Clean Energy Trends: The Future Is All About Deployment

By Ron Pernick

2012 proved to be an unsettling and difficult year for clean energy. High-profile bankruptcies and layoffs plagued many clean-tech companies, overall venture investments retreated in the face of increasingly elusive returns, and the industry was begrudgingly transformed into a partisan wedge issue during the U.S. presidential campaign.

But as we highlight in our just-released Clean Energy Trends 2013 report, the fundamental global market drivers for clean technology remain largely intact. Intensifying resource constraints loom large. Unprecedented climate disruption in the U.S. and abroad is putting resiliency and adaptation front and center. And President Obama has signaled a strong commitment to expanding clean energy and energy efficiency in his second term, calling for another doubling of renewable power by 2020. Similar commitments exist in China, Japan, and the European Union.

The report found that lower prices for many clean-tech goods and services, combined with a renewed focus on scalable projects, resulted once again in record annual solar, wind, and biofuels deployment. Against this continued expansion, however, combined global revenue for solar PV, wind power, and biofuels expanded just one percent, from $246.1 billion in 2011 to $248.7 billion in 2012. This marginal growth was one of the many consequences of rapidly declining solar PV prices.

Some of the report’s key findings include:

Biofuels (global production and wholesale pricing of ethanol and biodiesel) reached $95 billion in 2012, up from $83 billion the previous year. From 2011 to 2012, global biofuels production expanded from 27.9 billion gallons to 31.4 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel.Wind power (new installation capital costs) expanded to $73.7 billion in 2012, up from $71.5 billion the previous year. Global wind capacity additions totaled 44.7 GW (gigawatts) in 2012, a record year led by more than 13 GW added in both China and the U.S., and an additional 12.4 GW of new capacity in Europe.Solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) decreased from a record $91.6 billion in 2011 to $79.7 billion in 2012 as continued growth in annual capacity additions was not enough to offset falling PV prices. While total market revenues fell 19 percent — the first PV market contraction in Clean Energy Trends’ 12-year history – global installations expanded to a record of 30.9 GW in 2012, up from 29.6 GW the prior year.Together, we project these three sectors will continue to grow over the next decade, nearly doubling from $248.7 billion in 2012 to $426.1 billion in 2022.

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In many ways the shift to cleaner sources couldn’t be clearer. Renewables and natural gas made up more than 80 percent of new electricity capacity additions in the U.S. in 2012, with renewables coming in at 49 percent and natural gas at 33 percent. For the European Union, the renewables number is even higher, with solar in the driver’s seat. In 2012, newly installed solar PV accounted for 37 percent of all added capacity, followed by wind with a 26.5 percent share, and gas at 23 percent. In total, renewable sources represented more than 31 GW of the 44.6 GW of new generation capacity in the EU, roughly 70 percent of all new capacity for the second consecutive year.

Generating capacity is, of course, not the same as actual generation. But even in this regard, clean energy sources have moved past their days as rounding errors and are playing a significant role in meeting electricity demand in a number of global markets. Wind energy in Denmark blew past a 30 percent share of national electricity use in 2012, and an official target is in place to generate half of the nation’s power from wind by 2020. In Germany, clean energy already accounts for 25 percent of energy production — led by wind (9.2 percent), biomass (5.7 percent), and solar (5.3 percent) — and the country is aiming for 35 percent from renewables by 2020.

Clean energy continues to expand as a major economic force, with an increasing focus on deployment of readily available technologies.

In early 2013, for example, Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings expanded its solar portfolio with a whopping $2 billion acquisition of the Antelope Valley Solar Projects in Southern California, one of the largest utility-scale solar developments in the world. (Buffett’s investment in the Antelope projects came with long-term purchase agreements already lined up with Southern California Edison.) Google’s recent $200 million equity investment in a Texas wind farm pushed the tech giant’s ownership in solar and wind projects to a combined 2 GW, making it one of the largest renewable energy asset owners. And in January, car rental giant Avis Budget Group announced its plan to buy car-sharing pioneer ZipCar for $500 million, a promising reminder that new ways of thinking can be just as disruptive as new technologies.

What all this seems to point to is something we’ve talked about for years: the scale-up of clean-tech deployment. And it’s not just the big investors shifting their focus toward deployment. Mosaic, which we highlight in this year’s Trends report, is bringing solar deployment investment opportunities to small investors via a crowdfunding platform, offering annual yields of around 4 to 5 percent. And don’t forget the state-level Green Banks established in Connecticut and announced in places like New York and Hawaii or the prospects for new project deployment tools like real estate investment trusts (REITs) or master limited partnerships (MLPs).

Indeed, the near- to mid-term will be all about getting assets in the ground. That is where the action will be. It will take many shapes and sizes, from large corporate investments to crowdfunding and will span the globe from the U.S. to Japan.

This new focus on deployable and proven technologies reflects the maturation of an industry that was a mere blip on the economic radar just a decade ago, but today represents the largest slice of new electricity capacity additions in the U.S. and European Union. Even in pro-nuclear China, wind overtook the atom as a generator of electricity in that nation’s power mix in 2012. To ensure that clean energy keeps up its momentum, however, we’ll need new models and a leveling of the playing field — and that will take hard work, creativity, and, in the face of entrenched interests, a great deal of steadfast commitment and endurance.

Ron Pernick is founder and managing director of research and advisory firm Clean Edge and the coauthor of two books on clean-tech business trends and innovation, Clean Tech Nation (HarperCollins, 2012) and The Clean Tech Revolution (HarperCollins, 2007).

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What SNL’s ‘Djesus Uncrossed’ Skit Got Right About Violent Trends In Christianity

Jack Jenkins is a writer and researcher for the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

Saturday Night Live is known for its topical humor, but the weekend before last, it sparked debate by wading into theological controversy. In what Hero Complex suggested was the “most blasphemous skit in ‘SNL’ history,” the show drew fire for airing a skit that satirized Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained by using a premise that is possibly even more controversial than Tarantino’s original: What if Jesus Christ rose from the dead…To exact revenge? As a thumping big-budget soundtrack rocks in the background, a voiceover touts the film as “A less violent ‘Passion of the Christ’” and quips “He’s risen from the dead … and he’s preaching anything but forgiveness.”

The studio audience seemed to love the skit, but, as happens with many of SNL’s forays into religious satire, the skit sparked a firestorm of criticism from conservative Christians. Twitter and SNL’s website immediately lit up with complaints about the segment, with commenters decrying it as “blasphemous,” “offensive,” and “just wrong.” The Catholic League was also quick to weigh in, calling the skit “vicious” and “uncharacteristically bloody”. Conservative televangelist Pat Robertson, for his part, reviled the whole thing “anti-Christian bigotry that is just disgusting.”

But there is something peculiar about the outcry over the “DJesus Uncrossed”: Most of the complaints aren’t emanating from the progressive Christian pacifists. Instead, much of the criticism is coming from hyper-conservative Christian circles, a world that, oddly enough, includes voices that preach a vision of Jesus eerily similar to SNL’s gun-toting Messiah.

Though the image of Jesus mowing down victims with a machine gun horrifies many Christians—and rightfully so)—others, like Patheos blogger David R. Henson, have pointed out that hidden in SNL’s bloody humor is a powerful satire of an overly-violent, hyper-masculine subculture that has begun to influence not just our popular culture, also multiple strains of Christian theology. Influential mega-pastor Mark Driscoll, for example, has become famous for saying that he believes in a Jesus who has a “commitment to make someone bleed.” He reportedly refuses to believe in a “hippie, diaper, halo Christ” because, as he puts it, “I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” Meanwhile, churches across America have started creating “Fight Club” groups for men, and several Christian communities are even basing services around Mixed Martial Arts fighting.

But this vengeful, hyper-violent theology isn’t confined to church walls. It’s also showing up in our national discourse, especially in the current debate over gun violence prevention. In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newton, for instance, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, essentially argued that the massacre of children in Connecticut as a response to an increasingly secular culture. “Believe me, [secularism] is going to have consequences,” he said. “I think we have turned our back on the scripture and on God almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us.” Not to be outdone, talk show host and conservative Christian Mike Huckabee also argued that the Newtown killings were the result of God’s righteous vengeance, because lawmakers have “removed God from our schools.” Meanwhile, several conservative writers continue to insist that Jesus of Nazareth would have been an avid supporter of conceal and carry.

It seems a little odd, then, that conservative Christians – when confronted with an image of Jesus forged within their own ranks – would be the first to cry foul. But perhaps their defensiveness makes sense: maybe it’s easier to defame SNL and NBC as blasphemers than engage in the painful process of looking inward. Ultimately, perhaps conservative and progressive Christians alike – and, for that matter, Americans at large – should look at the controversy surrounding this skit as an opportunity. By examining this painful reflection of one form of American Christianity, perhaps we could respond by doing more than just complaining about glorifications of violence and vengeance when they show up on TV. Rather, perhaps we could look at this as a call to do the hard work of resisting these ideologies — these theologies — before they catch fire. This means exposing them when they appear in our Bible studies, our prayers circles, and especially our pulpits.

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Huffington: Three Big Media Trends of 2013

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoThu 17 Jan 13 | 07:44 AM ET "Stress is one of the main reasons for why health care costs have been rising," said Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post founder, discussing how business are beginning to realize that stress reduction is actually a performance enhancement tool. Also, a look at how new technology is changing the face of media.

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