EERE News 8/8/2008
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind & Hydropower Technologies Program on August 5th announced funding awards to seven national laboratories to address challenges to the integration of substantial amounts of renewable energy into the Nation’s electric system.
This all sounds lovely, the central banks making a sort of heroic stand against ... something. The effect on any currency when that currency's central bank gets involved in this mess will be deflation. Divide $750 trillion in derivatives by $75 trillion in global real estate values and today's dollar will buy you a dime's worth of product after this comes to pass.
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are actively engaged in discussions about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities as a possible solution to the credit crisis.
Such a move would involve the use of public funds to shore up the market in a key financial instrument and restore confidence by ending the current vicious circle of forced sales, falling prices and weakening balance sheets.
WASHINGTON, March 6, 2008 - Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer announced during an international renewable energy conference that USDA will accept $220.9 million in loan and grant applications within USDA's Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Program.
The subprime mess is generally treated as a crisis, a catastrophe, one of those unpredictable pathologies that happen in our economy because the ingenuity of corporate and financial types outpaces regulatory understanding and control. Sure, crises like this one happen because creative cupidity outpaces regulatory control. But what the subprime crisis isn't is unpredictable or pathological.
When discussing financing of pending renewable energy projects I often make reference to the crash of 2008 and people give me a funny look. NBBooks over at The European Tribune has summed it up nicely in this recent posting. I've changed the format a bit and taken some small liberties with the original text to make it more readable, then I'll expand upon what it means for renewable energy projects.
