How the midterms will affect green energy

With the Democrats losing 60 seats in the House and thereby the majority and losing six seats in the Senate, Tuesday’s midterm elections were almost as predicted. With the new grouping in Congress a lot of new predictions have already been made in terms of future policies and I think it’s particularly interesting to focus on the environment and sustainable energy.

Attempts to address the issues of global warning and get a clear sustainable energy policy with a Democratic-controlled Congress were met with resistance and now with more Republican filling up the seats it will probably get even more difficult to focus on sustainable energy.

The Washington Independent describes it as “common knowledge that it will be next to impossible to pass comprehensive climate legislation in the next two years.” Instead GOP is more likely to upset environmentalists by pushing nuclear power plants and coal.

Well, nuclear power has some places had a comeback from the 70’s protest campaigns as a renewable energy sources, but is it really necessary to go down that road again when several companies have figured out a way to make energy out of almost all the four elements?

Apparently the Obama administration isn’t as supportive of the alternative energy sources as before the midterms. Last Wednesday, just a day after the elections, the top advisers recommended cutting off funding for a federal loan-guarantee program for alternative energy projects with a budget of $2.5 billion, down from the $6 billion Congress approved for it in 2009. If the sudden urge to cut of the loan-guarantee has anything to do with the new grouping in Congress is uncertain, but overall it is bad news for sustainable energy projects.

What it takes to cut carbon emission is certainly not to cut of funding and having more oil, gas and nuclear advocates to control Congress. The major wind turbines manufactures have already had immense problems on the US market and I don’t expect the recent chain of events will make outlooks any better.