Huge Incentives for Energy Storage in Today's House Bill 58 comments
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In August of last year I published a primer on using batteries and other energy storage devices to help stabilize the electric grid and facilitate the integration of inherently variable renewable power resources. A week later I published a short list of pure play energy storage stocks that I expected to perform well as the energy storage sector matured and developed. In early November I started talking about rising tides in energy storage and by the end of the month I was arguing that energy storage was rapidly becoming an investment tsunami. Today, the House of Representatives is expected to pass H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and forward the bill to the Senate. The detailed funding provisions in H.R. 1 prove that everything I’ve said about the importance of energy storage has been miles short of the mark.
I understand that H.R. 1 is in the earliest stages of the legislative process and substantial changes are likely. Nevertheless, if the provisions of the final bill bear even a remote resemblance to the current legislation, the impact on storage sector investors will be staggering. Highlighted Congressional descriptions of the four provisions that will directly impact companies in the storage sector follow:
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
(1) $2,000,000,000 shall be for expenses necessary for energy efficiency and renewable energy research, development, demonstration and deployment activities, to accelerate the development of technologies, to include advanced batteries, of which not less than $800,000,000 is for biomass and $400,000,000 is for geothermal technologies.
(10) $1,000,000,000 shall be for expenses necessary for the manufacturing of advanced batteries authorized under section 136(b)(1)(B) of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
For an additional amount for 'Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability,' $4,500,000,000: Provided, That funds shall be available for expenses necessary for electricity delivery and energy reliability activities to modernize the electric grid, enhance security and reliability of the energy infrastructure, energy storage research, development, demonstration and deployment, and facilitate recovery from disruptions to the energy supply, and for implementation of programs authorized under title XIII of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C. 17381 et seq.):Provided further, That of such amounts, $100,000,000 shall be for worker training: Provided further, That the Secretary of Energy may use or transfer amounts provided under this heading to carry out new authority for transmission improvements, if such authority is enacted in any subsequent Act, consistent with existing fiscal management practices and procedures.
For the cost of guaranteed loans as authorized by section 135 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, $1,000,000,000, to remain available until expended: Provided, That of such amount, $10,000,000 shall be used for administrative expenses in carrying out the guaranteed loan program, and shall be in lieu of the amount set aside under section 1106 of this Act: Provided further, That the cost of such loans, including the cost of modifying such loans, shall be as defined in section 502 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
Over the last few months we’ve all been horrified by the unfathomable cost of the financial industry bailout, and the law of large numbers has deadened our sensitivity to the relative size of incentives included in the House Bill. To provide a little color, the following table provides summary information on the pure play U.S. public companies that will be eligible to share in the likely subsidies including their total assets and total stockholders equity as reflected in their most recent SEC reports and their total market capitalization as of last Friday. (Click to enlarge.)
In addition to the pure play public companies identified in the table, there are a number of privately held battery research and development companies and a number of diversified industrial companies that are active in the energy storage space. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that $1 billion in advanced battery grants and $1 billion in advanced battery loans, together with a potential share of $2 billion of renewable energy grants and $4.5 billion in grid development grants, should make a significant difference in the futures of a handful of companies that have a collective net worth of $1.5 billion and a collective market capitalization of $1.8 billion. As somebody who has been tracking the storage sector in considerable detail, I’m both floored and delighted by the amounts that Congress wants to spend for advanced battery research, development, manufacturing and deployment.
The pending subsidies represent an incredible opportunity for both the nation and the stakeholders in my list of pure-play storage companies and others that are active in the sector. Every company on my list can significantly accelerate their ongoing research, development, demonstration, manufacturing and deployment activities with a reasonable amount of Federal funding. I firmly believe that each of these companies has an important contribution to make and their respective technologies merit reasonable funding. My only cautionary notes are that:
- Politics and public relations have a nasty tendency to get in the way of good science and sound research, development, testing and commercialization decisions.
- Small companies are like children in developing countries that rarely starve but frequently die of dysentery.
- If you force feed an infant, one way or another you’re going to have a real mess on your hands and small companies are no different.
I believe the grants and loans included in the current House Bill can do an immense amount of good across broad sections of the energy storage landscape as long as the Department of Energy avoids the temptation to pick a presumptive winner before the research, development and testing race is run and the results are tabulated.
It looks like the storage sector is in for some very interesting times.
Disclosure: Author holds a large long position in Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) and small long positions in Exide (XIDE), Enersys (ENS) and ZBB Energy (ZBB).
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This article has 58 comments:
I actually dipped my toe into axpw this morning, a company I would never have heard of if not for your writings. Don't worry, my position is small and I won't come looking for you if things turn sour!
D
as there is someone on here writing as Battman, I shan't refer to you by that nickname again, apology(2) to Battman.
Your link in para 2, "Congressional descriptions" is coming up blank. Any reason.
I've added up the figures you give and find it comes to 9.8 trillion. Are there that amount of helicopters spare.
I know your bringing info about batteries to a wider audience than before, and I thank you for that. But it seems that the bubble in this sector is going to be bigger than even you speculated. Hence this article.
I still think RE's are goofy. New age batteries I can live with.
1. Go to thomas.loc.gov/
2. Click on the center section link to HR 1
3. Click on the "Text of Legislation" link
4. Go To Title V -- Energy and Water and then find the subheading for Department of energy programs.
The only two parts that are reserved for batteries are the $1 billion in grants and $1 billion in loans. The competition within the grid stabilization and renewable energy categories will go far beyond batteries and it doesn't seem reasonable to believe that storage companies will get more than a small percentage of the other $6.5 billion.
But even $2 billion can have a monster impact in the storage sector. So I'm excited as long as it gets spread around.
Good advertising, I have just added Zenn motors below $2 because of the USA Eestor battery patent.
I understand that a Green Car is having financial problems in your neck of the woods, no financing, yadda.
Know anything about it?
Paultaut, I did not include ABAT in the list because they are a Chinese manufacturer that just happens to have an SEC registration. These subsidies will not be available for anything that does not keep the cash and the jobs in the US. So I would be amazed if any of the Chinese companies qualify. For that matter, I'm not terribly confident about couple of other companies that do their manufacturing overseas, but that won't be clear until we have a law.
Problem with Valence is that it seems to have everything is needed to be a winner in this market, they have 400 patents that others competitors must buy, they have 19 years expertise, they have 3 plants in China, they have 100 MT of cathode production, they solved the energy charge problem last year, they have a pipeline of new products (Epoch II) to the market, the main shareholder is a Forbes 400 list member..they have everything right?.......except sales, why ? I HAVE NO IDEA,there has been a mess of firings and new buddies coming in and out, ther is ongoing concern of SEC, there is not a single quarter with profit, there is a 500 millon capital that is losted, there is the lowest value of the stock in the moment that Obama is going to launch the biggest green effort in U.S.History.... why Ford, GM, Daimler or anyother is ignoring them? at the same time there is a lot of hoopla...bla..bla about A123, perhaps you can have a brief comment on the matter. Regards.
Take the Solar sector, how many solar companies are purely American with American production facilities. Are there any? I do not have a clue.
Will Solar projects stall because American Companies cannot provide the required panels? I do not think so.
The same thing will occur on the Battery side.
While Buying American sounds good, excluding foreign companies from the bidding process will not go over well internationally. Size will matter. Give a company like Altair a large contract, how many years would it take for them to expand their employee base. The same for all of the small vendors, they would all need cash before the fact to expand to the size needed by the time actual infrastructure building takes place.
The big boys will get the projects, the small vendors might get sub-contracts, if they are lucky. IMO
You don't have to exclude foreign companies, you just have to subsidize American firms. You can subsidize your own industry as much as you want as long as the subsidized product is only sold domestically.
Thanks for the articles and the updates. I really appreciate your informative posts. In regards to lithium Ion batteries vs lead acid, a thought came to me as I read your privious article. In that article you claim that Li batteries can be recharged up to 10,000 cycles. You feel that this is far more cycles than anyone will ever realistically need. You also state that their is a very real environmental hazzard inherent to Li batteries because they can not yet be recycled. I am not disagreeing with either of those positions. However, the following thoughts in regards to their use in automobiles came to me. 1. Lead Acid batteries are probably good for, at best, 5 years of daily use. And, they are considerably heavier than Li bts. If a car has a useful life of 18 years, it would require three sets of Lead Acid bats, but only one set of Li bats. In addition, after 15 years, if the car is useless, but the batteries are still good, one could either sell the useful batteries or buy a new car with out batteries and install the used batteries for energy. 2. Li batteries weigh much less per kwh, than do lead acid batteries. So, if the LI batteries have, as you suggest, a life of 30 to 90 years, from an environmental perspective, the amount of energy which is conserved as the result of not hauling around an extra 200lb to 300Lbs every day would really be quite enormous. And, yes, that is "non polluting" electricity but in reality on a world wide basis, according to the DOE, most of that electricity will still be comming from coal powered utility plants in 2030. Overall, it seems to me that both the energy saving and economics over the lifetime of the batteries is really greatly in favor of LI batteries. Also, if your estimate that these batteries should by useful for a minimum of 30 years, vs lead acid batteries which might last for five years, I wonder if the lead acid batteries are really more environmentally friendly when 6 sets of lead acid batteries will have to be made for every one set of li batteries. Just consdider the amount of coal which must be burned to make six sets vs one. I honestly suspect that the li batteries would be easier on the environment than would the six sets of lead acid.
Just my thoughts. Thanks for alerting me to this opportunity. I own a small position in CBAK.
A sad, and wasteful, example of this was the Feds' handling of post-Katrina recovery along the Gulf Coast. The Shaw Groups of the world obtained the primary contracts, took the bulk of the money for "administering" the contracts, and what little remained went to subcontractors with the know how to deal with matters on the ground. More bang for the buck could have been gotten had the Feds cut out the middleman, but DC prefers the big contracts.
I sincerely hope I will be proven wrong regarding how things work on the issue at hand.
Advill, Valence is a bit of a mystery to me. The bulk of their funding has come from Berg who seems to provide cash as needed but makes all his contributions as debt, which scares me to death. Their sales seem to be building slowly, but A123s marketing seems far better. I had to grin a few days back when Valence issued the "we're number 1" press release knowing that A123s cumulative sales would surpass their cumulative sales in the current quarter. Ultimately I think it all boils down to plant and manufacturing costs which are scary high across the Li-ion group.
Pautaut, the purpose of the subsidies is to help America's economy recover and build domestic infrastructure. I will guarantee that money from this bill will not be shipped overseas to support manufacturing and jobs in Asia. If you eliminate the companies like Ener1, Valence and A123 who do substantially all of their current manufacturing in Asia (I know that Ener1 has a plant in Indiana but it hasn't produced a product yet) the focus of who is in line to apply for the money gets even sharper.
McHattie, as I told Paultaut, I believe it's a virtual certainty that this round of money will be limited to work done in the U.S. and facilities built in the U.S. The goal here is to build domestic infrastructure and jobs, not provide for a greener environment. FSLR may get money to expand the plant in Ohio, but Congress is not going to subsidize manufacturing in Germany or Malaysia.
Beegdawg, I don't claim anything with respect to cycle life of Li-ion batteries. I repeat claims made by others and question whether those claims are based on cycle life testing or research estimates. I know they're not based on fleet scale road tests which concerns me greatly. I hear the sizzle but have never seen the steak. The current crop of lead carbon hybrids from CSIRO and Axion are expected to have cycle lives that are every bit as long as Li-ion and have much lower weight than their predecessors. Any economic calculation has to account for the time value of money and unless you are using long term rates of under 5%, the value of savings effectively disappears after 7 to 10 years. As a practical matter, I think everything we are working with today will be obsolete in far less than 20 years. One of my brothers is a computer tech who gets a kick out of using an old 40 MB hard drive for small document storage. But 20 years ago it was the highest and best in technology. With a 99% recycling rate for lead-acid batteries and no recycling statistics for Li-ion, I wouldn't make the argument that Li-ion is environmentally superior. I would also not plan on the subsidies doing anything for CBAK other than creating strong U.S. competition.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
You can be certain that similar rules will apply under the new legislation and the probability that one or two major players will take the whole pie is very remote.
Crazy bazaar it is that with this news of the house passing the bailout that the DOW futures are down 35.00, and the NASDAQ is up 45.50! Is the DOW republican, and the NASDAQ democratic?
For only the second time in my experimental day trading life, I'm going to throttle up and margin my account. Also, time to sell a little gold stock...Likely going to buy JP Morgan, Switch and Data Systems (SDXC), Quanta (PWR), and hope Exide finally goes wild.
Time to put the jibs up!
Part of me does not want to day trade anymore, to do all this research with the ultimate thought of going long in all my stocks is my goal. But last Friday, and all this week, it's time to gamble, huge. For me, all along, since early December, it's a combination of aggressive trading in the three big "B's." Banks, batteries, and bullion! Time to add in some infrastructure positions like Cemex (CX) and Switch and Data Systems (SDXC), too. Dang education stocks are just too expensive per share. Heck, you could probably throw five darts at the board tomorrow, and four would be bullseyes!
Go Exide and, just maybe, Axion will wake up, too!
The high end Li-ion technologies are all priced in the $1,300 to $2,000 per kWh range. Li-polymer technologies are far cheaper, but more prone to thermal runaway (eg. explosions and fires). While Ener1 sold itself on a very safe Li-titanate chemistry, by the time they got around to building a battery pack for Th!nk they had switched over to a standard Li-polymer battery from Enertech. If you read their materials carefully you'll see that Ener1 is now touting Li-titanate for military and Li-polymer for EVs. Assuming that your screen name matches your profession and education, can you imagine the potential product liability issues that come with with using a less stable li-polymer battery pack in a car where Mom will strap the infant carrier in the back seat over the battery pack?
I would love to see more transparency in performance claims and more clarity in cost disclosures. From a disclosure perspective, I have nothing but praise for A123 which reports both watt-hours shipped and cost of products sold, which makes it easy to calculate their hard cost of $1.28 per WH. The things that concern me most are a lot of data points that indicate we may be seeing a good deal of bait and switch and snake oil in the Li-ion group. So until I have reliable data from battery producers (preferably in SEC reports), I think the safest course is to use DOE data.
Mayascribe, I figured you might like this one!
Do you actually think it will be passed with a unanimous Republican Vote against it. That's not the way it works.
There isn't a snowball's chance in hell, that the Democrats will pass it in its present form and ultimately take "all" of the blame if it does not work, Not with interim elections due in 2010. IMO
I do not know whether they are still viable or not.
Speculawyer, the only thing I'm pushing is the idea that we should hold a horse race and have detailed performance and cost data before making a multi-billion dollar commitment. I think lead-carbon can be a cost effective competitor, but my opinion and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Take the time, spend the money and thoroughly test them all on a level playing field. Then make a decision based on facts rather than speculation, PR and CEO sound bites.
If it was as simple as you believe, TARP would have passed without a change back in September/Oct., the votes were there for the Dems, but they backed off when the Republicans opposed it. Both House and Senate have been under one roof since 2006.
Besides, in case you missed it, Obama has already stated that he expects to sign the bill sometime in the next two weeks.
Watch.
You are talking about "Bang for the Buck". In the present low energy cost environment, I believe that the lowest cost bidders will get the contracts not the ones with future cost savings.
Its the American Way.
The other part of the puzzle is the purpose of the subsidies in the first place; to develop new technologies that are not necessarily competitive today but might be after a few more years of development and testing.
This money is not going to go to companies that will use it to pay down debt and improve their balance sheets like the banks have. It's going to people who will use it to develop new solutions and create new jobs.
Paultaut: I'm on board with your thoughts. That's why two posts above your post I posted the hint that the DOW was republican, and the NASDAQ was democratic.
Marveling at this ho hum reception by those that can trade pre-open. Got to go make some decisions...
"Energy policy could also play an important role in counteracting both depression and deflation. The American consumer can no longer act as the motor of the global economy. Alternative energy and developments that produce energy savings could serve as a new motor, but only if the price of conventional fuels is kept high enough to justify investing in those activities. That would involve putting a floor under the price of fossil fuels by imposing a price on carbon emissions and import duties on oil to keep the domestic price above, say, $70 per barrel."
wincoast.com/forum/sho...
We're still of the opinion that the BTUs IN should be identified to evaluate effectiveness of alternate energy claims for energy OUT.
home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...
Laws of thermodynamics, we continue to believe, apply to alternate energy schemes.
I´m with you in the bet around lead-carbon even with smaller capacities it´s 100% adaptable to industrial base worlwide, especially if somebody is able to combine it with supercapacitors (like EESTOR).
Regards
Sometime back I saw an article about EEStor having significant success in their efforts to get materials purity down into the fractions of a part per million range and that was enough to immediately put me off my lunch because I know how hard and expensive that task is to accomplish. The guys in white lab coats can usually get the job done if they work long and hard enough but Bubba in a gimme caps is another story.
The really cool thing about the lead-carbon is that it combines cheap lead-acid chemistry with a supercapacitor. So there's no need to add a supercapacitor and you get both lead-acid chemistry and supercap power in a single package. The end result is a multi-hundred percent improvement in cycle life, recharge rates and power.
I'm not familiar with this field of energy but... I really was wondering why you have singled out AXPW.PK. What is it that you find particularly interesting about this stock that sets it apart from all the others for you?
If you answer, thanks. If not, I did very much appreciate reading your article.
I have to assume you would also remove the $4B a year in subsidies to the traditional energy sector?
Instead of subsidizing the Oil companies, I would use it to streamline the EPA"s Permiting Regulations. If its approved on the Federal Level, its approved.
Its going to be Built in your back yard.
An example of Milking the system. O'Hare airport was in the process of expansion. Homes being built in the area were selling at substantially reduced prices because of the expansion. Once in, the Home Owners lobbied and won in their efforts to tone down the Noise Pollution in their area. Cost the Taxpayer hundreds of Millions extra.
Building in coastal and flood prone areas, Areas subject to intermittant Storm damage. Disaster strikes, gee whiz, who would have thought that the flood of the Century would be repeated within 20 years. Why should the rest of the nation foot the bill for idiocy?
If you put yourself at risk, you alone are responsible.
My author's profile page is:
seekingalpha.com/autho...
Links to all of the articles I've written on this sector can be found at:
seekingalpha.com/autho...
If you decide to go back through the archive, be sure to read the comments. There are some really smart people out there that are great for helping newcomers build perspective. They don't always agree with me, but I think the dialogue is the best part of all of it.
Ultimately battery and fuel cell technology will be important, but mostly after the expansion of transmission grids and the implementation of renewable alternative technologies. Then we need electric vehicles that require large, safe, reliable batteries.
billp37 raised the issue in a comment to this article and I can see interesting arguments both pro and con.
Do you think it's something you might be interested in writing on?
In the know, you're a harsher man than I.
You can tell I don't believe in emerging "bailouts". Should we give the homebuilders money to increase their production capacity? No, no one is buying. Should we give them money to build houses with the same standards, features, and size in the sub $100,000 range? Perhaps. Should we give the homebuilders money to start developing energy efficient appliances? (This analogy is to point out the stupidity of the car companies developing batteries). The point is that I believe the funds should help deliver the solutions and not accelerate bad management and business models at taxpayer cost.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
Thanks for reading and speaking your mind.
Who said all the good ideas had already been taken?
Thank you so much for that answer. I will do some reading on the subject because I'm very attracted to everything that's energy stocks and... I love the idea of projecting into the future. I do think that this battery business is going to grow, like the solars and wind and all the other "clean" or "green" technologies that give power.
As for it being the best technology that Axion has... you know... you can have a really great product and never get anywhere. The one thing that this company needs in addition to a great product is someone to get others to know about it :o) How are they with regards to this aspect?
Right now, all of the production is dedicated to a couple large scale demonstration projects in the utility and electric vehicle sectors. Once production is high enough, they'll be able to start offering to a larger audience of potential purchasers.
I don't want to seem paternalistic, but I get the sense that you don't have a lot of investing experience. If my guess is right, the last thing you should be doing is picking individual stocks, particularly speculative stocks like Axion. There are a number of well managed exchange traded funds (ETFs) that focus on the alternative energy sector and offer far more diversity for new investors than a single stock ever could. In fact, Tom Konrad posted an article on Clean Energy ETFs just the other day:
seekingalpha.com/artic...
I love the entire alternative energy sector and have high expectations overall, but picking individual stocks is a lot like casino gambling and doing it well requires a great deal of experience and careful diligence.
If you're new to the field, a balanced diversified ETF is the safest way to go.
As for this interest I have in the batteries... I have the equivalent interest in solar. I've learned about the different materials and that kind of thing. But... I've also got to learn about how companies function like integrated like LDK that produces its own material and sells its product by opposition to just selling the product or producing it. And then... when companies come out with their numbers... I'm still trying to figure out how something is good, very good or fantastic. Of course if it's more than predicted it's good but... for the rest, ouf...
I'm a psychologist and I can read moods fairly well, so that part of the stock market doesn't phase me but... all this other stuff! At times I feel I'd need a 3 year course in business to just *begin* to know all I need to understand!
As for picking the individual stocks... yeah... I'm also a bit of a gambler but... I've learned the difference between a stock like PG and FXI and the financials (that are supposed to be blue chip but that are tanking) and a stock like NBF (which is a biofuel that uses waste product to produce their fuel) but this also is a small company.
I'll read up on the articles that you referred me to. Thank you so much for answering. I have the impression that I understand a bit more than I did before we started this conversation and that's always a very satisfying feeling.
Have a good day!
What is it that you think is goofy about having sources of electricity that will never, ever, need any fuel to mine, prospect for, transport, store, refine, burn, clean up mess from, manage the wild price fluctuations of, or fight wars over?
"I'd put my money on the sun & solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison, 1931
What's goofy about solar thermal plants that can replace coal plants, using less land than coal power and coal mining use, especially since coal pretty much destroys the land it uses?
All fuels are finite. For our purposes, at least for the next billion years or so, we can consider sunshine and wind as infinite.
Both can be built quicker than nuclear or coal.
Ultimately, they will both be cheaper than any fossil fuel, and probably cheaper than nuclear will ever be.
And they are clean.
In the U.S., 8 GW of solar were built in the last year. Wind power now employs more people than coal in the U.S.
Imagine building 8 average nuclear plants each year. Keep imagining. The speed at which wind and solar are built will exceed that rate in the coming years.
Paul Davis
I wonder whose "property rights" were violated in the process of subsidizing the oil industry for the past 90 years. Pretty much the same for coal gas and nuclear. Nuclear has received over $100 billion over the years.
Why are we taxpayers subsidizing what's probably the most profitable enterprise in the history of the world? Exxon just reported record $45 billion profits. So why are taxpayers subsidizing the oil industry at $39 billion a year? That's a low estimate, I've seen an estimate for $84 billion a year at SetAmericafree.org
One comment mentioned $4 billion a year. Not even close. Bush "increased" the oil company subsidies by over $6 billion/year a few years ago. $32 billion increase over 5 years. McCain wanted another $4 billion increase. The leading expert on energy subsidies in the U.S., Koplow, said he is not aware of any oil subsidy that has ever been phased out since 1918.
In fact that's one of the main reasons renewables need subsidies, to compete against the hugely subsidised fossil fuel industry. $39 billion could pay for a lot of greenwashing and climate science denial propaganda. We pay them to fool us.
billp37
The BTUs IN for wind and solar are free and endless.
Sounds like you are comparing apples and oranges. Or am I missing something?
Mayascribe
Your Pailout plan is a gas.
Seriously though, does anyone else follow Environmental Power (EPG)? They have proprietary anaerobic digesters that turn manure and other farm waste into methane, which they clean up and send into commercial NG pipelines. They have an anecdotal story of a large dairy farm in Wisconsin, with 900 cows. The methane powers 600 homes. If this is true, that's only a cow and a half per home. So you weren't that far off. They have at least one contract with PG&E. Like John alluded to, this kills two birds with one stone, capturing methane that would eventually make it into the atmosphere, and harnessing it for power. It can be burned or used in fuel cells.
Stay tuned for more information on green jobs following the Middle Class Task Force’s, first meeting on February 27, 2009 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
BRIEFING ROOM: The White House provides timely and accurate information about the President's latest events and public statements. Here you'll find photos, video, and blogs, as well as proclamations, executive orders, and press releases.
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H.R. 1: House Stimulus Package - Free Legal Forms</font>
PS: Don't have time to read all 647 pages? Shame, shame. Still, this bill is mostly a combination of bills moved through three major committees. Summaries of each section can be found here, here and here.
CREATE JOBS WITH CLEAN, EFFICIENT, AMERICAN ENERGY
To put people back to work today and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, we will make investments aimed at doubling renewable energy production and renovate public buildings to make them more energy efficient.
! Reliable, Efficient Electricity Grid: $11 billion for research and development, pilot projects, and federal matching funds for the Smart Grid Investment Program to modernize the electricity grid making it more efficient, secure, and reliable and build new power lines to transmit clean, renewable energy from sources throughout the nation.
! Renewable Energy Loan Guarantees: $8 billion for loans for renewable energy power generation and transmission projects.
! GSA Federal Buildings: $6.7 billion for renovations and repairs to federal buildings including at least $6 billion focused on increasing energy efficiency and conservation. Projects are selected based on GSA’s ready-to-go priority list.
! Local Government Energy Efficiency Block Grants: $6.9 billion to help state and local governments make investments that make them more energy efficient and reduce carbon emissions.
! Energy Efficiency Housing Retrofits: $2.5 billion for a new program to upgrade HUD sponsored lowincome housing to increase energy efficiency, including new insulation, windows, and furnaces. Funds will be competitively awarded.
! Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Research: $2 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities to foster energy independence, reduce carbon emissions, and cut utility bills. Funds are awarded on a competitive basis to universities, companies, and national laboratories.
! Advanced Battery Loans and Grants: $2 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee and Grants Program, to support U.S. manufacturers of advanced vehicle batteries and battery systems. America should lead the world in transforming the way automobiles are powered.
! Department of Defense Efficiency: $1.8 billion for efforts to make our military bases more energy efficient, beyond benefits that will come from replacing and repairing facilities.
! Energy Efficiency Grants and Loans for Institutions: $1.5 billion for energy sustainability and efficiency grants and loans to help school districts, institutes of higher education, local governments, and municipal utilities implement projects that will make them more energy efficient.
! Home Weatherization: $6.2 billion to help low-income families reduce their energy costs by weatherizing their homes and make our country more energy efficient.
! Smart Appliances: $300 million to provide consumers with rebates for buying energy efficient Energy Star products to replace old appliances, which will lower energy bills.
! GSA Federal Fleet: $600 million to replace older vehicles owned by the federal government with alternative fuel automobiles that will save on fuel costs and reduce carbon emissions.
! Electric Transportation: $200 million for a new grant program to encourage electric vehicle technologies.
! Cleaning Fossil Energy: $2.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration technology demonstration projects. This funding will provide valuable information necessary to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere from industrial facilities and fossil fuel power plants.
! Department of Defense Research: $350 million for research into using renewable energy to power weapons systems and military bases.
! Alternative Buses and Trucks: $400 million to help state and local governments purchase efficient alternative fuel vehicles to reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions.
! Industrial Energy Efficiency: $500 million for energy efficient manufacturing demonstration projects.
! Diesel Emissions Reduction: $300 million for grants and loans to state and local governments for projects that reduce diesel emissions, benefiting public health and reducing global warming. This includes technologies to retrofit emission exhaust systems on school buses, replace engines and vehicles, and establish anti idling programs. 70% of the funds go to competitive grants and 30% funds grants to states with approved programs. Last year EPA was able to fund only 27% of the applications received.
Contact Elected Officials
We encourage you to contact your elected officials and share your thoughts on current events and government policy. Below you'll find links to e-mail and postal addresses, and phone numbers for key elected officials.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden – Send questions, comments, concerns, or well-wishes to the President or his staff.
U.S. Senators – Search for your senators by name, state, or congressional class; and visit their websites.
U.S. Representatives – Find contact information for your U.S. representative by typing in your zip code.
State Governors – Select your state to access e-mail, telephone, and postal contact information for your governor.
State Legislators – Search for state legislators and topical legislative information, by U.S. states and territories.
The challenges our country faces are too great for us to sit on the sidelines. We’d like to hear from you.</b>