of generation. A site that is highly suitable for harvesting wind energy may not be a good site for growing corn, and vice versa.

The infrastructure and the existing “car parc” (the entire fleet of all vehicles in the country) is also going to take decades to turn over to the point where a significant proportion of the vehicles on the road are electric vehicles. Both a mix of energy sources and regionally appropriate choices need to be part of a comprehensive energy plan. But this offers a useful comparison that suggests where the best allocation of resources should be focused in terms of long-range planning for our energy future.

————————

Biofuels versus Solar
Lutz’s identification of ‘electric’ car technology as the top priority program at GM may prove prescient if 2006 turns out to be the year world crude oil production peaked. Assuming we are in for a gradual, but steady decline in oil production over the coming decade, the focus on electric drive and related energy efficiency technologies will be critical in more ways than we may think.

With the declining availability of once vast reserves of ancient sunlight we’ve been pulling out of the ground at breakneck speeds, future generations are going to have to rely increasingly on the available sunlight that falls on the planet each day either in the form of biomass-based fuels (biodiesel and ethanol) or on electricity generated by the wind or directly from sunlight.

Five Star Consultants’ Ken Regelson recently did a study that examined these alternatives from the perspective of “yield in miles driven per acre of land per year.” The results are pretty amazing and fall in line with a similar study done in Germany and published in Photon International. See Drive Further on Sunlight.

Energy Source

Miles Driven/Acre Per Year

Obviously, the most efficient way to move a vehicle when measured in use of land area is converting sunlight directly into electricity to run electric cars, everything else with the exception of biodiesel derived from algae, pales by comparison.

Two weeks ago John McCain was the only Senator to duck a crucial vote
on the future of clean energy in America — dooming to failure the
measure that would have helped make renewable energy more affordable
and accessible. Now it turns out this missed vote is part of a
pattern.

Last week, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) released the 2007
National Environmental Scorecard giving Senator McCain a score of
ZERO. According to the scorecard, McCain was the only member of
Congress to skip all 15 crucial environmental votes scored by LCV.

Can you help spread the word about McCain’s 0% environmental voting
record and write a letter to the editor? The opinion page is widely
read in most communities — and a well-placed letter can reach a broad
audience. We’ve included sample text to get you started.

McCain’s LCV score exposes the real record behind the rhetoric — a
lifetime LCV score of 24, a history of siding with the polluters and
special interests, and a consistent pattern of ducking important
environmental votes.

Let’s place thousands of letters in papers around the country. Click
here to let us know you’re writing a letter.
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageNavigator/LCVLettertotheEditor

Thanks for taking action.

Sincerely,

Carl Pope
Executive Director
The Sierra Club

 

Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) has announced plans for one of the world’s largest solar facilities – a 280-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant – to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, AZ.

A ‘power tower’ type of CSP plant
near Seville, Spain; photo credit: Abengoa

The project is enthusiastically supported by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. However, its viability is dependent on the long-term extension of investment tax credits for solar facilities, which have gone down to defeat twice since December in the U.S. Congress. On both occasions, ironically enough, Arizona senator and presidential candidate John McCain was absent for the crucial vote.

Read more about the Solana CSP generating station here.

McCain Scores Zero on Environmental Report Card

Hillary Clinton Scores 73, Barack Obama 67

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has scored a stunning zero out of 100 on the latest League of Conservation Voters Scorecard, which rates elected officials on their votes in the most recent Congress.

McCain skipped every one of the 15 votes that the League of Conservation Voters deemed critical measures for the environment, including votes where the Arizona Senator’s yea would have meant passage by a single-vote margin.

McCain has won support from many environmentalists, including Republicans for Environmental Protection, because he has championed action to combat global warming since 2003 and was the only serious presidential candidate to take such a strong position on the defining environmental issue of our time. But his absenteeism on important votes this session calls into question his reputation as a maverick who might buck the party line on some energy and environmental issues.

“Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.”

The Democrats running for president scored better.

Sen. Hillary Clinton scored a 73%, having lost points for missing four votes.

Sen. Barack Obama scored a 67%, having lost points for missing four votes, and for voting against a failed measure to establish a Water Resources Commission that would have prioritized water resources projects in the United States. Clinton voted for the measure.

 

The 16 Laws of Success

Definiteness of Purpose

 

Develop Definiteness of Purpose

 

* Success and progress towards achieving your goals in life begin with knowing where you are going.

* Any dominating idea, plan, or purpose held in your conscious mind through repeated effort and emotionalized by a burning desire for its realization is taken over by the subconscious and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means may be available.

* Your mental attitude gives power to everything you do. If your attitude is positive, your actions and thoughts further your ends? If your attitude is negative, you are constantly undermining your own efforts.

* The starting point of all human achievement is the development of a Definite Major Purpose.

* Without a definite major purpose, you are as helpless as a ship without a compass.

 

Mastermind Alliance

 

Establish a Mastermind Alliance

 

* A mastermind alliance consists of two or more minds working actively together in perfect harmony toward a common definite objective.

* Through a mastermind alliance you can appropriate and use the full strength of the experience, training, and knowledge of others just as if they were your own.

* No individual has ever achieved success without the help and cooperation of others.

* The value of “gathering together those of a like mind” is self-evident.

* A group of brains coordinated in a spirit of harmony will provide more thought energy than a single brain, just as a group of electric batteries will provide more energy than a single battery.

 

Applied Faith

 

Use Applied Faith

 

* Faith is awareness of, belief in, and harmonizing with the universal powers.

* Faith is a state of mind which must be active not passive, to be useful in achieving lasting success.

* Close the door to fear behind you and you will quickly see the door of faith open before you.

* Fear is nothing more than a state of mind, which is subject to your own direction and control.

* Faith will not bring you what you desire, but it will show you the way to go after it for yourself.

 

Going the Extra Mile

 

Go the Extra Mile

 

* Strength and struggle go hand in hand.

* Render more and better service than you are paid for, and sooner or later you will receive compound interest from your investment.

* The end of the rainbow is at the end of the second mile.

* The quality of the service rendered, plus the quantity of service rendered, plus the mental attitude in which it is rendered, equals your compensation.

* The more you give, the more you get.

 

Pleasing Personality

 

Assemble an Attractive Personality

 

* A Positive Mental Attitude is the right mental attitude in any given situation.

* Courtesy is your most profitable asset… and it is absolutely free!

* Emotions are nothing but reflections of your mental attitude, which you can organize, guide, and completely control.

* Your personality is your greatest asset or your greatest liability because it embraces everything you control …your mind, body, and soul.

* To be happy, make someone else happy!

 

Personal Initiative

 

Create Personal Initiative

 

* It is better to act on a plan that is still weak than to delay acting at all.

* Procrastination is the archenemy of personal initiative.

* Personal Initiative:

• is contagious

• succeeds where others fail

• creates work

• creates opportunity

• creates the future

• creates advancement

 

* Procrastinators are experts in creating alibis.

* Personal initiative is the inner power that starts all action.

 

Positive Mental Attitude

 

Build a Positive Mental Attitude

 

* A Positive Mental Attitude is the single most important principle of the science of success, without which you cannot get the maximum benefit from the other sixteen principles.

* Success attracts success and failure attracts more failure.

* Your mental attitude is the only thing over which you, and only you, have complete control.

* A Positive Mental Attitude attracts opportunities for success, while a Negative Mental Attitude repels opportunities and doesn’t even take advantage of them when they do come along.

* A positive mind finds a way it can be done… a negative mind looks for all the ways it can’t be done.

 

Enthusiasm

 

Control Your Enthusiasm

 

* To be enthusiastic-act enthusiastically!

* Enthusiasm is to progress toward success as gasoline is to a car’s engine. It is the fuel that drives things forward.

* Enthusiasm stimulates your subconscious mind. By feeding your conscious mind with enthusiasm, you impress upon your subconscious that your burning desire and your plan for attaining it are certain.

* Enthusiasm is a state of mind. It inspires action and is the most contagious of all emotions.

* Enthusiasm is more powerful than logic, reason, or rhetoric in getting your ideas across and in winning over others to your viewpoint.

 

Self-Discipline

 

Enforce Self-Discipline

 

* Self-discipline is the process that ties together all your efforts of controlling your mind, your personal initiative, positive mental attitude and controlling your enthusiasm.

* Self-discipline makes you think before you act.

* The subconscious has access to all departments of the mind, but is not under the control of any.

* If you don’t discipline yourself, you are sure to be disciplined by others.

* Without self-discipline, you are as dangerous as a car running downhill without brakes or steering wheel.

 

Accurate Thinking

 

Think Accurately

 

* Thoughts have power, are under your control, and can be used wisely or unwisely.

* Accurate thinkers accept no political, religious, or other type of thought, regardless of its source, until it is carefully analyzed.

* Accurate thinkers are the masters of their emotions.

* Accurate thought involves two fundamentals. First you must separate facts from information. Second you must separate facts into two classes? The important and unimportant.

* Accurate thinkers allow no one to do their thinking for them.

 

Controlled Attention

 

Control Your Attention

 

* Keep your mind ON the things you want and OFF the things you don’t want!

* It is much easier to focus your attention on something you believe will happen than on something you believe is unlikely.

* Controlled attention is the act of coordinating all the faculties of your mind and directing their combined power to a specific end.

* Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy your mind at the same time.

* Independence starts with self-dependence.

 

Teamwork

 

Inspire Teamwork

 

* There is no record of any great contribution to civilization without the cooperation of others.

* Enthusiasm is contagious and teamwork is the inevitable result.

* A good football team relies more on harmonious coordination of effort than individual skill.

* Most people will respond more freely to a request than they will to an order.

* Helping others solve their problems will help you solve your own.

 

Adversity and Defeat

 

Learn From Adversity and Defeat

 

* Everyone faces defeat. It may be a stepping-stone or a stumbling block, depending on the mental attitude with which it is faced.

* Failure and pain are one language through which nature speaks to every living creature.

* You are never a failure until you accept defeat as permanent and quit trying.

* Edison failed 10,000 times before perfecting the electric light bulb. Don’t worry if you fail once.

* Every adversity, every failure, and every unpleasant experience carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit which may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

 

Creative Vision

 

Cultivate Creative Vision

 

* Creative imagination has its base in the subconscious and is the medium through which you recognize new ideas and newly learned facts.

* Synthetic imagination springs from experience and reason; creative imagination springs from your commitment to your definite purpose.

* Imagination recognizes limitations. Creative vision sees no limitations.

* Your imaginative faculty will become weak through inaction. It can be revived through use.

* The man who dipped a chunk of ice cream in chocolate and called it “Eskimo Pie” made a fortune for the five seconds of imagination it took to create the idea!

 

Maintenance of Sound Health

 

Maintain Sound Health

 

* To maintain a Positive Mental Attitude and develop a healthy mind and body, you must conquer fear and anxiety.

* Anything that affects your physical health also affects your mental health.

* A Positive Mental Attitude is the most important quality for sound mental and physical health.

* Exercise produces both physical and mental buoyancy. It clears sluggishness and dullness from body and mind.

* If you haven’t the willpower to keep your physical body in repair, you lack the power of will to maintain a positive mental attitude in other important circumstances that control your life.

 

Budgeting Time and Money

 

Budget Your Time and Money

 

* Tell me how you use your time and how you spend your money, and I will tell you where and what you’ll be ten years from now.

* Take regular inventory of yourself to learn how and where you are spending your time and money.

* The secret of getting things done is: DO IT NOW!

* Time is too precious to be wasted on arguments and discontent.

* Some mistakes can be corrected, but not the mistake of wasting time. When time is gone, it’s gone forever.

 

Cosmic Habit Force

 

Use of Cosmic Habitforce

 

* It takes a habit to replace a habit.

* All of your successes and failures are results of habits you have formed.

* The orderliness of the world of natural laws gives evidence that they are under control of a universal plan.

* For every result there is a cause, and results are brought about through the use of cosmic habitforce.

* First you get a habit, then it gets you.

Broadcasts

“State of the Company” conference call
Rob Styler - 2008-01-29 12:18:30

We are having an important “State of the Company” conference call with our CEO David Gregg. It was planned for Sunday Feb 3rd, like our normal corporate call, but because of the SuperBowl, we have moved the call to Monday, Feb 4th at 6pm Pacific.

The call in number is:

319 279 1001
code: 1025747#

I want to make sure that we manage expectations about this call. There is no big announcement planned. Similar to a “State of the Union” address, the goal of this call is to share where we are as a company and to answer many of the questions that have come up over this past year. Thanks for your patience and continued support during our early growth. We have a accomplished a lot, but it is only the beginning.

Thanks,

Rob

P.S. There will be no conference call on Feb 3rd.

Dial in your driving and see what it really costs. You don,t want to miss this one.-Tim
(Click on picture)

By Solar Nation

January 4, 2008On the energy and environmental front, anyone following the presidential primaries today can make some fairly safe predictions about our sustainable future without even picking a winner from the thirteen major candidates. In its 2008 Voters’ Guide, the League of Conservation Voters has compared and tabulated the energy policies of all the presidential hopefuls (see tables below). The League doesn’t over-editorialize, but it’s clear from even an unbiased reading of their positions that the country will go in a diametrically different direction in 2009 depending largely on the party of the 44th president.

To compare the competing Democrats, one would think they were vying to establish which of them is the greenest one of all. And while this could be construed as one-upmanship at this point in the race, it’s also a good indication of how seriously each of them takes ‘green’ issues. They have all published detailed, thoughtful plans on how they would deal with the issues of energy independence and climate change, and what’s most encouraging about them is the extent to which they see the twin issues as interdependent. Here’s a simplified summary of their positions:

Issues	Clinton	Edwards	Kucinich	Obama
Mandatory cap & auction of pollution permits	Supports, with 100% auction	Supports, with 100% auction	Supports cap	Supports, with 100% auction
Carbon emission reduction	Supports 80% reduction by 2050	Supports ≥80% reduction by 2050	Supports 80% reduction by 2050	Supports 80% reduction by 2050
Fleetwide fuel efficiency	40 mpg by 2020, 55 mpg by 2030	40 mpg by 2016	40-45 mpg by 2017	52 mpg by 2026
National renewable electricity standard	25% by 2025	25% by 2025	30-40% by 2020	25% by 2025
Energy efficiency improvements	20% by 2020	15% by 2018	10% by 2020	50% by 2030
Emissions from coal plants	Supports phased-in carbon capture in new plants	Opposes new plants without carbon capture	Supports phaseout of all coal power & mining	Would consider banning new plants
Liquid coal development	Supportive if carbon pollution reduced by 20%	Opposed	Opposed	Supportive if carbon pollution reduced by 20%

For the most part, Republicans also talk up a storm on energy independence, but somehow miss the connection to climate change mitigation. This leads them to interpret our energy future mostly in terms of new nuclear power plants, old coal, clean coal, liquid coal and business-as-usual in Detroit and the oil states. Examining their positions on the same seven issues listed above, we see a wider spectrum of responses, ranging from mildly supportive to insouciant to frighteningly hostile:

Issues	Giuliani	Huckabee	McCain	Paul	Romney	Thompson
Mandatory cap and auction of pollution permits	Opposed	Supports, with no position on auction	Supports, with no position on auction	No stated position	Supports cap if enacted globally	No stated position
Carbon emission reduction	No stated position	No target specified	Supports 65% reduction by 2050	No stated position	No stated position	No stated position
Fleetwide fuel efficiency	Opposes mandatory action	35 mpg by 2020	General support, no targets	Opposed 33 mpg in 2005	Opposes as stand-alone measure	Opposed 35 mpg in 2002
National renewable electricity standard	Opposed	Supports 15% by 2020 (inc. nuclear & clean coal)	Supports state & local, not national, standards	No stated position	No stated position	Opposed 10% & 20% standard in 2002
Energy efficiency improvements	General support, no targets	General support, no targets	General support, no targets	No stated position	General support, no targets	General support, no targets
Emissions from coal plants	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal	Supports carbon capture in new plants	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal
Liquid coal development	Supports liquid coal	No stated position	Will support liquid coal if pollution capture/control improves	No stated position	Supports liquid coal	Supports liquid coal

As can be seen, Governor Huckabee and Senator McCain lift themselves somewhat above their competitors with support for fuel efficiency and carbon emission limits, but with these exceptions noted, the Republican candidates seem to be sharing a generally reactionary platform. Candidate Ron Paul’s position on energy is perhaps scarier than most, as he does not appear to have given much thought to the seven major issues measured; on fuel efficiency and coal plants he has shown himself no friend to clean energy or the environment, while on the other five issues he hasn’t recorded any position whatsoever.

Giuliani’s and Thompson’s records show opposition to virtually everything beneficial to the environment, and support for continued use of coal in any form. And the campaign promise of the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, to bring large-scale clean energy technology to market, clashes with his public opposition to the nation’s largest proposed offshore wind project off the coast of the Bay State.

Overall, the impression given by the campaign literature of GOP hopefuls is that the energy/environmental debate has not been worthy of serious thought, nor has it featured in their spoken rhetoric as much as immigration, healthcare or the Iraq war. Compared with some of the Democratic candidates’ meticulously crafted plans with their targets, pricetags and deadlines, the Republican contenders seem to be paying lip service to an issue they know does not excite the general public. And so far as government support for clean energies such as solar is concerned, most of them mention it only as afterthoughts to ideas for increased use of coal, drilling in the ANWR and building more nuclear plants, measures that may offset some fossil fuel imports but will exacerbate environmental problems already approaching crisis levels.

So in this exercise in crystal ball gazing, you could probably get just as accurate a result with a two-dollar snowglobe. With Huckabee and McCain, and to a greater extent with the six Democrats, there is a sense of recognition of the comparative importance of the energy issue. It’s the recognition that whereas we can survive not finding a perfect solution to some of the more emotionally charged issues in politics today, we can’t survive a failure to address effectively—and on a national scale—the interrelated issues of energy and environment.

It’s also difficult to escape the conclusion that, in the event of a candidate in the mold of Giuliani, Paul, Romney or Thompson being sworn in next January, the brotherly relationship between the oil & gas industry and Government that characterized the Bush Administration will become, if anything, measurably cozier.