In the wake of the BP oil spill, some captains of industry have begun calling for government leadership to spur a clean-energy revolution. In June, billionaire software mogul Bill Gates visited Washington and encouraged lawmakers to pony up public subsidies to triple clean-tech R&D funding from $5 billion to $16 billion annually. Gates explained to the Washington Post that much of what is touted as free-market innovation was born of government subsidies: "The Internet and the microprocessor, which were very fundamental to Microsoft being able to take the magic of software and having the PC explode, were among many of the elements that came through government research and development." And on his website Gates wrote, "When it comes to developing new sources of energy, and ways to store that energy, I believe the federal government needs to play a more active role than it does today."
Gates's acknowledgment of the need for government intervention is welcome, but he and many others are stuck on "innovation." The fixation on new "game-changing" technology is omnipresent. Think of the metaphors we use: a green Manhattan Project or a clean-tech Apollo Program. It recalls Tocqueville's observation that "the American lives in a land of wonders, in which everything around him is in constant movement, and every movement seems an advance. Consequently, in his mind the idea of newness is closely linked with that of improvement."
Yet according to clean-tech experts, innovation is now less important than rapid large-scale implementation. In other words, developing a clean-energy economy is not about new gadgets but rather about new policies.
An overemphasis on breakthrough inventions can obscure the fact that most of the energy technologies we need already exist. You know what they are: wind farms, concentrated solar power plants, geothermal and tidal power, all feeding an efficient smart grid that, in turn, powers electric vehicles and radically more energy-efficient buildings.
But the so-called "price gap" is holding back clean tech: It is too expensive, while fossil fuels are far too cheap. The simple fact is that capitalist economies will switch to clean energy on a large scale only when it is cheaper than fossil fuels. The fastest way to close the price gap is to build large clean-tech markets that allow for economies of scale. So, what is the fastest way to build those markets? More research grants? More tax credits? More clumsy pilot programs?
No. The fastest, simplest way to do it is to reorient government procurement away from fossil fuel energy, toward clean energy and technology -- to use the government's vast spending power to create a market for green energy. After all, the government didn't just fund the invention of the microprocessor; it was also the first major consumer of the device.
Call it the Big Green Buy. The advantage of this strategy is that it is something Obama can do right now, without waiting for congressional approval to act. As such, it amounts to a real test of his will to make progress in the fight against climate change.
Consider this: Altogether federal, state and local government constitute more than 38 percent of our GDP. Allow that to sink in for a moment. The federal government will spend $3.6 trillion this year. In more concrete terms, Uncle Sam owns or leases more than 430,000 buildings (mostly large office buildings) and 650,000 vehicles. The federal government is the world's largest consumer of energy and vehicles, and the nation's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Add state and local government activity, and all those numbers grow by about a third again.
A redirection of government purchasing would create massive markets for clean power, electric vehicles and efficient buildings, as well as for more sustainably produced furniture, paper, cleaning supplies, uniforms, food and services. If government bought green, it would drive down marketplace prices sufficiently that the momentum toward green tech would become self-reinforcing and spread to the private sector.
The good news is that, despite our sclerotic, largely right-wing Congress, government agencies are turning toward procurement as a means to jump-start clean tech and cut emissions.
Perhaps the most important move in this direction came in October 2009, when President Obama quietly signed Executive Order 13514, which directs all federal agencies to "increase energy efficiency; measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities; conserve and protect water resources through efficiency, reuse, and stormwater management; eliminate waste, recycle, and prevent pollution; leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials, products, and services; design, construct, maintain, and operate high performance sustainable buildings in sustainable locations."
The executive order also stipulates that federal agencies immediately start purchasing 95 percent through green certified programs and achieve a 28 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2020. The stimulus package passed in 2009 included $32.7 billion for the Energy Department to tackle climate change, and some of that money is now being dispersed to business and federal agencies.
Already some federal agencies are installing energy management systems and new solar arrays in buildings, tapping landfills to burn methane and replacing older vehicles with plug-in hybrids and soon some all-electric vehicles. But it is the green procurement part of the executive order that is most interesting.
Government has tremendous latitude to leverage green procurement because it requires no new taxes, programs or spending, nor is it hostage to the holy grail of sixty votes in the Senate. It is simply a matter of changing how the government buys its energy, vehicles and services. Yes, in many cases clean tech costs more up front, but in most cases savings arrive soon afterward. And government -- because of its size -- is a market mover that has already shown it can leverage money-saving deals.
Currently, the price gap relegates clean tech to boutique status: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom owns an electric car; SF City Hall has three electric-vehicle charging stations; nationwide there are about 55,000 electric vehicles and 5,000 charging stations. Groovy.
However, back on Planet America the asphalt transportation arteries are clogged with 250 million gasoline-powered vehicles sucking down an annual $200-$300 billion worth of fuel from more than 121,000 filling stations. Add to that the cost of heating and cooling buildings, jet travel, shipping, powering industry and the energy-gobbling servers and mainframes that are the Internet, and the US energy economy reaches a spectacular annual tab of $2-$3 trillion.
The clean-tech price gap is partly the result of old dirty tech's history of subsidies ($72.5 billion between 2002 and 2008), but it is also the result of the massive economies of scale that the fossil fuel industry enjoys. In other words, gas pumps and gasoline are cheaper when you buy in bulk.
Closely associated with the price gap is another concept, which clean-tech developers call the "valley of death." This is the time in a technology's life cycle when capital dries up, the time between a technology's initial invention and its successful application as a moneymaking commodity.
A report by Ernst & Young found that a typical technological innovation -- like the flatscreen TV or the cellphone -- costs about $20-$100 million to invent but about $1 billion to deploy at competitive prices. Between government subsidies and capital markets, there is often enough financing available to invent new gadgets or buy into a mature and profitable business. But there is a dearth of capital for new companies trying to cross that gap between victory in the lab and victory in the market.
Smith Electric Vehicles, of Kansas City, is one company that would benefit immensely if government started robust green procurement. Currently Smith, the US affiliate of a British firm that has been making electric delivery trucks for eighty years, turns out about twenty units a month. The vehicles -- flatbeds, refrigerator trucks, basic box-style delivery trucks -- all require components that Smith buys on the open market.
"If we could buy gear boxes in batches of a hundred rather than ten at a time, they could be cast to our specifications rather than each one machined. That would immediately cut the cost by 30 to 40 percent," says Smith CEO Bryan Hansel. Similar savings would be available for other inputs like steel chassis, cabs, drive shafts, suspensions and wiring harnesses, all of which are purchased from the same suppliers used by diesel- and gas-powered vehicle makers.
In March, Smith received a $32 million Energy Department grant that will help it offset the cost of its trucks. But what would really give it a boost is an order of 1,000 trucks a year for the next ten years, from, say, the Defense Department or the Postal Service or the General Services Administration (GSA). If that happened, Smith's plans to open twenty more small manufacturing facilities around the country would shift into high gear.
"We have approached the DoD about nontactical vehicles, like trucks that are used on bases here in the US. They bought four of our vehicles for testing. So we're hopeful," says Hansel. The Defense Department has 160,000 nontactical vehicles, many of which are suitable for electrification.
In other respects, the military is one of the most avid adaptors of clean technology. Of all the energy the federal government consumes, 80 percent is used by the Defense Department. The cost of delivering fuel to forward operating areas can be as high as $400 a gallon, by some estimates. And according to an Army Environmental Policy Institute report, 170 soldiers died and many more were horribly maimed just protecting fuel in combat zones during 2007. For purely strategic reasons the military is trying to free itself (at least a bit) from its clumsy and very long fossil fuel tether.
Thus the military is experimenting on a large scale with green technology. Fort Irwin, in California, is building a 500 megawatt (that is big) solar power plant and is on track to become self-sufficient in electricity use within a decade. Fort Leavenworth is undergoing an energy retrofit that a Pew report described thus: "energy efficiency improvements are made by a private-sector firm at no upfront cost to the Army, with resulting savings shared by the base and the contractor." The list goes on, but unfortunately most of the changes are relatively small scale.
Government procurement, particularly the military's, would become significantly greener if two recently introduced bills became law. The Department of Defense Energy Security Act of 2010, introduced by Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, would require the department to derive a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. And -- good news for Smith Electric Vehicles -- the bill also calls, rather ambitiously, for a full-scale conversion of the military's nontactical vehicle fleet to electric, hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles by 2015.
A similar bill, introduced by Democrat Jose Serrano of New York, would require the Postal Service to purchase at least 20,000 electric vehicles by 2015. That goal is reasonable, and the USPS is a perfect place to start, as most of its vehicles travel in loops of less than 20 miles each day and always park in the same garage. Thus, even current battery technology is sufficient. Many other government fleets fit the same profile: they have regular routes of less than 100 miles a day and use the same parking spot each night, so they are easy and cheaper to charge because the price of juice drops at night.
Right now a vehicle from Smith is about 20 percent more expensive than a standard gas or diesel truck. But the cost per mile to run an electric truck is about one-third the cost per mile of a gas- or diesel-powered one. Hansel says that with enough large orders his product will reach cost parity with dirty-tech options. When that happens, large private-sector fleets, like UPS, FedEx, Staples and Frito-Lay, will start buying electric vehicles simply because it will be the cheaper option.
In anticipation of that day, Nissan is releasing the 2011 Leaf, a fully electric plug-in car. It plans to make 90,000 of them. Chevy is coming out with the Volt -- 10,000 of them. Will this first generation of EVs really have a market, and sufficient charging options? Who knows? But you can be sure they would if Big Government made the Big Green Buy.
Buildings also use lots of energy. The US Green Building Council reports that buildings account for about 36 percent of America's total energy use and emit roughly the same proportion of greenhouse gases. But if properly constructed and managed, many buildings could actually generate energy for their own use, for vehicles or to put back into the grid.
The government's building manager -- its janitor, if you will -- is the GSA. The GSA constructs, repairs and manages federal buildings; it buys the supplies and keeps the heat and AC on; and it buys and maintains much of the government's nonmilitary vehicle fleet. It also acts as a purchaser and contractor of sorts for most other federal agencies. The GSA is about as dull an agency as you can imagine. It has pocket-protector and brown shoes written all over it. But in the age of climate change, its brief has taken on vital importance. The implications of Executive Order 13514 have put the GSA, along with the military, at the cutting edge of the Big Green Buy.
"We're taking this very seriously," says Martha Johnson, administrator of the GSA. "We are normally sort of overlooked, but we were thrilled, really excited, when the president gave us such prominent place in his environmental strategy."
President Bill Clinton issued four executive orders on sustainable clean procurement, but they lacked specific targets or enforcement mechanisms and thus achieved very little. "Our progress in general in buying these products stinks," said Dana Arnold, senior program manager at the White House Office of the Federal Environmental Executive in a recent interview with the Federal Times.
This time it may be different, and the GSA is gearing up to be the point agency in what is sometimes called Environmentally Preferable Procurement, or "green supply chain management." The GSA is putting up solar arrays, buying a few electric cars and hybrids, trying to produce energy at its buildings and buying renewable energy like biomass, solar and wind power, which now account for 10.8 percent of the GSA's federal building power supply. It is also creating monitoring systems to track progress and keep federal agencies accountable.
The GSA's sustainability plan requires "a minimum of three percent renewable energy source for all competitive electricity supply contracts and requires that renewable energy be from a plant that was recently built in order to stimulate greater investment in the industry." The agency has reduced its own energy use by 15 percent, as measured against a 2003 baseline, and plans to reduce energy consumption in its buildings by 30 percent from that baseline by 2020. Already the GSA's building stock -- mostly offices -- is about 22 percent more efficient than similar private-sector buildings.
In addition, the GSA is working on cutting the amount of jet travel its workforce requires and, when possible, increasing telecommuting and home-based work. It is also pressuring other agencies to shut off unused data centers -- the USDA, for example, uses only between 10 percent and 20 percent of its total computing capacity, but its huge, largely empty servers run at 100 percent of power.
Other federal agencies, however, are lagging far behind. "It is amazing to us to find out the low level of awareness," says Linda Mesaros, a consultant for sustainable purchasing. State and local governments are also moving toward green procurement, but few have been very aggressive or ambitious.
Nor are the main pieces of energy and climate legislation focusing on procurement. The American Energy Innovation Council -- which includes Bill Gates and executives from companies like Xerox, General Electric and Bank of America -- is lobbying for a research plan and money and pilot programs all focused on expensive and spectacular new technology, like small fourth-generation nukes. The plan totally ignores the Big Green Buy strategy.
Another group, the Electrification Coalition -- made up of CEOs from FedEx, Nissan and PG&E - -has published an ambitious 180-page plan for converting America's light-duty vehicle fleet to 75 percent electric miles by 2040. It also calls for radically upgrading America's old, overburdened, semi-deregulated and thus chaotic electrical grid, which loses about twice as much power in transmission as it did in the 1970s. The EC is lobbying hard and has helped shape the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010, legislation being championed by Representative Ed Markey.
But again, neither Markey's staff nor the EC is comfortable demanding the Big Green Buy. "We don't think that is the best approach" was all I could get from a Markey staffer. Instead, the EC proposes a Rube Goldberg-style scheme of geographic target areas that will receive multiple layers of consumer and industry tax credits and tax breaks -- $7 billion total. That may sound big, but in the face of the climate crisis it is Lilliputian.
This approach is emblematic of the intellectual poverty of the political class and business elites. The bill is entirely too clever for its own good, painfully complicated in its tinkering instrumentalism, which in the end would do very little and do it too late, like an impoverished family scrounging for dinner money on the eve of their eviction. And the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act will be red meat to the climate deniers and fiscal hawks. You can almost hear the derision now: If yuppies in Berkeley want to drive funny new plug-in cars, why do we have to pay for it?
Viewed broadly, there are four simple things the government can do to help close the clean-technology price gap and aid clean-tech business across the valley of death.
First, it can boost R&D as Gates has requested, but that alone won't bring mass-scale green power on line.
Second, it can set up a Green Bank tasked with financing clean-tech businesses as they cross the valley of death. Along with loans, the government can offer more loan guarantees, which encourage otherwise frightened private capital to invest in clean-energy start-ups. The Waxman-Markey climate bill of last year included language to do that, but nothing like it is yet law.
Third, the government can impose mandates on the private sector requiring companies to adopt electric vehicles, purchase clean energy and conserve energy. Industry already lives with numerous rules that put limits on the anarchy of production. Yet in the crazy world of American politics circa 2010, forcing green procurement mandates on business would be very difficult.
So let's get real. The fourth path is the best: a robust program of green procurement is the most immediate and politically feasible thing government can do to boost the clean-tech sector. And the only number that approaches the scale of the energy economy is government spending on energy. We need to be talking not about millions or billions but trillions of dollars going in a new direction. If the government is serious about electric vehicles -- then just buy them already!
At one level, the mad Tea Partiers are correct: government is leviathan -- a monster. But it is our monster, and with proper leadership, even this government in the current climate could jump-start a clean-energy revolution.
This article appeared in the August 2/9, 2010 edition of The Nation.
"The Big Green Buy" is part of a special issue of The Nation Magazine about green energy and how we can get off oil. You can see the whole issue here.
And you can see a video discussion about this article here.
Sort of. But while wind and solar have come a long way, and made huge technical advances over the past few decades, they're still a long way from making much of a dent, percentage-wise, in how we generate electricity. The largest solar power plants generate something like 60 MW of power. Not bad, but an average coal electricity plant generates 650 MW. To begin to match the amount of electric power made by coal plants, wind and solar need a lot of land. Is there enough to go around? Plus, there's the ever present problem of storage. What happens at night or when there's no wind? Finally, the "smart grid" is still in its infancy. For the most part, electricity still flows one way--from power plants to homes and buildings.
My point isn't dismiss renewable energy. On the contrary, renewables are not only necessary but inevitable. Whether to mitigate climate change or bolster national security or due to the inescapable fact that, sooner or later, fossil fuels will run out, we'll be forced to turn to renewable energy sooner or later. But the transition probably won't be as simple as the US govt plowing trillions into buying electric cars. There are plenty of technology issues still requiring attention.
I think the foot-dragging, obstruction and denial from the right also has its roots in a world view that relates explotation and "dominion" over the earth with "God's Will." They are suspicious of seeing nature as a manifestation of the divine, which strikes them as neo-pagan, but rather imagine resources as being here to serve us. A perfect example is Sarah Palin. She comes from the most naturally beautiful state in the U.S., and thinks nothing of racing deafening snowmobiles, shooting moose and drill, baby, drill.
The idea of cooperating with the earth seems to offend the right. I think they see solar and wind as far too gentle--none of the macho rush of on oil gusher, the sense of winning a battle. They seem to have a fundamentally violent view of the world--we see it in the glorification of war, guns and militarism; and a contempt for "birkenstock-wearing vegetarian tree-huggers."
Give me chardonnay-sipping pacifists hybrid-drivers any day. These cowboy capitalist cattle-drivers seem intent on destroying the planet as fast as they can.
Also, it would be a good investment to put money into mass transit. I know here, in the Bay Area all aspects of mass transit have been hit with less service, higher fees. I think the SF metro buses recently restored a few lines but the general trend has been increased cost to the consumer. Even bridge tolls, previously free for car pools are now charging. Getting people out of the one person/one vehicle habit helps a lot.
Lastly, while large solar farms or wind farms may be the way to convince some people green energy is affordable, the idea of solar on individual buildings is actually more likely to produce better results in the long run.
It's all there for the taking if govt stopped feeding the fossil fuels lobbies, and drastically, and IMMEDIATELY redirected the energy policy of our country. Thank you, Christian Parenti, for the reminder.
A worldwide investment in 10000 mass produced nuclear reactors paid for by ending expensive fossil fuel use, would eliminate most air pollution saving millions of lives annually, end the global warming/ peak oil problem within a ten year time frame, provide a huge job producing boost to the economy, and require only a small part of our industrial capacity.
The simple, easy, cheap solution to the entire energy/peak oil/ climate warming problem starts with a conversion from coal and NG electricity and heating applications to mass produced nuclear electricity. The freed up gas would be available to make CNG, methanol, DME (propane), and synfuel transportation fuels.
The US could do it with 2500 gigawatts of nukes at $2500B financed by the $800B paid every year into the coffers of Big Oil/Coal for their deadly products.
Currently Asian nukes are under $2B/Gw and 2 cents a kwh.Out current nuke operating cost is under 2 cents a kwh way less than coal or NG. AECL and Westinghouse are predicting less than half that for their new mass produced Gen 3+ units.
Like TVA and Bonneville lets start a giant public power nuke corporation charged with replacing all of America's coal plants on site with a single national license.
Ya, that's a great idea. It's not thievery or anything.
I don't care what the "cause." Taking money by force from people to pay for it is wrong.
I have a two year old solar array which makes 120% of the electricity I use and through net metering the extra goes back into the grid.
I stopped farming in Jan. so do not need my F150 pickup, traded it for a Honda Insight Hybrid (wanted electric but could not afford) 46.7 MPG !
I'm not rich but these things are what I feel strongly about. Doing my part. The major power provider in Vermont is Vermont Yankee Nuclear which is leaking tritium and strontium and other isotopes . VY is due in 2012 to either be decommissioned or relicensed , either will increase the costs of power. We also get power from Hydro Quebec which is due for a new contract also in 2012.
( I bet the new contract will raise the rates).
That said my payback will increase accordingly !
If we all did what we can we will get to a better place sooner.
Nirek
The toxic assets absorbed by the gov't effectively took money out of circulation, and the big banks and corporations are sitting on their cash, further reducing the cash in circulation; this is a monetary emergency not remedied by more of the same old thing. As Einstein said, the thinking that got us into the mess will not be the thinking to get us out. Come on Obama, you can do it, and the world will keep on spinning around!
webofdebt.com, secretofoz.org, ineteconomics.org, newdeal20.org
We need to both as well as continuing to build the current Gen 3 reactors.
NG is a great transition fuel for transpo only until electrics and nuclear generated synthetic fuels become available.
There is a plan for businesses and homeowners to retro-fit their buildings for energy efficiency through PACE bonds http://www.pacenow.org/.”
Also read what the government plans to do enable the process in http://pacenow.org/documents/Recovery_Through_Retrofit_Final_Report.pdf that precisely spells out both the public and private roles that creates a market through which private sector jobs are created.
Every homeowner and business owner should be aware of what's going on.
Obviously this is addition to what the Mr. Parenti has written.
Creation of a new asset class that will absorb some of the excess capital around the world and help alleviate the chance of more asset bubbles forming.
Creates a permanent market with a business plan, investors and paying customers. As opposed to a one-time government intervention
Reduces the trade deficit.
Puts money back into people's pockets through reduced utility bills.
Advances the idea of community borrowing which although not a state bank, it is a step in the right direction.
If Congress passes a bill to back them like Treasuries the interest rate would be much lower.
Although interest rates are an entirely different topic where in the 50's and 60's there was a balance between borrower and lender, today's adjustable rates and credit card rates the economic engine is suffering greatly.
Save money, cut the deficit, employ everyone, cut energy dependence:
Immediately order energy retrofits for all gov buildings.
Rooftop PV Solar, Offshore wind, and Waste Bio char, can supply the worlds energy and fuel needs: cleanly, safely, Forever, within 12 years and cheaper in the long run 2-6 cents now, and 26$ per barrel bio oils.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
about 1$ per Wp solar panels, new.
install solar plants for about $1.30 per watt, compared with an industry average of about $1.75, according to Hardy." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a7K1FZoNgJ0w
Wind: “between two and six cents today, depending on location.12 Wind power approaches competitiveness with conventional generation at this price point. “
http://www.repp.org/articles/static/1/binaries/wind%20issue%20brief_FINAL.pdf
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/BiofBioproBioref%203,%20547-562,%202009%20Laird.pdf
26$ per barrel bio oil from waste bio char.
Read wind cost.
Cape Wind is 24 cents a kwh going to 34 over 15 years - approved tariff
Arcadia Solar just built largest solar plant in the US is 50 cents a kwh at Florida Powers Rate of Return on Investment.
Biofuels from waste biomass producing waste biochar can produce almost no energy after the waste stream is properly processed for compost and recyclables.
Please also don't underestimate empowering individuals and businesses to retrofit for efficiency and clean, point of use power production. PACE loans and Feed in Tariffs would go a VERY long way towards seeing our built environment emit drastically fewer GHGs, while saving huge amounts of money for ratepayers (not to mention sparing our fragile deserts from total destruction by Chevron Solar, BP Wind, and friends). People REALLY want to use solar power, but they are forced to pay for 40 years of it up-front! That is insane, and is designed to totally skew towards Big Energy profiteering.
Democratic, local solutions which work towards a "net zero" built environment are critical to sustainability. We need policies which get us there immediately, not in 10 years...
I also keep telling people we have to end fossil use because it is pure poison
What the government can do is fund high risk research at universities and national laboratories and then work with industry to bring the tech into the market. This has occurred with the Hyperion Power module. This small (25 MWe) nuclear reactor concept was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and licensed to Hyperion. I wish these reactors had existed when we entered Iraq and Afghanistan. The transport of many thousands of gallons of fuel could have been avoided, thus hundreds of lives saved by reducing the number of required supply convoys.
However, that's just not true. The issue isn't that we need to buy more Green energy technology for it to be profitable; it's that it's not currently profitable with ANY level of investment. It simply costs too many dollars for every windmill or solar panel to be built using existing manufacturing methods. That is why Bill Gates and others are calling for spending on R&D. It's not that they're holding out for an as-yet-unheard-of technology; they understand that the focus needs to be on developing superior (cheaper) manufacturing techniques.
Until those are developed, the cost of building Green energy technology will continue to stay so high as to require massive subsidies. Thus, buying more will only increase the amount of subsidies the taxpayers are on the hook for. Bill Gates has it right - invest in the R&D that will bring down the cost, and then spend the money.
Solar just has to compete with peak daytime commercial rates, the most expensive electricity there is. If you put solar panels on the roof of your business, they will save you electricity for 25 years, with no maintenance. The electricity they save is expensive; ask any large business what they pay for daytime electricity.
AC is 40% of US electric consumption. Hot sunny days are when peak usage and brownouts occur - exactly when solar produce peak power. If we encourage private ownership of solar, we won't need to build any new plants for a long time.
First Solar is about at "grid parity", meaning their panels pay for themselves with no subsidy, and they are leasing rooftop space and will become their own utility. Solar will be cheaper than "the grid" by 2015, from all vendors.
The future of solar is privately-owned, particularly by businesses. Every panel put up takes business from the utilities. They know that, and have a big PR campaign against solar, in favor of nuclear or other sources where they can continue to monopolize power.
Most of what you think you know about solar is misinformation from the utilities. Where corporations don't rule, nations are installing solar like crazy. China just put up $14B for their businesses to install solar.
Further, while I'll admit that solar can compete with daytime peak hours, those costs are artificial - they are spiked because the seller knows that buyer (i.e., the utility) is contractually obliged to buy it - not because it's a market rate. Think of it as extorting a captive market. Also, just because AC is high demand doesn't mean that solar will solve it. The average wattage during a sunny day is almost as high in winter as summer (just due to difference in angle/atmospheric absorbtion).
China is trying to get ahead to make money for when the US and other countried handicap themselves with mandating Green energy, not because they think it's great.
Most of what I know comes from trade studies (not utility companies). Companies only want these if they can get somebody else (like the US taxpayer) to foot the bill.
SunPower has been researching solar for 20 years.
It can now produce 24% efficient panels, the limit predicted by physicists.
Article is correct: solar is ready for volume.
BTW: those "LED-backlit" HD TVs that are now affordable, use about 1/4 of the electricity?
They are a solar panel. A LED light and a solar panel are essentially the same thing.
They'll be in everyone's TV set in five years, and the roofs of all buildings.
They're just big computer chips, after all. We know all about working with silicon.
And not to be too critical, but your LED TV argument is also irrelevant. I'm not sure what your source is (and I'm skeptical that a Light-emitting-diode can also receive light; it's not a microphone), but even if I give you that, LED HD TVs are... expensive. That's hundreds of dollars a square foot - I hardly think that is an effective price.
As for your comment about LEDs being silicon and all knowing about silicon - it makes me even more skeptical, I'm afraid. Electrical parts aren't interchangeable or magical.