Is It a Solar Bottom? Analysts Say No

Gupta’s glum conclusion: “Most of the companies are unlikely to produce any profit for the next two years.”

Via email:

The G20 draft communiqué is a 2,300 words document that focuses entirely on the global economic and financial crisis. In an empty token, the text includes twenty-six weasel words about climate change - at the very end of the document. So much for 'the biggest threat to humankind.' There is an upshot, however, to this reality check: The cruel reality of Real Politik seems to have a sobering effect on hot heats. Even Jim Hansen has finally figured out that the world's political leaders don't really believe their own rhetoric. For once, he's got it right: "If this is the best they can do, then their 'planet in peril' rhetoric is probably just that - empty rhetoric."
--Benny Peiser, 31 March 2009

Iain Murray - Obama’s China Syndrome

Something has to give if emissions reductions are to be achieved. Either the President and Congress must between them be willing to sacrifice American industry to preserve China’s competitive advantage in an emissions-restricted world, or they must be willing to turn their backs on the benefits of free trade and retreat into a protectionist wind-powered cocoon, and thereby destroy the already weakened American economy in another way. Neither sounds attractive.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu: let's burn staggering amounts of energy and money in an attempt to keep trace amounts of natural atmospheric gas out of the air

WASHINGTON — A proposal to build a futuristic coal-burning power plant in central Illinois that languished under the Bush administration has merit, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Monday.

Chu wants to work with FutureGen's developers to chart a path forward, Department of Energy spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said.

"Secretary Chu believes that investment in carbon capture and storage research and development is critical to meeting our energy and climate change challenges," Mueller said in a statement after Chu met Monday with members of the FutureGen Alliance. "Secretary Chu believes that the FutureGen proposal has real merit."