With these virtues in mind, the government passed its Renewable Energy Act in 2000, extending the favorable tariffs to wind farms in Germany’s North Sea and Baltic waters. By 2002—the year in which annual installations on land peaked at 3240 MW—developers had filed 29 proposals for offshore farms that together would have had a generating capacity of 63 GW, which was equal to half of Germany’s entire installed capacity at the time. Germany’s ministry for the environment (its Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit, or BMU) forecast that 500 MW of offshore wind would be operating by 2006 and that an additional 2500 MW would come on line by 2010.

Then the plans crashed headlong into political reality. Almost immediately, conservationists and marine ecologists questioned proposed incursions into near-shore areas where millions of migratory birds breed and feed. The BMU handled that challenge by studying it carefully and then, in 2005, designating permissible zones for wind development that were far from shore and in deep water.

So this ridiculous scenario would never happen (the show you’d be worried about missing is actually another revival of Fox’s Paradise Hotel), but you will probably be enjoying better alternative energy solutions thanks to the U.S. military.

Can DARPA now score another double success by changing how both the military and civilian worlds consume and produce energy? DARPA’s first goal is always to magnify the might of the U.S. armed forces. That’s why Arlington (Va.)-based DARPA is devoting an estimated $100 million of its $3 billion annual budget to alternative energy.

[…]

In addition to spurring the development of palm-size fuel cells, DARPA has contracted with companies to miniaturize solar cells that would supplant the need for generators. It now wants to develop inexpensive diesel and jet fuel from algae that could be produced in the battle zone. All three programs include the aim of accelerating the manufacture of any new product by private companies, from whom the military could buy.

We’d wager that the entity responsible for the Internet will end up making some significant contributions to the field of alternative energy.

The big question is whether Ener1 or any other U.S. battery maker will be a major player by the time a mass market develops for electric cars, which could take a decade. The field is already crowded. Other U.S. companies claim to have prototypes that work at least as well as Gassenheimer’s. They include A123 Systems, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off, and Franco-American venture Johnson Controls-Saft, which has snared contracts with Ford Motor (F), BMW, and Mercedes-Benz (DAI). But the Americans face Asian rivals with deeper pockets and far more lithium-ion experience.

Should Uncle Sam provide billions in loans and grants to a promising but unproven business? Or should the government wait for the market to sort things out before it backs a U.S. company? The risk is that by then another major industry could go the way of memory chips, digital displays, the first solar panels, and the original lithium-ion batteries used in notebook PCs and cell phones. American scientists, funded by federal dollars, were at the forefront of each of those. Yet the industries—and the high-paying manufacturing jobs that go with them—quickly ended up in Asia. U.S. labor costs and taxes drove many operations abroad, but often industries fled simply because Asian governments, banks, and companies were more willing than Americans to risk big capital investments.

If we had a vote, and we actually do (every year), we’d say unequivocally yes, the United States needs to help fund the electric car battery industry. It is a strategic industry for the U.S.

First, the projects must be “shovel-ready”—that is, ready to go immediately. “They told us that for business to get anything, we have to prove there’s a short-term job impact—within six months,” explains Brent Erickson, vice-president of the Biotechnology Industry Assn. , which is pushing for biofuels production incentives. But the projects can’t put Uncle Sam on the hook to spend money for more than a year or two. “They have to be temporary, not creating a permanent need for funding,” says Dow Chemical (DOW) lobbyist Peter Molinaro.

One proposal generating buzz predicts more than 7 million jobs from a $171 billion investment to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and homes. Commercial property owners would get short-term tax reductions, and homeowners could lower mortgage payments if they boosted their energy efficiency or amounts of renewable energy. Homeowners would get their interest rates cut to, say, 3% if they paid for home energy audits and enough insulation and other improvements to cut usage by 75%.

Start looking now for home energy auditors and good home contractors who could make your home more energy efficient.

The jobs would include insulation installers, to make houses more energy-efficient, wind-turbine builders, to displace coal-fired electricity, and construction workers, to build greener buildings and upgrade the electrical grid.

Studies mentioned estimate that green energy investments would create four times as many jobs as comparably priced investments in traditional (fossil fuel based) energy investments. Increases in these green jobs would invariably lead to job losses in other industries. That’s why we’ll need investment in job retraining to allow workers in traditional energy industries to make the transition.

“there is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy … That’s going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office.”

This is his priority over health care and tax reform. The hope for homeowners should be that this dedication will translate into expanded tax credits for clean home power systems.