This may be a better time than ever for renewable energy. The climate for passing laws that would create subsidies for it are promising: last year, the Production Tax Credit for wind power was extended, along with a hefty longterm-Investment tax credit for solar power. ...But Bruno Mejean isn't feeling the winds of change just yet. The managing director and deputy general manager of Nord/LB, New York, a German financial institution, ...anticipates obstacles for the wind-energy sector in particular, and the biggest drag on developing renewable-energy projects, he says, is the prospect of a longterm low price for natural gas.

This economy, proponents say, promises to rebuild communities abandoned by bankrupt manufacturers, restore jobs lost by the busted housing market and reinstate America as a global leader. Not so fast. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says renewable energy has the potential to create "tens of thousands of jobs" in Nevada and more than a million nationwide, little research has been done on actual job creation in such an unchartered area.

As Congress prepares to tackle global warming, Americans are nervously fingering their pocketbooks. Projected cost increases associated with a proposed cap-and-trade program have ranged from $175 a household in 2020, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office, to an annual average of $2,979 in Heritage Foundation estimates.

With credit costlier and harder to come by, and oil and natural gas prices down sharply over the past year, the nation's nascent wind industry may begin to focus on smaller projects that are closer to major population centers rather than massive developments like 81-year-old Pickens envisioned, industry officials said. "You've got an industry that is kind of hanging on by its fingernails," said Denise Bode, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association.

"New wind-farm activity has slowed as developers, wind-turbine equipment manufacturers and their financing sources are waiting to see what government benefits can be expected," CEO and Chairman Zsolt Rumy said in a statement. "Although project cancellations are very uncommon, a number of them are on hold until the economic uncertainties are cleared up."

U.S. President Barack Obama, whose administration has made clean energy a top priority, told reporters the bill "ushers in a critical transition to a clean energy economy..." But opponents say it will amount to a heavy tax on industry that will put people out of work. Over time, the cap becomes more stringent to reduce carbon emissions, causing the cost of permits to surge and forcing factories to relocate to Asia, critics said.

Building transmission lines would cost as much as $4 billion a year, and managing its variability would add further to its price, the Pew Center said in a report today. Prices would still be competitive with other energy sources if the U.S. approves legislation to limit greenhouse gases, the group said.

A growing number of advocates, among them Governor Corzine and President Obama, believe that energy efficiency and renewable energy could not only help the environment but replace jobs lost in the recession. Critics, however, say that's an expensive and unproven way to create jobs that will destroy jobs in other sectors, and in many cases will be little more than putting a green veneer on existing trades. "If you spend a billion dollars, sure you will create jobs," said William T. Bogart, an economic professor and dean of York College of Pennsylvania. "The question is, on net, how many?

The U.S. government is committing billions of dollars to support renewable energy such as wind- and solar-power plants. Some say it should use more of that financial clout to encourage less energy consumption in the first place. Advocates of conservation, including businesses that help homeowners and companies save energy, think there should be more subsidies and tax incentives for basics like insulation and window shading, and for newer, more costly products like light-emitting-diode lamps and building-automation systems.

Massive investment in renewable energy could ultimately create 4 million manufacturing jobs. But for the workers in the bottom rung of this movement, the shift to green jobs could very well mean a pay cut of nearly 60%, a trend spreading across the entire manufacturing sector.

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, says it is "inevitable" that the manufacturing of renewable energy components - mainly solar modules and wind turbines - will move to China and, to a lesser extent, India. "The PV cells made there are not of as high a quality yet [as those made in Europe] but they will get there." This view is echoed by George Frampton, former chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and a member of the Obama campaign's transition team. He says: "There is a very strong momentum. And it's not just because of the cost, it's also that I'm not that optimistic that this market is going to boom in the US."

Blumenfeld isn't the only one feeling the pinch of the recession's credit crunch. Despite the Obama administration's spotlight on renewables and $54 billion in clean energy incentives packaged into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, startup renewable energy companies are struggling to get new projects off the ground. Jeff Dalebroux, a Chicago-based finance attorney who works with infrastructure and project finance at Dykema Gosset PLLC, said the problem stems from a host of issues.

[Dalton Utilities president and CEO Don Cope] said he had listened last week to a presentation by the Edison Electric Institute, an organization that all of the large, shareholder-owned utilities belong to, on the possibility of legislation capping carbon emissions produced by fossil fuels such as coal and oil. "Their estimate is that it will cost the average household in the United States between $3,000 and $6,000 per year," he said.

Clean energy has a dirty secret. It isn't cheap. Consumers already are starting to feel at least a modest pinch in their electric bills. The impact is expected to grow in the next few years as utilities accelerate their investments to meet state quotas requiring a portion of clean energy in their generation mix.

Windmills and solar panel arrays have become symbols of America's growing interest in alternative energy. Yet as Congress begins debating new rules to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and promote electricity produced from renewable sources, an underlying question is how much more Americans will be willing to pay to harness the wind and the sun.

Subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created if Spain's experience with windmills and solar farms is any guide. For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. U.S. President Barack Obama's 2010 budget proposal contains about $20 billion in tax incentives for clean-energy programs.

No, the big stimulus plan won't "save or create 3.5 million jobs," as the president and congressional Democrats claim - at least not this year. The economy will remain feeble through 2009, analysts warn, and businesses will keep shedding jobs ...The stimulus agreement, heading for final votes in the next day or so, goes to the heart of President Barack Obama's strategy to revive the economy and will go far in shaping how Americans view his economic leadership. What it won't do is quickly snap the country out of the painful recession, now in its second year.

A study released on the eve of a national conference on green jobs says that emerging eco-friendly work must provide adequate pay and benefits -- or risk damaging efforts to restore the economy and strive for environmental sustainability. The study released yesterday, "High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy." ..."One of the greatest risks is that, in our haste to create a large quantity of new green jobs, we pay too little attention to their quality," researchers said.

Fortune's eco-blog, Green Wombat ran a story under the headline, "Wind jobs outstrip the coal industry." ...But it's a bogus comparison. According to the wind energy report, those 85,000 jobs in wind power are as "varied as turbine component manufacturing, construction and installation of wind turbines, wind turbine operations and maintenance, legal and marketing services, and more." The 81,000 coal jobs counted by the Department of Energy are only miners.