California and other western states are among the darlings of the U.S. Energy Department's solar power initiatives. The Obama administration said it was throwing another few million dollars into the so-called SunShot solar power initiative. Last year, Obama called for renewable energy goals that, by American standards, are pretty lofty. This year, he went a bit further, calling for an "all-of-the-above" domestic energy strategy. But with his administration in the hot seat over the bankruptcy of solar panel company Solyndra, why is there so much political energy behind solar power? Shouldn't there be a bulk renewable energy initiative to help all parts of the alternative energy sector?
Energy Secretary Steven Chu last week said he was going to throw another $12 million behind start up programs in the solar power sector as part of his department's so-called SunShot initiative. SunShot aims to decrease the overall costs tied to solar energy substantially by the end of the decade. This, according to the Energy Department's logic, would make it cheaper to use solar power to generate as much as 18 percent of the total electricity generated in the United States by 2030. By that time, the much-hyped Keystone XL pipeline will have leaked a few dozen times, given the rate at which the current route is dumping that nasty crude oil all over the place.
Obama's critics in the Republican Party aren't too thrilled with his solar power initiatives, however. They want the White House to hand over everything but the kitchen sink in order to get to the bottom of the bankruptcy of Solyndra, which couldn't keep afloat despite a $535 million loan guarantee. That's half-a-billion bucks! Politics aside, that's a lot of money. The White House, however, defended the measure by saying the renewable energy sector was getting very competitive and maybe some of Obama's Chicago-style political muscle was just what the doctor ordered. And then it pumped more money into solar.
A sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What about wind? What about hydroelectric power? What about wave energy? Or algae that makes oil? In Scotland, the government there is throwing money at the smallest of things to get more renewable energy on the grid. They want to go 100-percent renewable, not just make things a bit cheaper to manufacture. Last week, U.S. lawmakers proposed a bill that, ironically, was supposed to take the politics out of the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline. This came at a time when most of the press statements coming out of the British Department of Energy and Climate Change -- note the "and" -- had to do with greening up the economy and, of course, launching the largest offshore wind farm in the world. All of Europe, for whatever it's worth, is looking to actually decarbonize the economy. Yet, U.S. lawmakers are still waxing Palin-ic by chanting 'drill, baby, drill.'
Solar power works and is set to get cheaper. Land use, however, is an issue, unless you have a nice big desert to spare. Wind is fine, assuming you're in an area, well, that's windy. And nobody's too sure about either of those prospects. That leaves biofuels, algae-based solutions, tidal power, and so on. So why solar? Why no WindShot? Or WaveShot? Right now, solar is used to heat salt blocks that boil water for steam energy. Does the United States need a SteamShot? What happened to last year's Sputnik moment? If it's an "all-of-the above" policy, maybe it's a shot of reality Washington needs to start, at least more than on paper, investing in all of the renewable energy resources.
Daniel Graeber is a senior journalist at the energy news site Oilprice.com. He is a writer and political analyst based in Michigan. More of his articles can be found on his Authors page at Oilprice.com
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Frances Beinecke: Americans Send Over 800,000 Messages Opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline in One Day
The obvious reality is drilling for oil and innovation in alternative energy must, and do, occur simultaneously. The current generation of alternative energy technologies are not good enough to replace traditional energy sources. Next generation solutions will likely come from US institutions as this is where the money still is.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,809439,00.html
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/02/21/bjorn-lomborg-germanys-solar-experiment-collapses/
Crossing the 20 Percent Mark: Green Energy Use Jumps in Germany - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
German State Minister: We Can Decarbonize With Renewables Because “We Don’t Have the … Koch Brothers” | ThinkProgress
German Trains To Run on 100% Renewables
In Germany, solar will be as cheap as conventional electricity by 2013 | Grist
Dig beyond slogans. All solar is not the same. It produces at the exact times and in the exact places (our roofs, brownfields, parking lots) where the power is needed. No GHG-spewing, expensive, unreliable transmission, no Big Energy monopolists charging us a fortune, no dead bats or raptors, no clearcut desert ecosystems. Just decentralized, dynamic, reliable and DEMOCRATICALLY-OWNED solar.
Europe gets it and pays its residents fairly for the power they produce but Big Energy America is still staggering around complaining about energy prices then re-empowering the exact people who are ripping us off. Stunningly ignorant.
Aye, there's the rub, as the Bard would say.
the answer is "you are." Doesn't matter if it's oil, coal, wind, solar, gas, or otherwise - it's the same scam. and the solution is not to empower and enrich the unholy alliance of Big Energy and Big Government with ANY type of energy, and to fight harder for democratically-owned energy independence, starting with efficiency upgrades and rooftop solar, and expanding into efficient storage solutions.
We don't have to give our entire future to Big Energy and the government but pretending that it's only Dems or only Repubs is the perfect way to ensure that we keep getting distracted from the real issues and never join forces to solve them.
First, they pay four times as much for electricity as in the US. Second, when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, which is often, they have to buy power from other countries on the spot market. In the US, this is not an option, so we will have to keep at least peak demand capacity always spinning in the form of conventional power. So, our capital costs will be enormous and carbon reductions will be small. Third, they, as Spain found, lose more jobs in the economy than are gained in the green sector, a net hit on the economy.
Germany is praised by the anti-nuke Greens for shutting down eight nuke plants. But they are criticized by the anti-carbon Greens because that shifted demand to coal-fired plants. Can't you people get your stories straight?
Had Europe genuinely depended on green energy on Friday, by Sunday thousands would be dead from frostbite and exposure, and the EU would have suffered an economic body blow to match that of Japan's tsunami a year ago. No electricity means no water, no trams, no trains, no airports, no traffic lights, no phone systems, no sewerage, no factories, no service stations, no office lifts, no central heating and even no hospitals, once their generators run out of fuel.
when france (nuke central) suffered a similar failure to meet demand last month it was the Germans and their ROOFTOP SOLAR who saved the day and exported lots of electricity to France, even as Germany shut down their own nuke plants. Germany is proving it can be done - quickly, affordably and FAIRLY because the people, not stalinist central-station energy conglomerates, own the generation and are paid well for producing the power that is needed, where it is needed.
PV is modular, portable, extremely clean and quiet, affordable and likes the cold. don't lump Big Wind in with nimble, clean local solar...
As for supporting P.V., well it appears we've ceded this opportunity to the Chinese. If we continue to dither, how many more opportunities will we give away?
I hope you will support the restoration of PACE financing so we can all afford to retrofit for increased efficiency and install rooftop solar with no money down and no risk to lender or borrower:
www.pacenow.org/
there is a comment period for the next month and we really need to get this money flowing again, to improve property values, reduce energy consumption, increase democratically-owned and decentralized clean power production, create millions of jobs and engage people in their energy futures as more than Big Energy ATMs!
then, we have an actual free-market economy, which means we can make good decisions. Rooftop solar will come out on top by an enormous margin because WE own it, the power is produced right where and when it's needed (most power is used during solar production times - peak load), and all we need to do is build out microgrids and storage solutions so we can maintain the new, higher level of reliability found with widely distributed, rather than Stalinist centralized energy production...