New Trends In Finance Are Making It Easier To Go Green

U.S. clean-energy loan guarantees are back. "The Energy Department is taking applications for up to $4 billion of federal loan guarantees for renewable and energy-efficiency projects. It's a restart of the federal program that garnered heavy Republican criticism for backing a handful of failed ventures, most notably...Solyndra....Thursday's development builds on an earlier retooling of an alternative vehicle loan program that has $8 billion of debt authority remaining....Losses have stayed far under the $10 billion Congress set aside for the loan portfolio, and has credited it with invigorating the clean technology industry." Zack Colman in the Washington Examiner.

Clean-energy finance: The new way colleges are going green. "In the past, colleges and universities 'went green' by holding recycling challenges or encouraging students to turn down their air conditioners when the days got a little too sultry....To make real changes, university leaders realized, they needed to change the fundamental ways they did things." Laura Arenschield in the Columbus Dispatch.

Renewable power will be the benefactor of future investment. "Renewable energy may reap as much as two-thirds of the $7.7 trillion in investment forecast for building new power plants by 2030 as declining costs make it more competitive with fossil fuels. About half of the investment will be in Asia, the region where power capacity will grow the most, according to...a report released by Bloomberg New Energy Finance....A glut of solar and wind manufacturing capacity has brought down prices of cells and turbines. That’s making clean energy plants in more locations profitable even though governments...are scaling back incentives." Marc Roca in Bloomberg.

But coal could score a win in Ex-Im Bank fight. "Both of the working proposals in the House and Senate to renew the bank’s charter would reverse Ex-Im guidelines that prevent financing for overseas power plants that decline to adopt greener technology. Bank officials adopted the policies, which included exemptions for the world's poorest nations, in December amid the Obama administration's broader push to address climate change....Thanks to the looming Sept. 30 deadline...opponents of the power plant guidelines are seizing on the time crunch to win concessions." Kevin Cirilli in The Hill.

Other energy/environmental reads:

A watershed moment for fracking foes? Timothy Cama in The Hill.