Here are the three CleanTech propositions placed before California voters this week:
CA Prop 1A: SAFE, RELIABLE HIGH-SPEED PASSENGER TRAIN BOND ACT.
CA Prop 7: RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
CA Prop 10: ALTERNATIVE FUEL VEHICLES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY.
BONDS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
The bullet train passed and one day, as in Japan and France, there will be a high speed rail between Sacramento and San Diego (and all points in-between). I think I know why this proposition passed and the other two failed: Time and money. The bullet train has a 30 year period to spend the bond money and both of the other 'renewable' energy propositions were hamstrung by much tighter timelines. And there might be a third reason the two 'renewable' energy measures failed...
Proposition 7 would have required that California’s electric utilities get half of their power from renewable sources by 2025 (the current requirement is 20 percent by the end of 2010), was easily defeated with 65 percent of voters casting ballots against the measure.
Critics of the measure, which included an unusual alliance of environmentalists and public utilities, which are not covered by current requirements but would be folded into the new mandates, argued that, as drafted, the initiative would have driven up electricity rates, stalled the state’s already steady shift to clean power and strangled small alternative-energy companies.
Proposition 10 would have created rebate incentives for the purchase of cars and trucks running on natural gas or other alternative fuels, was also struck down, with nearly 60 percent voting “no” thanks.
Critics opposed Proposition 10 on the grounds that the state is already cash-strapped, facing a $15.2 billion deficit (this is the ‘time’ part of the equation). The measure, if approved by voters, would have cost the state billions of dollars through public bonds aimed at financing the rebates.
The initiative was heavily backed by T. Boone Pickens, the former oil man who stood to profit from an expanded fleet of natural-gas cars, given his interest in Clean Energy Fuels, which sells natural gas for transportation use. Clean Energy covered much of the $22.5 million campaign fund for the initiative, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
I think the third reason might be market related. Americans are capitalists and we like to see private enterprise ‘grow’ into its own with as little government intervention as possible. This thinking comes from both the industrialization era and the high tech era. Henry Ford got the cars rolling down the assembly line on his own and Google came into being out of shear creativity. Government dollars? (when needed) Government design? (again, "no" thanks).
MarketMan
