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We need your help with the Pledge Push! We can only get this plan done with HUGE numbers. Please download some pledges, get them signed and fax them back to the 888# at the bottom of the page. We eat the apple one bite at a time. Collect a few every day, and in no time you will have 100. We would be thrilled to have you in the 100CLUB. ARE YOU IN?
Please get your elected leaders to sign, as well. A two pronged offense can not fail!
Best
Kim
Also, please congratulate Karen Nardella and Craig Savage for completing the task! You should read how they did it on the 100CLUB GROUP page - http://push.pickensplan.com/group/100pledgeclub
Have you seen T. boones AUTO MATIC system to send
e-mail to your rep. You type in a few key strokes and
it auto adresses the e-mail to all your reps and the GOV.
of your state based on zip code. Has a sugested draft of a letter to send. NEVER EASYER. Spread the word to click on the ACTION CENTER at the main web site.
Thanks for joining the Pickens Plans community. We Need You!
Good News is Blowing Our Way:
* Claim: Barack Obama says his energy policies would create 5 million new "green-collar" jobs in the economy.
* Rocky Truth Patrol says:
* This is a maybe only because it's an economic estimate based on a job category that no one officially tracks - at least not yet. And depending on which economic models are used to make these estimates, Obama's forecast of 5 million green-collar jobs might actually be too low, some experts think!
Obama says his administration would invest $150 billion over 10 years in a "clean energy economy" and "help the private sector create 5 million new green jobs."
Obama takes his figures from two recent studies. The University of California at Berkeley said energy efficiency alone could create 5 million jobs nationwide in the next decade. Note that this study counts jobs created directly in this field, but also indirect jobs created by the demands of the new workers and "induced" jobs created by overall growth in the economy.
The University of Tennessee recently estimated that 5.1 million new jobs could be created by 2025 if the nation got a quarter of its energy from renewable sources. That job number also includes indirect jobs.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the nation should expect 15.6 million new jobs in the decade between 2006 and 2016. Adding 5 million "green" jobs would represent just a 3 percent boost in the total employment, which hovers at about 150 million.
The Apollo Alliance, a nonpartisan organization of business, labor, environmental and community leaders, has said they wouldn't count indirect jobs, as do the studies on which Obama relies. However, spokesman Keith Schneider said the alliance actually believes, based on analysis of these studies and others, that the 5 million figure might be too low!
"It's going to be more than that," Schneider said. "The demand for this sector of the economy way outpaces the capacity."
For example, Schneider said, wind energy - a big issue for Coloradans - is facing a capacity crunch because there is currently a three-year backlog for the plate steel needed to make the wind turbine blades. The industry needs people to make the steel, then the blades, then install them, then maintain them, he said. But federal policies - including a tax credit that has expired before and is about to expire again - have made business bumpy, he said.
"The Apollo Alliance's research on the jobs question shows us clearly that if the United States pursues a new national economic development strategy to replace fossil fuels with clean sources of energy and the tools to use them, the economy will generate 5 million new jobs, and likely much more than that," Schneider said.
E mail your friends and build a network.
Let me know if i can help you with anything.
The Pickens Plan is important to all of us........
Lets be friends
Jeff
Rob Z,
The CAT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/jul/23/germany.greenbusiness
Renewable Energy Feed-In Tariff Legislation Introduced in U.S. Congress
While the Senate dawdles with one set of renewable energy incentives, four members of the House of Representatives, led by Jay Inslee (D-Washington), have introduced a new piece of legislation that everyone concerned about alternative energy in the United States really needs to watch.
Feed-In Tariff Legislation Introduced into House
The Renewable Energy Jobs and Security Act would create a feed-in tariff system of payments for small to mid-sized renewable energy suppliers (sites up to 20MW in size) similar to the one which has had such success, and has been recently expanded, in Germany.
Under a feed-in tariff system renewable electricty producers are paid a fixed, above market-rate, tariff for the electricity that is fed into the grid. The cost of this is then spread across all consumers of electricty. In Germany the estimated additional cost to the average family of three is €2 per month.
Inslee: “The feed-in tariff enacted in Germany in 2003 has helped the European nation achieve 55 percent of the world's installed solar capacity, provide 14 percent of its electricity supply from renewable sources and create at least 140,000 jobs. Similar policies also have been adopted by France, Spain and over 40 other countries, provinces and states.”
Inslee’s bill has three main components: guaranteed interconnection to the grid, long-term fixed rate contracts with electric utilities, and a rate-recovery program through a regional cost-sharing commission to minimize the impact on consumers. The bill would set technology-specific rates that utilities would pay renewable energy suppliers, that would incrementally decrease every two years for the 20 year lifespan of the tariff.
Though Inslee does not mention it, given the reports that we’ve seen recently about renewable energy reaching parity with fossil fuels, some of these rates should probably be set to depreciate more quickly than others, but overall the plan is sound.
New Direction in US Renewable Energy Promotion?
It may not seem it at first, and provided there are no demons lurking in the end pages of this bill which limit its effectiveness, this bill could dramatically change the way in which renewable energy is promoted in the United States.
Co-sponsoring the bill with Inslee are Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.; no relation to post author), and Mike Honda (D-Cali.). A companion bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate.
Glad that you decided to accept my invitation. Beware the chaos in Denver this week. Chris
Be well,
Bruce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFDqcu8oJ4
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