U.S. groups urge government to restore funding for renewables
WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2004-09-22 (Refocus Weekly)
A coalition of 25 organizations has urged the U.S. Senate to increase funding for renewables by millions of dollars.
The budget proposed by the federal administration for energy appropriations
in the next fiscal year “has proposed cuts or seriously under funds programs
critical to increased national energy security and environmental quality,” the
Sustainable Energy Coalition told members of the Senate subcommittee preparing
to examine the FY05 Energy & Water Appropriations bill. The groups
specifically urged restoration of funding for key renewable energy programs in
geothermal, concentrated solar power, solar buildings, biomass, renewable energy
production incentive, and general program direction line items.
The CSP program should be funded at least US$10 million “in the light of a
recent positive technical due diligence study” conducted by the Department of
Energy, the National Academy of Sciences and a number of other groups, according
to the letter sent to republican chair Pete Domenici and ranking democrat Harry
Reid. The Solar Buildings program should grow to $5 million “to meet the
developing needs of advanced solar hybrid lighting and solar thermal projects,
which could contribute directly to substantial reductions in U.S. natural gas
and electricity consumption in the immediate future.”
On geothermal, the groups said the budget cuts $3 million, apparently “to
penalize Congress for earmarks in the program's FY03 funding” when funding was
$29.4 million. The administration request of $25.8 million will force DOE to
make “damaging cuts in its baseline program” which “could result in
eliminating funding for significant portions of the programs advanced technology
development efforts.”
The groups want funding restored to at least $30 million, equivalent to the FY03
budget.
The Renewable Energy Production Incentive Program was created by DOE in 1992 as
a counterpart to the green power tax credits available to for-profit utilities,
and the groups say the program “needs and deserves significantly more
funding” than requested, of at least $13 million. If all REPI applicants from
solar, wind, geothermal and biomass projects were to receive the full allocation
of 1.8¢/kWh, $60 million would be needed for FY2005 yet only $4 million has
been requested.
Funding for biomass, biofuels and bioenergy should be at last year’s levels or
higher, and funds for hydrogen (except those dedicated to renewable hydrogen
from biomass) “should not be taken from appropriations intended for the
advance of biomass science, technologies and industries,” they argue. Biomass
is becoming “increasingly attractive” to the transportation fuels and power
industries and well-directed research is “essential to the success of this
transition.”
In addition to specific funding recommendations, the groups want DOE to place
less emphasis in its Distributed Energy research program on non-renewable
technologies, and to focus on “crosscutting technologies that assist the
broadest possible benefits to all renewable applications” including smart
interconnection of meters, energy storage, advanced cogeneration concepts, and
hybrid systems using multiple energy sources.
The signatories to the letter include the American Bioenergy Association,
American Solar Energy Society, American Wind Energy Association, Business
Council for Sustainable Energy, Energy Storage Council, Geothermal Energy
Association, Geothermal Resources Council, National Hydropower Association,
Renewable Fuels Association, Solar Energy Industries Association, Union of
Concerned Scientists, US Combined Heat & Power Association and the US Public
Interest Research Group.
The Sustainable Energy Coalition is a coalition of 100 national and state
organizations that was founded in 1992 to promote increased use of renewable
energy and energy efficient technologies.
Click
here for more information
Visit http://www.sparksdata.co.uk/refocus/ for your international energy focus!!
|