7/23/12, "Gov. Christie signs into law a rescue for New Jersey's solar subsidy market," NJ Star-Ledger, E. Caroom
"Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law today to stabilize prices in the state's solar subsidy market.
In the last few years New Jersey built more solar projects than any state except California, which produced a glut of solar subsidy credits, called SRECs, driving down prices.
The bill signed into law today will dramatically increase the number of solar credits that New Jersey's electric utilities must buy, which legislators hope will increase prices for the credits to keep the industry healthy.
"It appears as though we’re so overbuilt that if nothing was done legislatively, you would not have to do any solar development in the next three to four years," said Jamie Hahn, co-founder of Solis Partners, which develops, designs, and constructs large solar power systems. "If you have a market that goes dormant for three to four years, you’re also going to have significant job loss as well."
Prices on spot markets plummeted from around $600 in the past several years to the mid-$100 range this year.
Solar industry leaders are mixed on whether the law is a permanent fix:
"We greatly appreciate that the Governor and the legislature worked very hard to provide a rescue for the solar industry," said Lyle Rawlings, head of the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents about 125 companies in New Jersey. "They have done so for the time being, but we were hoping for a more permanent solution."
One thing he and Hahn had sought was a mechanism for the Board of Public Utilities to control the market if projects again overtake demand and cause a price crash.
"That's the concern that a lot of industry experts have," Hahn said. "The most important thing is without some form of a throttle mechanism, we could potentially be in an overbuild scenario within the next two years."" via Save Jersey blog, "Green Energy is a Partisan Issue When I’m Forced to Subsidize It!"
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4/4/12, "Arctic Shatters More Records," Real Science, Steve Goddard
"Arctic ice extent is the highest in nearly a decade, and has again set the record for both the latest peak and the longest winter. Normally it has been melting for almost a month already." (NORSEX, SSM/1)
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As of Feb. 2012, no Antarctic ice lost in past 30 years per AGU, American Geophysical Union------------------------------------------------
6/26/12, "The Incredible Shrinking Carbon Pollution Forecast - Part 2," switchboard.nrdc.org, Dan Lashof
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6/29/12, "US Carbon Output Forecasts Shrink Again," American Interest, Walter Russell Mead
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6/4/12, "Climate change stunner: USA leads world in CO2 cuts since 2006," Vancouver Observer, Saxifrage
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6/22/12, "U.S. cuts greenhouse gases despite do-nothing Congress," CNN, Steve Hargreaves
"Even factoring in a stronger economy, forecasters see greenhouse gas emissions continuing to fall."...
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4/21/12, "Why [CO2] Emissions Are Declining in the U.S. But Not in Europe," by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, newgeography.com
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5/2/12, "Permit glut sparks talk of ‘carbon central bank’," Euractiv
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4/23/12, "'I made a mistake': Gaia theory scientist James Lovelock admits he was 'alarmist' about the impact of climate change," UK Daily Mail, L. Warren
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