NASA confirms what most of us already know-2010 warmest year...

Green: A Photo Finish for Warmest Year on Record
    Jan 13, 2011     New York Times    

JUSTIN GILLIS

4:35 p.m. | Updated NASA has just come out with its temperature numbers for 2010, and they match the NOAA analysis, showing a tie between 2010 and 2005 for hottest year on record. The NASA analysis can be found here.

It might come as something of a shock to hear this just now, with snow on the ground in 49 of the 50 states, but a new report shows that 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year in the historical record.

Government scientists reported Wednesday morning that the global average surface temperature was 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for the entire 20th century. It was the 34th year running that global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average, and federal researchers said the figures showed that global warming was continuing unabated. According to the latest statistics, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since the year 2000.

Those numbers come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government agency that oversees weather forecasting and climate analysis. Two other groups, a NASA unit in New York and a research collaboration in Britain, compile global temperature records, and they have yet to report their findings for the full calendar year. (In the British data set, 1998 was the warmest year on record, rather than 2005 as a result of differences in the way the records are compiled.)

Perhaps not surprisingly to anyone who marveled at the weather events of 2010, the NOAA report shows the year to have been exceptional in many ways. Globally, it was the wettest year in the climatological record, perhaps no surprise to the Pakistanis, Australians, Tennesseans and Californians who lived through epic floods. They have yet to abate in the Australian state of Queensland.

Among the most impressive events in the annals of weather was a heat wave that baked Russia for two months in the summer, shattering temperature records over large parts of that country.

"The climate is continuing to show the influence of greenhouse gases," said David R. Easterling, a scientist at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

The United States was wetter and hotter than the average values for the 20th century, but over all, the year was not as exceptional for the United States as for the world as a whole. In the contiguous United States, it was only the 23rd hottest year on record, for instance.

But still, some remarkable events occurred at a regional scale, including snowstorms in February 2010 that shattered seasonal records in cities like Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. That was followed by a summer heat wave that broke records along much of the East Coast.

--
Scott's Contracting
scottscontracting@gmail.com
http://www.stlouisrenewableenergy.blogspot.com
http://scottscontracting.wordpress.com

Re: 2011 Tax Incentive New Changes for Home and Business

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 2:35 PM, Scott's Contracting <scottscontracting@gmail.com> wrote:

The Tax Incentives Assistance Project (TIAP), sponsored by a coalition of public interest nonprofit groups, government agencies, and other organizations in the energy efficiency field, is designed to give consumers and businesses information they need to make use of the federal income tax incentives for energy efficient products and technologies passed by Congress as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and subsequently amended several times.

Update as of 1/10/11 -

Congress passed, and the President signed, the tax legislation described below in mid-December. To find out more about the changes, see individual pages in the left sidebar. TIAP has also compiled a fact sheet with information about the relevant energy efficiency tax incentives for 2010 and 2011.

Update as of 12/16/10 – Congress About to Extend And Modify Energy Efficiency Tax Incentives for Appliances, New Homes and Retrofits to Existing Homes

Today, or shortly thereafter, Congress is likely to complete action on tax legislation that modifies and extends three energy efficiency tax incentives, as a part of a much larger tax package. These tax incentives will continue to help raise the market share of efficient appliances, HVAC and insulation products, and new homes.

The legislation extends the new homes tax credit to cover 2010 and 2011 – this $2000 credit goes to the home builders and is for homes that use no more than half the energy of homes that just meet the 2003 national model energy code. The credit expired at the end of 2009 but the new bill extends this to cover new homes that are built in 2010 and 2011.

The bill also extends and updates manufacturer appliance tax credits for 2011 – the credit, which goes to manufacturers directly, is extended for one year, and the following criteria now apply:

• Dishwashers –
• $25  - models using no more than 307 kilowatt hours/year and 5.0 gallons of water/cycle (this is the ENERGY STAR level effective July 1, 2011)
• $50 - models using no more than 295 kilowatt hours/year and 4.25 gallons of water/cycle
• $75 - models using no more than 280 kWh kilowatt hours/year and 4 gallons of water/cycle
• Clothes Washers –
• $175 – top-loading models that meet/exceed 2.2 MEF, and does not exceed 4.5 WCF
• $225 – top-loading models that meet/exceed 2.4 MEF, and does not exceed 4.2 WCF, or front-loading models that meet/exceed 2.8 MEF and do not exceed a 3.5 WCF
• Refrigerators –
• $150 – models that use 30% less energy relative to federal standard
• $200 – models that use 35% less energy relative to federal standard

The legislation extends the 25C heating and cooling equipment and building envelope tax incentives for another year but at reduced levels. The new bill extends eligibility to the end of 2011, but reduces the incentive to the original 10% up to $500.  Included are provisions which:

• limit window incentives to $200;
• limit oil and gas furnace and boiler incentives to $150, plus an additional $50 for efficient furnace fans;
• limit water heater and wood heating system incentives to $300;
• loosen the qualification for window incentives (ENERGY STAR windows now qualify);
• and tighten the specifications for oil furnaces and boilers and gas boilers to 95% efficiency, up from the 90% efficiency in current law.

Congress is likely to consider further extensions of these incentives into 2012 and beyond next year, and TIAP will provide updates as they become available.  The existing homes incentives are likely to receive a major overhaul, and there are also likely to be discussions about improving incentives for energy-efficiency investments in commercial buildings, incentives which under current law continue until the end of 2013.

While Congress extended most of the expiring federal energy efficiency tax incentives, they did not extend the incentive for hybrid trucks and buses.

IRS Forms

• Residential Energy Efficient Property: Form 5695
• New Homes: Form 8908
• Vehicle Incentives: Form 8910
• Commercial Solar Incentives: Form 3468 (Investment Credit)

  Note: The links above go to the IRS web site. TIAP makes every effort to keep these links up to date. IRS often does not publish new versions of forms until the beginning of the following tax year.

Additional Resources

TIAP Flyers for Residential and Commercial Incentives - Add your organization's logo and distribute at your next event to spread the word about energy efficiency incentives.

Some additional information on tax incentives can be found HERE!

Extension Service Home Energy Community of Practice Webinar - Presentation by Jen Amann, ACEEE (4/10/2009)

Overview of Federal Energy Efficiency Tax Incentives passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009
*Updated matrix of energy efficiency incentives

RESNET has completed a survey of rating providers regarding the number of homes that their raters certified for the federal tax credit (2007 only). 23,702 homes were certified by RESNET during 2007, which is triple the number of homes certified in 2006. For more information, click here.

NREL Energy Savings Modeling and Inspection Guidelines for Commercial Building Federal Tax Deductions (1.9 MB PDF)

--
Scott's Contracting
scottscontracting@gmail.com
http://www.stlouisrenewableenergy.blogspot.com
http://scottscontracting.wordpress.com

Economics and Politics of Clean Coal

Illinois Power Coal Fired Power Plant News
Jan 9, 2011	St. Louis Post-Dispatch
-=-=-=-=-=-=- Green Blog Web Post Sponsor:   Platts has valuable commodity pricing and data to share with your online community. We’ve recently updated our site to include access to more information and reports. View Energy Prices Here or  Get Your Energy Report Here -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The Illinois Senate's rejection of a bill to advance a next-generation coal plant just southeast of Springfield did more than potentially kill the $3.5 billion project. It highlighted the Catch-22 facing developers of this new breed of power plants: The steep price of building so-called clean coal plants deters investment -- but the cost won't come down until companies can prove the technology works, which requires actually building and operating plants. The legislation defeated at the Illinois capitol on Wednesday would have authorized the plant's owners to charge utilities above-market prices for electricity produced at the Taylorville Energy Center, which would generate enough electricity to power about 600,000 homes. But the impact of the vote could ripple even farther, potentially having a chilling effect on future clean coal proposals, including the federal government's revamped FutureGen project, a planned retrofitting of Ameren Corp.'s (NYSE:AEE) 70-year-old power plant in Meredosia, Ill. If such projects fail to move forward, that could also be a missed opportunity for Illinois coal miners, who would probably supply the fuel. "Long-term, (the effect) could be huge," said Phil Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association. Unlike the state's existing coal-fired plants, the Taylorville plant would not burn coal directly; instead, it would convert the black rock into a gas to more easily remove pollutants -- including much of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming. Developers, led by Omaha, Neb.-based Tenaska Inc., had secured $3 billion in federal tax credits and loan guarantees from the administration of President Barack Obama. But they can't begin construction without assurance that they'll be able to recover their costs over the next 30 years. Those assurances were a nonstarter for a coalition of some of the state's largest parent companies and electricity customers who argued that the bill, while protecting residential customers, would have left large employers exposed to big rate increases. Parent company information from Corporate Affiliations can give you access to nearly 700,000 company profiles.   Philip O'Connor, a former Illinois Commerce Commission chairman who led a business coalition that lobbied fiercely against Taylorville, said the group didn't oppose clean coal projects in principal. "The problem was the economics of it," he said, over budget, under fire The economics are spelled out in a lengthy study filed with Illinois regulators last year. Tenaska was required to pay for the report under a measure approved by the Legislature in 2008. Among other findings, it revealed that electricity from the Taylorville plant would cost 21.3 cents a kilowatt-hour -- about three times what big electricity users currently pay, and far more expensive than new wind power (8 cents to 12 cents per kwh) or nuclear power (10 cents to 13 cents). And that report assumed the Taylorville project would be completed on budget. The business group, which includes the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and Illinois Manufacturers' Association, worried that they would bear the brunt of any cost overruns. The spectre of runaway costs has played out in Indiana, where Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE:DUK PRA) (NYSE:DUK) disclosed last spring that the cost of its Edwardsport clean coal plant had spiked by more than $500 million to $2.88 billion. That translated to an average 16 percent increase in electricity bills by 2013. Mounting concern over the impact on electric rates convinced Illinois Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, to withdraw support for the Taylorville legislation. The biggest employers in his district said they faced increases of 3 percent to 7 percent. That included agricultural giant ADM, which estimated its annual electric bill would go up by $5 million. "It was made very clear, through all the research that I did, that costs to businesses in this state were going to outweigh the benefits of new jobs created," he said. Backers of the Taylorville project have rejected that argument as a red herring. They called the Senate's decision short-sighted and said it would only drive up electricity rates in the future, as aging, inefficient coal plants shut down. different plans, same problem Plans for the Taylorville and FutureGen projects, which would be about 90 miles apart, differ in key ways. They would use different technologies, and the Taylorville plant would be newly built whereas FutureGen calls for conversion of an existing coal plant. But, like Taylorville, Ameren has said FutureGen would require state legislation to guarantee that plant owners could recover their investments. An Ameren spokeswoman had no comment on the potential impact of the defeat of the Taylorville bill. "We are at the earliest stages of our project development and can't speculate on the impact this might have," spokeswoman Susan Gallagher said. The Illinois coal mining industry, meanwhile, is likely to suffer (OOTC:WLVTQ) little immediate effect from the Senate vote, said Gonet, of the state's coal association. But it could mean a lost opportunity in years to come, he said. Producers had hoped projects such as Taylorville and FutureGen would help boost Illinois coal output, which is about half of what it was 20 years ago, before restrictions on acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide emissions led utilities to switch to cleaner-burning western coal. (OOTC:WTNCF) (TSX:WTN') (TSX:WTN) "We have 55 million tons of coal that comes in each year from Wyoming to burn in Illinois power plants," Gonet said. "We'd like the opportunity to replace that with Illinois coal." Walking away? Tenaska executives -- who have spent five years and $40 million trying to get the Taylorville project off the ground -- have threatened to walk away unless the Senate reverses itself before noon Wednesday, when the lame-duck session ends. Company officials declined to comment after Wednesday's Senate vote. But other backers of the Taylorville project say a revote by the Senate seems unlikely. John Mead, director of the Coal Research Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, said national energy policy was needed to help developers get projects OK'd at the state level. "I think the country as a whole expects improvement in emissions performance, and whether it's through Congress or the EPA, we're going to see that expectation turned into requirements," Mead said. "Projects like Taylorville are going to help us meet those requirements." Hannah Hess of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. Author: Jeffrey Tomich Jan. 9, 2011 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Newstex ID: KRTB-0187-50770891

Platts has valuable commodity pricing and data to share with your online community. We’ve recently updated our site to include access to more information and reports.


View Energy Prices Here and Get Your Energy Report Here

--
Scott's Contracting
scottscontracting@gmail.com
http://stlouisrenewableenergy.blogspot.com
http://scottscontracting.wordpress.com

‘Buy American’ Clause May Be Sticking Point in Chinese State Visit

	'Buy American' Clause May Be Sticking Point in Chinese State Visit
	Jan 10, 2011	New York Times
	KEITH BRADSHER HONG KONG — The military appropriations law signed by President Obama on Friday contains a little-noticed "Buy American" provision for the Defense Department purchases of solar panels — a provision that is likely to dismay Chinese officials as President Hu Jintao prepares to visit the United States next week. Although there are many big issues to discuss, including concerns about North Korea, trade and economic matters are certain to be high on the agenda. And while both sides are aiming to keep the discussion positive — the United States is the world's largest importer and China the largest exporter of goods — simmering resentments over trade in green-energy technologies could be a distraction. China has emerged as the world's dominant producer of solar panels in the last two years. It accounted for at least half the world's production last year, and its market share is rising rapidly. The United States accounts for $1.6 billion of the world's $29 billion market for solar panels; market analyses typically have not broken out military sales separately. The perception that Beijing unfairly subsidizes the Chinese solar industry to the detriment of American companies and other foreign competitors has drawn concern in Congress. The issue of clean-energy subsidies is also at the heart of a trade investigation under way by the Obama administration, which plans to bring a case against China before the World Trade Organization. The new Buy American provision, created mainly by House and Senate conferees during a flurry of activity at the end of the lame-duck session of Congress, prevents the Defense Department from buying Chinese-made solar panels. The American military is a rapidly growing consumer of renewable energy products, because it is extremely expensive and frequently dangerous to ship large quantities of fuel into remote areas of Iraq and Afghanistan. The solar panel provision is carefully written to help it comply with the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization, which would make it hard for China to ask a W.T.O. tribunal to overturn the provision, trade lawyers said. Chinese leaders have strongly criticized such provisions in the past, particularly one in President Obama's economic stimulus package in early 2009 that applied to government procurement of steel and construction materials. But China required in the late spring of 2009 that virtually all of its $600 billion economic stimulus be spent within China, not just for construction materials. Chinese officials in Beijing and Washington did not respond on Saturday or Sunday to requests for comment on the solar panel provision. While the United States and Europe have focused on subsidizing buyers of solar panels, China has emphasized subsidies for solar panel manufacturers. It then exports virtually all of its panels to the United States and Europe, often helped by the American and European consumer subsidies. The solar panel provision in the defense appropriations law comes as President Obama has ordered a broad investigation into whether Chinese export subsidies, local content requirements and other rules have violated W.T.O. rules. As a result of the investigation, the United States started a W.T.O. case on Dec. 22 against what it said were Chinese wind turbine manufacturing subsidies. American trade officials said then that they were still examining other Chinese clean-energy subsidy policies to decide whether to file additional W.T.O. cases. The solar panel provision was part of the initial defense appropriations bill passed by the House. The House version had a simple requirement that the Defense Department buy solar panels made in the United States. The Senate, which has been more leery of interfering with free trade, had no comparable provision, however, and many people in the solar panel industry did not expect the final law to have such a provision. But the conference of House and Senate leaders ended up retaining the House provision and modifying it, by adding legal language to require that it also comply with previous American trade legislation. Representative Maurice Hinchey, Democrat of New York, said he had fought for the provision to be included in the bill. "We've had a lot of money taken out of this country and invested in other places around the world, particularly China, and particularly in alternative energies," he said in an interview by phone. "For them to be producing alternative energy, that's great, but we need to do it ourselves, and as much as of it possible." Mr. Hinchey said he did not think the provision would jeopardize relations with the Chinese ahead of Mr. Hu's visit. "We have provided them with a lot of economic growth there," he said. "A lot of money has gone out of this country and into China, and a lot of manufacturing operations, particularly alternative energy, has also gone into China." Mr. Hinchey had praised the Obama administration in November for starting a broad investigation into Chinese subsidies for solar and wind energy exports, saying then that these subsidies had put a company in his district, Prism Solar Technologies of Highland, N.Y., at a competitive disadvantage. Two prominent trade lawyers said in e-mails over the weekend that the law's language meant that in practice, the Defense Department must buy solar panels from any country that signs the W.T.O.'s side agreement on government procurement. Earlier American trade laws require compliance with that agreement. Virtually all industrialized countries have signed the side agreement, which requires free trade in government purchases. China vowed to sign it as soon as possible when it joined the W.T.O. in November 2001, but has still has not done so. The two trade lawyers said that the United States was within its rights to discriminate against Chinese solar panels in military procurement. "The W.T.O. Government Procurement Agreement allows signatory countries, including the United States in its Defense Department contracts, to favor goods from countries that have signed that agreement over countries that have not," said Carolyn B. Gleason, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Washington who is one of the best-known litigators of W.T.O. cases. Alan Wolff, a former senior American trade official who is now the chairman of the trade practice at the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf in Washington, said that it was hard to understand China's resistance to signing the agreement. "There would be a clear benefit both for it and its trading partners," he said. Solar panels are technologically complex to manufacture, and are made almost entirely in industrialized countries that have signed the W.T.O. side agreement — or in China. Inland Chinese provinces and cities have strongly lobbied Beijing not to sign the agreement because they want to retain the legal right to continue steering government contracts to local companies, said a trade policy adviser to the Chinese government who insisted on anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue. The Buy American provision in the 2009 economic stimulus legislation also has a little-known clause allowing purchases from other countries that have signed the Government Procurement Agreement, and not just from American suppliers. Ocean Yuan, the chief executive and president of Grape Solar, a company based in Eugene, Ore., that distributes mostly mainland Chinese solar panels but also American, Japanese and Taiwanese panels, said that imported panels typically cost 20 percent less than American-made panels. Mr. Yuan predicted that the new legislation would have a big effect on the American solar panel market, by encouraging Chinese solar panel manufacturers to establish factories in the United States. "This policy will certainly have a negative impact on the imported solar panels from China, which have lower cost over all due to lower labor and overhead costs," he said. Grape Solar sold $500,000 worth of Chinese-made solar panels to the American military shortly before Christmas, Mr. Yuan said, adding that he expected future contracts to specify American-made panels. The legislative provision was welcomed by SolarWorld, a Germany company that is one of the biggest manufacturers of solar panels in the United States and which has not followed the example of most manufacturers in moving production to China. "As a long-standing and still-expanding American manufacturer of solar technology, SolarWorld is heartened that the U.S. government and military clearly grasp the critical role of domestically produced solar technology in the country's national-security future," said Bob Beisner, managing director of the company's American subsidiary in Hillsboro, Ore., which is already installing American-made solar panels at United States military facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The defense appropriations bill has another provision related to China. It requires that the military conduct an immediate review of its needs for rare earth metals, which are mined elements increasingly crucial in sophisticated technologies. About 95 percent of the world's supply comes from China. The bill also requires the department to establish "an assured source of supply" for rare earth metals by 2015 and to consider setting up a stockpile. Rare earths are essential for a wide range of military hardware, be it missiles or sonar. The Defense Department has been studying its contractors' reliance on Chinese supplies for more than a year. A draft report shared with Congressional aides last fall had a preliminary conclusion that rare earths were very important but suggested that the department's contractors continue to be allowed to buy them from any source. Sewell Chan contributed reporting from Denver.

--
Scott's Contracting
scottscontracting@gmail.com
http://www.stlouisrenewableenergy.blogspot.com
http://scottscontracting.wordpress.com