by jboullion | Dec 22, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a news release issued by Telkonet:
GERMANTOWN, MD–(Marketwire – December 21, 2009) – Telkonet, Inc. (OTCBB: TKOI), a Clean Technology company that develops and manufactures proprietary energy management and SmartGrid networking technology, is conducting a restructuring which includes the relocation of its offices from Germantown, Maryland to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This transition is part of an ongoing focus to competitively position the company within the $50 billion SmartGrid and Clean Technology industries while achieving favorable cost reductions. . . .
Jason Tienor, President and CEO, commented, “The decision to consolidate Telkonet’s operations demonstrates our continued commitment to realign our business and operations, helping us achieve our growth and expansion goals. With this relocation strategy, we’re able to optimize our resources, positioning the Company to more effectively address the needs of the growing Clean Technology market. In addition, we look forward to becoming a significant part of the Clean Technology landscape in Wisconsin. This transition demonstrates our dedication to Wisconsin and further meets the conditions of our funding with the State to increase employment within
Wisconsin.
by jboullion | Dec 22, 2009 | Uncategorized
From an article by Joe Potente in the Kenosha News:
A fee on rental car transactions in southeastern Wisconsin is going away — at least for a while.
The Southeastern Regional Transit Authority voted Friday not to reinstate a $2 fee that had been charged to help pay for planning of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail proposal.
That was after the new board voted narrowly to appoint Kenosha County designee Karl Ostby as its chairman.
Created by the Legislature as part of the 2009-11 state budget, the authority is enabled to levy up to $18 per rental transaction to support the local costs of KRM’s development.
Debate over fee
Maintaining the $2 fee for now was discussed, but a majority of the board favored holding off on any fee until a KRM grant plan is finalized, Antaramian said in a phone interview Friday. Antaramian said nobody on the board has shown an interest in levying the full $18.
“I think certain members of the board felt that there wasn’t a need until we actually saw a proposal,” said Antaramian, who supported continuing the $2 charge.
However, Ostby said the question of the fee is likely to arise again next month, after the authority has a clearer idea of KRM’s costs.
by jboullion | Dec 21, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a commentary by Jennifer Nordstrom, coordinator of the Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free campaign for the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and a member of Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free Wisconsin, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Weakening Wisconsin laws regulating new nuclear reactors should not be part of a climate change bill. The Clean Energy Jobs Act, unveiled in the state Legislature recently, is a significant step toward addressing global warming while strengthening our state economy. Although much of the bill is a positive step to addressing global warming, it weakens Wisconsin’s current law on building new nuclear reactors.
Wisconsin’s current law is common sense and protects citizens and the environment from radioactive nuclear waste, which poses considerable risks for tens thousands of years and contains plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons if separated. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power.
Nuclear energy is also expensive and financially risky. Nuclear projects are large, take a long time to plan and build (eight years at a minimum and often more) and require a great deal of capital. This means a lot of money gets locked up in a single project – sometimes more than the companies seeking to build the reactors are worth. Wall Street has refused to provide capital for new nuclear reactors.
The nuclear industry wants either taxpayers or ratepayers to subsidize these projects, via taxpayer loan guarantees and/or ratepayer interest-free advance cash. Even before the current financial crisis, the CEO of General Electric said if he were a utility CEO, he would not build nuclear but natural gas or wind power plants because “I don’t have to bet my company on any of this (wind or gas) stuff.”
Wisconsin’s law was partially designed to protect its citizens from the financial risk and expense of new reactors. It was also put it in place because of the serious, unsolved problem of nuclear waste.
Every reactor produces radioactive nuclear waste, which contains elements that last for hundreds of generations. No country in the world (including France and the United States) has a repository for storing this radioactive waste. The problems with Yucca Mountain, the proposed site in the United States, are technical as well as political; the Obama administration has rightly declared it unsuitable. Wisconsin residents should remember that in the last round of looking for a national nuclear waste dump, Wisconsin was high on the list.
by jboullion | Dec 18, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a Tom Content blog post on JSonline:
The state-authorized surcharge on electric bills to pay for district attorney salaries is now hitting utility bills of We Energies customers.
The Milwaukee utility is the last of the investor-owned utilities in the state to begin collecting the surcharge. The increase took effect with bills processed on Thursday, utility spokesman Brian Manthey said.
For residential customers, the fee amounts to 47 cents a month. The fee will drop to 26 cents a month for the fiscal year that starts in July.
Small businesses will be assessed $1.07 a month beginning now and 57 cents a week beginning in July. Factories can expect to pay $29.53 a month starting this week, and $15.83 a month beginning in July, the utility said.
Wisconsin legislators included the surcharge among a host of fee increases aimed at helping balance the state budget. Other fee increases adopted as part of the state budget include surcharges imposed on cell-phone bills.
We Energies will end up collecting about $8 million for the state from its customers across the state over the next 19 months, Manthey said.
Prosecutors are being paid from a fund originally designed to help poor people pay their utility bills and weatherize their homes. The extra fee is the latest in a series of budget maneuvers that have sent a total of $166 million from electricity ratepayers to non-energy-related state government purposes since 2002.
by jboullion | Dec 16, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a news release issued by the coalition for Clean, Responsible Energy for Wisconsin’s Economy (CREWE):
(MADISON, Wis.)—The coalition for Clean, Responsible Energy for Wisconsin’s Economy (CREWE) on Tuesday released a fact sheet detailing the errors with the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s (WPRI) November 12th report on the adverse economic effects of the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming recommendations.
“The WPRI report is so wildly flawed that it has no place in any legislative debate on the task force recommendations,” said Thad Nation, executive director of CREWE. “Not only does the report analyze many policies that aren’t even included in the Clean Energy Jobs Act, but it takes a piecemeal approach, failing to analyze the cumulative effect the policies will have on our state.”
Among the errors included in the report, titled “The Economics of Climate Change Proposals in Wisconsin”:
• 8 of the 13 policies analyzed aren’t included in the Clean Energy Jobs Act
• Models policies that would impact the state’s general fund, despite the fact that the Clean Energy Jobs Act includes no tax increases
• Ignores the fact that low carbon fuels will be produced in Wisconsin and other
Midwestern states, while conventional gasoline is largely imported from overseas
• Fails to take into account decreased electricity demand due to energy efficiency and conservation investments outlined in the recommendations.
In addition, the authors of the report used a “black box” economic model to come to their conclusions – meaning the reader is only given the inputs and outputs, without any knowledge of how the statistical analysis was done. In order to allow others to properly analyze the report’s conclusions, the model that was used should be made publicly available for review.
