Sklar Sets a Solid Energy Course for 2009

Welcome back and hope you had a great holiday break. I sure did.

OK, let's get back to business. For those of you who don't know Scott Sklar, I had the pleasure of meeting him in person in December 2008 at and after the NDU military energy event he co-sponsors. He is one of only a few folks perfectly positioned at the intersection of National energy policy, Federal energy requirements, and the old and new energy industries.

For those who feel inundated and overwhelmed by current bad economic news and even worse forecasts for the year that lies ahead, Sklar provides actionable guidance.  For the DOD (but not just the DOD) this would be good medicine. Not to mention for the renewable energy sector which could run the world, if only it could learn to walk without a crutch. Here's Sklar one month ago:

Many of us have been advising federal procurement managers, Members of Congress and the Obama Transition Team staff to not only accelerate the federal procurement pipeline now, but to add to it for the next three years and leverage procurements regionally with state and local governments. Such an action could create a rather large and sustained market pull for the clean energy industries.

This multi-year sustained government procurement effort would be multi-technology including materials, energy systems, vehicle fleets and green power purchases. Not only would this sustain the clean energy industries, it would keep them vibrant all across the United States. And of course, US taxpayers pay the energy bills for buildings and facilities that can last a century — virtually every improvement in buildings, vehicles or energy inputs — will reduce taxpayer supports of the energy costs for these government uses.

We don't want this short term economic chaos to undermine the survival of the breadth of the clean energy industries across the U.S., undermine goals to cut energy imports and emissions and undermine the initiative by our new President to fundamentally shift our economy to green jobs.

This may sound like a bit more crutch than some would like, but it also sounds like a win-win to me, as the government component recedes, percentage-wise, once the economy comes back to life. The full article is here and Sklar's Stella Group company site is here.