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1. Palin on Foreign Policy: It's About Energy
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2. The Daily Sprout
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3. Holy Solar Thin-Film Funding: SoloPower Raises $200M?
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4. Green Campaign Watch: Renewables Renewal?, Power Vote & Dems Want to Drill
Palin on Foreign Policy: It's About Energy
Craig Rubens - Hitlines
Segments of the first interview with Sarah Palin since she was picked to be McCain’s second in command were aired on ABC News this evening. In the interview reporter Charles Gibson grills the Alaskan Governor on her foreign policy experience, which leads to a discussion about energy. While the Governor’s short resume has been a hot topic, especially in the arena of international relations, Palin said that her work in energy is a strong credential for her foreign policy credibility and asserted that “energy is a foundation of national security.”
While we agree that energy makes the geopolitical world turn, Palin’s energy experience seems limited to the domestic supply, specifically the transport of oil and gas. It’s not as if her work on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission led her to regular negotiations with OPEC. Perhaps the basis for her considering her energy record as foreign policy cred came from giving a Canadian company a contract while working on the ANWR gas pipeline.
ABC is milking the clips across its sites, and will air a full interview tomorrow night at 10 p.m. on 20/20. Check out the initial transcript of her comments on energy:
PALIN: But it is about reform of government and it’s about putting government back on the side of the people, and that has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues. Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
GIBSON: I know. I’m just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.
PALIN: It is, but I want you to not lose sight of the fact that energy is a foundation of national security. It’s that important. It’s that significant.
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The Daily Sprout
Craig Rubens - Misc
Planar Energy Licenses Tech for Thin-Film Li-Ion Battery: Planar has signed an agreement with Policell Technologies for the technology and manufacturing rights for large-format prismatic lithium-ion batteries, potentially for use in mobile and fixed wireless services - Green Car Congress.
Portland Hopes to Manufacture Chinese Electric Cars: Chinese carmaker BYD Auto of Shenzhen has met with the Governor, a Senator and two mayors in the hopes that the automaker will base its North American headquarters, distribution and even manufacturing in the city - Portland Tribune.
LG Electronics Moves Into Solar With Conergy Deal: South Korean electronics maker LG announced a preliminary deal to acquire a 75 percent stake in German solar company Conergy’s Frankfurt solar-panel plant - Greentech Media.
Will Lawmakers’ Tough Talk on Oil Hurt Them Later?: Big Oil is an easy political punching bag to launch rhetorical jabs at, but once the campaigning is over, will the gas and oil companies want to come to the table after being dissed? - WSJ’s Environmental Capital.
Ecoterrorists Cleared of Graffiti Charge Because of Global Warming: A British court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damages associated with the group painting PM Gordon Brown’s name on the chimney of a coal-fired power plant on the grounds that the environmental damage the plant was a lawful cause for their actions. A precedent is set? - The Independent.
Holy Solar Thin-Film Funding: SoloPower Raises $200M?
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
In the past couple weeks there’s been news of hundreds of millions pumped into thin-film solar startups, with both Nanosolar and AVA Solar announcing massive rounds. Well, it’s not over yet, folks. This morning Venture Wire says that thin film solar player SoloPower has raised a grand ol’ $200 million to scale manufacturing up at a 100-megawatt-per-year plant (via VentureBeat).
The company wouldn’t confirm or deny the deal to us, but it seems consistent with the trend — thin film companies heading back to their investors to transition to manufacturing and fight the competition. SoloPower produces solar material out of Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS), and is competing with Nanosolar, Heliovolt, Miasole and others, who are some of the most well-funded companies in cleantech.
The report doesn’t say who backed SoloPower, but likely some of the company’s original investors went in. SoloPower raised a Series A in June 2006, led by Crosslink Capital and Firsthand Capital Management, and a Series B round in July 2007 led by Convexa Capital and Alf Bjørseth, co-founder of REC Group.
900 million PCs or 300 billion mobile handsets. Which is the bigger opportunity? Mobilize 08: GigaOM’s Next-Generation Mobile Conference
Green Campaign Watch: Renewables Renewal?, Power Vote & Dems Want to...
Craig Rubens - Policy
Congress is back in session and already another proposal has come up to renew the vital renewable energy tax credits. But the whole tenor of the energy discussion has changed, as drilling has become the focal point of the debate. Democrats are coming around and could endorse a compromise to open U.S. shores to drilling as soon as Friday. Meanwhile, the presidential election has energized youth voters, who want to make sure clean energy stays a high priority for the next administration.
New Proposal Extends Renewable Credits, Taxes Big Oil: The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), have released a new, $40 billion tax package aimed at extending the renewable energy tax credits. The proposal includes incentives for carbon sequestration, plug-in hybrid vehicles, conservation, wind energy, solar energy, nuclear energy and biofuels and would pay for them with higher taxes on oil and gas companies. The bi-partisan pair have tried repeatedly to get the credits renewed. "I'm starting to feel like Don Quixote, except I'm not jousting at windmills. I'm jousting for windmills,” Baucus told CQPolitics.
Democrats Heard Chanting, “Drill, Drill”: The Wall Street Journal reports that House Democrats could be heard chanting “drill, drill” in a closed-door meeting that produced a compromise that could open up the entire U.S. coastline to drilling. But the about-face from the left comes with a number of provisions that could help cleantech should the bill pass. The proposal scales back tax breaks for oil companies and creates new tax provisions for renewable energy as well as requiring utilities to increasingly use renewable energy sources in lieu of coal — all points the Republicans are likely to take offense to.
900 million PCs or 300 billion mobile handsets. Which is the bigger opportunity? Mobilize 08: GigaOM’s Next-Generation Mobile Conference
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