STOCK MARKET WATCH - Thursday, 26 January 2012

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36. jump start for clean energy

http://www.nationofchange.org/jump-start-clean-economy-1327510284

A lit­tle-known source of clean en­ergy fund­ing could prove a cru­cial job-cre­ation en­gine in the states, as fed­eral sup­port di­min­ishes and they seek fresh growth dri­vers.

Every state can cre­ate clean en­ergy funds, or CEFs, which are typ­i­cally sup­ported by a small sur­charge on monthly elec­tric­ity bills. So far 22 states have done so, gen­er­at­ing $2.7 bil­lion over­all for the clean tech­nol­ogy sec­tor dur­ing the past decade. Most have used the money to in­stall tens of thou­sands of solar panel ar­rays, wind tur­bines and bio­mass fa­cil­i­ties.

But a few states have gone fur­ther by broad­en­ing in­vest­ments to in­clude tech­nol­ogy re­search hubs, fledg­ling clean­tech star­tups and green job train­ing pro­grams. The idea is to use the money, which today to­tals some $500 mil­lion a year, to help de­velop all the com­po­nents of the clean econ­omy and stim­u­late the cre­ation of thou­sands of per­ma­nent local jobs.

The strat­egy is still ex­per­i­men­tal, but it could turn these CEFs into a major source of eco­nomic growth, ac­cord­ing to new re­port pub­lished today by the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion, a pub­lic pol­icy group, and the Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion, a phil­an­thropic or­ga­ni­za­tion. The re­port out­lines a four-part pol­icy strat­egy for every state to adopt this "next gen­er­a­tion" of CEF spend­ing.