Midterm elections, treehuggers and regression-to-mean changes in energy policy

The word around industrial and political blog-land is that it was not a happy election week for energy treehuggers. There’s a great regression-to-mean at work, a return to the traditional senses of energy and policy. With a large change from a global warming-sure blue sea to a global warming-unsure red current, the tide in the political world has shifted away from carbon-lessening, renewable-positive energy to a more traditional fossil fuel approach, with a few exceptions here and there.

Not an exception: cap and trade. It’s dead, for awhile at least. Perhaps we should say it’s comatose instead. We can’t completely call it. But, it’s not bound to awaken like an electric sleeping beauty in the next two years. Just recently, Congress was having one heck of a time attempting to pass a climate change bill in an overwhelming Democratic government. Now that Congress is split between a Democratic Senate and a Republican House, it’s certainly not getting any easier. As the Washington Independent was reporting on Nov. 3, “at least 12 freshman Democrats who voted for the cap-and-trade bill lost their re-election bids.” And, according to Politico, the total number of Dems who voted for the Waxman-Markey House climate bill who lost seats in this election cycle tops 30---“swept away on Tuesday’s anti-incumbent wave” was their exact wording. So, pretty much that’s a mean, green snoozer who will be snoring for awhile, much to the dismay of environmentalists (and to the relief of many climate skeptics, though I admit to you that I am not one of those; I may be from Oklahoma, but I am no Tom Coburn).

Overall, except for the bright spot of a “no” to Prop. 23 in Cali (a ballot measure to suspend AB 32, the state's climate change law) there wasn’t a lot for motivated treehuggers with a fear of global warming to cling to after Tuesday in the area of energy policy. However, nearly 30 states already have renewable energy portfolio standards. So, there’s that for those treehuggers, I guess. Unless there’s a lot of work to reverse RFPs, those will remain. Still, don’t expect that number to grow until election year 2012, and perhaps not even then if our return-to-mean is entrenched.

If environmental issues do remain on the political plate, look for less of a push with wind and solar power and more “middle ground” environmental energies like nuclear power or even carbon capture to resurge. (The one power plus both sides seem to agree on, sometimes, is hydro. So, that may be neutral territory to start from.)

Incentives for renewable projects and green buildings are expected to dwindle, though programs that push both a healthy environment and a healthy consumer wallet (like winterizing and efficiency) may survive.

Electric vehicles, which also bring in that wallet factor in terms of jobs and potential return for still-hurting car companies are thought to be the real bright spot with this election. It is believed that EVs will remain a positive power push, even for a Republican House.

In the end, though, the burning question may be: What happens to the smart grid? Obama has made it his big player energy push with attention, action, and, most importantly, cash. A number of SGIG projects are in production, so to speak. And, it’s quite likely that, at least for a few months to a year or so, the smart grid momentum will keep rolling; with the funding in hand, some of those projects just have to rely on the gravity of completion. But, with no more stimulus cash floating in on that red tide, can the smart grid still come together?

It waits to be seen if our disappointed treehuggers will also be shedding a few tears for the smart grid in the future.