This is your SolarWakeup for December 6th, 2016

Koch and Trump make up. It appears the lobbyist Mike McKenna has been replaced as the Energy Transition leader. Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, has taken over and the record on renewable energy is exactly as bad as you would expect. We can take some comfort (very little) that most energy policy is handled at the State level where Koch funded initiatives have not been as successful as hoped. Watch this space.

Buffett speaks, do the Koch Brothers listen? One of the most interesting dichotomies in energy is the partnership between monopolies and the free market champions. Buffett hopes that he will be able to deploy more capital into solar and wind, as his utilities have done quite a bit on the large scale side. Unlike IOUs like NextEra, the Berkshire utilities have not been big on DG, and we are only talking about deregulated sides of the house. What will the Koch influence on Federal policy have on the Buffett goals?

Is greenwashing really a bad thing? I’ve been giving the idea some thought that greenwashing is actually a good thing. Let’s say that a corporation does a green project. It then hires a marketing firm to promote the brand by talking about the project. Maybe the project could have been bigger or greener but my bet is that their competitors are watching. The competitor goes out and attempts to outgreen the other, then publicizes that and the whole circle gets bigger and wider. I say we should market any attempt by corporations to improve its clean energy initiatives.

Here is your faster horse. Henry Ford famously commented that his customers would have asked for faster horses if he asked them what they wanted when he developed the Model T. TBI is known as a front for centralized power, namely nuclear power. Their new report says that history shows DG is not the best way to solve energy poverty. Pardon my French but, no shit! Never in our history have we had access to this cost of solar power, cost of energy storage and small wind. Microgrids were a luxury for forward operating bases and mines in the middle of nowhere, now over 50 are planned for the continental US.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann