Energy Infrastructure and the Economy by renesugar

PACE programs provide financing for energy efficiency loans to individuals which is paid back via property tax payments over a long period of time. One variation on a PACE program is a public-private partnership where the private partner provides financing and the city collects payments via property taxes. The Ygrene Energy Fund is a public-private partnership that enables property owners to make their buildings more energy efficient at no upfront cost. Ygrene provides the money for the upgrades and is paid back through property taxes over a period of up to 20 years.

Most of the difficulty in implementing this is political. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/26/2202141/the-anti-science-climate-denier-caucus-113th-congress-edition/ This is particularly critical in the Senate where a Senate hold (basically a threat of a filibuster) by a small number of senators can block legislation. The influence of a senator in less populated states is the same as ones with higher populations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd6UJPghUs The Federal Reserve Act can be modified to allow the Federal Reserve to invest in infrastructure instead of just mortgage related securities, etc. California has authorized the use of mini-bonds ($25 denomination) that would allow the general public to directly invest in infrastructure. Because of Wall Street's overhead, bonds are usually sold in large blocks to minimize costs putting them out of the reach of the general population. There are existing trading platforms that could be used to lower bond costs but they currently aren't used in that way. Crowdfunding platforms which are starting to be used by cities on a small scale to raise money for local infrastructure could be used on a larger scale if crowdfunding legislation allowed it. The SEC hasn't finished writing the rules for the current equity crowdfunding law (perhaps because it allows the high cost services of Wall Street to be bypassed). A mini-bond trading platform would be similar to existing crowdfunding platforms; you would be investing in multiples of the mini-bond denomination (e.g. $25) instead of dollar amounts. Stanford has a specific plan for 100% renewable energy for New York state and is working on more plans. Congress is the obstacle. The laws and technology used have been implemented in various countries (e.g. Germany, Denmark, Spain) successfully. I'm not sure what the project management details for the political part of the process of getting this done would look like.