奥巴马的清洁能力计划如何影响投资者

The Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s proposal for carbon emission reductions that was unveiled June 2, will have implications for investors in coal and clean energy, say energy-focused analysts and asset managers, though most of those ramifications will be region-specific and unlikely to emerge for a few years. Many of those observers add that on the broadest scale the rules probably won’t dramatically hasten the change that the U.S. power generation industry is already confronting.

The president’s outline for clean energy aims to slash the U.S. power sector’s carbon emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. A 645-page documentreleased by the Environmental Protection Agency上周提出了一种逐个国家来实现这一目标的方法，其中每个州已经给出了自己的碳减少目标，以及最灵活地确定其如何应对其清洁能量目标。The EPA’s proposal anticipates an economic burden on affected industries of up to $8.8 billion per year by 2030, whereas a report released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce puts the number at $51 billion a year on average — though that report was released before the EPA analysis and assumed a reduction target of 42 percent by 2030. One reason the numbers vary so widely is because states’ implementation of the rules can and will take many forms. The EPA has modeled a few ways in which they can comply, however: States can make coal plants more efficient or shut them down; increase the proportion of natural gas — which produces half as much carbon per unit of electricity as coal — in power generation; keep nuclear power plants open; pursue renewables as a power source; or possibly push for energy efficiency retrofits of commercial and residential buildings to lower the demand for electricity.

“We do think there could be credit implications of this [proposal],” says Michael Ferguson, a credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s in New York who covers merchant energy producers. “But we think they’re probably going to be a few years out, and we really don’t know yet how each of the individual states is going to go about achieving these goals.”

他说，煤炭电厂 - 特别是中西部和东南部的煤炭电厂 - 未来信贷降级的风险最多。这些地区的各国尚未尽快采用自己的环境标准，而他们的电力行业将进一步迎接其目标。在加利福尼亚州和东北部的九个国家参与区域温室气体倡议（加拿大东部）已经设定了自己的碳缩减目标，并且不必改变尽可能多地遵守环保署施加的目标。

史蒂文粪便纽约沃尔夫研究的电力公用事业分析师指出，在不同天然气动力的状态下，煤炭发电厂也比没有气体的状态更容易受到伤害。Fleishman上周在一项研究中写道，“11个州才能从投资组合混合中消除煤炭，因为EPA假设天然气完全取代它。”他补充说，德克萨斯州预计煤炭产量减少了50％的煤炭产量 - 煤重发电公司，在那里有重大市场份额。相比之下，西弗吉尼亚州和肯塔基州没有天然气产业的存在，所以这些国家将不得不摆脱煤炭的目标。

Fleishman adds that the EPA’s proposal is positive for nuclear generation companies, since the rules give states credit toward their reduction goals for keeping open nuclear plants that they were considering shuttering.

可再生能源，如风和太阳能，也可以准备好受益，鉴于排放量节省这些电源可以代表。但是，直到各国开始公开其实施计划，他们必须难以弥补，他们必须在2016年6月到申请。

“这应该有助于可再生能源，因为为了达到碳的降低的国家目标，它可能是最古老，最效率低下的单位的删除或季节性的，并且他们可能会用低碳巨型队伍替代那些兆瓦的兆瓦，“说斯蒂芬巴斯是旧金山瑞银的另一种能源分析师。“所说，各国有能选择促进能效计划，许多人也可能占据这条路线。总而言之，可能会有一系列的方法。“

But at least for the moment, it’s the added certainty and vote of confidence from the EPA’s proposal that matter most for the clean energy sector, says Sheeraz Haji, CEO of Cleantech Group, a San Francisco–based research and advisory firm. He believes the regulator’s move could signal a sentiment shift and offer reluctant would-be cleantech investors the policy assurance they’ve been missing. According to Cleantech Group, investment dollars to the cleantech industry fell by 15 percent in 2013 from the year before. Haji says the Clean Power Plan could help ensure that last year’s figure is the industry’s nadir.

“We could see a shift in terms of more dollars to the space much sooner than in five or ten years,” he says. “I think it can happen in a year or two.”

但是其他行业专家怀疑市场response will be that swift or dramatic. Rob Romero, founder of and portfolio manager at $110.5 million, Palo Alto, California–based hedge fund firm Connective Capital Management, which dedicates 30 percent of its portfolio to emerging energy investments, calls the emissions rules “somewhat lenient” and says he believes the EPA’s choice of 2005 as a benchmark year is “somewhat of a concession,” since that year represented a peak in greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon pollution has already fallen 12 percent since then.

Peter Fusaro, an adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University who researches renewable energy project development and finance and is an investment adviser to hedge fund firms and a former regulator with the U.S. Department of Energy, agrees, calling the EPA carbon plan “window dressing” that isn’t likely to have a discernible effect on speeding up current trends.

“Frankly, Energy Economics 101 is already moving the needle with retirement of inefficient coal plants, cheap natural gas and the renewable energy revolution, which is continuing to grow,” says Fusaro. “They should have gone for much more significant cuts by 2030.”

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