Listening to an NPR story yesterday about a San Diego company that makes solar-powered parking meters and has doubled its number of employees during the past year was a nice counterpoint to all the frantic attempts recently by supporters of dirty energy to disparage the solar industry. Fortunately, most Americans haven't been buying it. Recent polling and surveys indicate that, by and large, regardless of our politics, we still think developing solar energy is a great idea.
Think about that last sentence for just a second. People in this country who vote Democratic think that solar energy is smart for the country, and people who vote Republican feel the same way. It's an issue that unites us. There don't seem to be that many of those these days, so it's worth examining why.
No, I don't think it's because the U.S. solar power market grew a record 67 percent last year, which makes it our fastest-growing energy sector. And it's probably not solely because the solar industry created jobs at a much higher rate than the rest of the U.S. economy during the past year. I don't even think it's because the cost of residential solar panels has dropped to the point where it's now affordable for millions of homeowners to buy or lease a system and start saving on energy while helping the environment.
These are all great things, obviously. The Sierra Club even has a program to promote solar-leasing to our members and supporters that runs through the end of this month. Too many homeowners still don't realize that they can get a solar system installed for little -- or even zero -- money down.
But I don't think economic stats are what's behind solar energy's broad-based support from the American public. Instead, it's something so basic and obvious that folks just "get it": Capturing energy from the sun is renewable and sustainable, while burning fossil fuels is not. Clean energy is easier. And that means that solar energy will always make more sense economically in the long run.
But what a lot of people might not realize is that we aren't just talking about the long run anymore. Solar makes more sense economically right now. Compare it, for example, to generating electricity by burning coal. An article in the August issue of the American Economic Review (the journal of the American Economic Association, a group that no one has ever accused of being a bunch of tree-huggers), shows that the overall costs to our economy of burning coal are so high that they're actually greater than the market price of the energy that's generated. In other words, the roughly $53 billion in damages that the coal industry inflicts on our economy every single year is greater than the value of the electricity it generates!
And yet the supporters of Big Coal want us to believe that solar energy (the fast-growing, job-creating, renewable-energy alternative) doesn't make economic sense? I think their meter's in the red and their time is up. Want to help get the real facts out there? Take this Solar Energy Quiz and share it with your friends. I bet you already know more about solar than certain members of Congress.
Follow Michael Brune on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bruneski
Edward Flattau: Solar Scapegoat
http://greenconstructionmart.com/
More solar and green installed than fossil and nukes in 2008. Green energy is the fastest growing energy sources. Beating fossil and nukes in absolute installed W in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_electricity_net_generation_in_the_world.svg
Stop the Republic? Let the 1000 richest families rule like they did before the Locke liberal Founders created the USA? Why do you want to be ruled by the rich?
Second, thank you for the links.
Third, the subsidies referenced, were international, not U.S., so fossil (not just coal) got 557 billion, vs. 47 billion for "renewables" worldwide.
I went through the links, and tried to understand the numbers. I broke down the numbers in several categories, health, synthetic, environmental (new tech, gov driven), government projects (fed, state, city, co-op), and industry. Of the data for U.S, Projects, it broke down like this. Government Projects 45%, Synthetic fuels 27.5%, Environmental 15%, Health studies 8%, Industry 4.5% of $18.3 billion.
I don't want to stop the Republic, but I do want to stop most of the 536 elected officials from doing what they are doing. I'll say it again, the government can you’re your possessions, your freedom, and your life. Business can't do any of that, and you would have to do something illegal to have the business use the government to support them. I don't fear business, but I've worked with too many government agencies in my career, and I have seen what they are capable of doing to business and individuals (fortunately not me). They blackmail and threaten businesses, and even put them out of business, and they are proud of it.
Again, thank you for the civil discussion. I will keep checking the numbers and look for more links.
Plug in hybrids are the way to go. No range limits.
I'm not opposed to other energy types, just government mandates.
Now for the facts:
Rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio char bio fuels are cheaper, or soon will be, than nukes, new coal, and oil wars. In combination, these green energies are 24/7, forever, clean, safe, ready to replace all fossil and nukes in 7-15 years, Carbon, land and fresh water negative.
Solar: http://solar.gwu.edu/Research/EnergyPolicy_Zweibel2010.pdf 1-2 cents per KWH after the first 20 years and the loan is paid off.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/
Far more solar than any other energy: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/
http://www.sunelec.com/ 75 cents per Wp.
cheapest new solar panels 1-2$/Wp http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
Wind 6 months energy payback: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/wind_turbine_lca.php
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/EnergyBalanceofWindTurbines.html 3 months
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/03/18/offshore-wind-energy-cheaper-than-nuclear-energy-eu-climate-chief-says/
http://www.plancanada.com/biochar_basics.pdf
2$ per watt waste bio char energy plant. 100 GW electricity
Clean and green zero environmental footprint nuclear costs less than 3 cents a kwh over its lifetime.
3 cent per KWH Nukes Lie:
"Note: the above data refer to fuel plus operation and maintenance costs only, they exclude capital, since this varies greatly among utilities and states, as well as with the age of the plant."
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
that's how he gets 3 cents. Solar cost ZERO not including capital costs.
http://sandiegocountysolar.com
www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
Now, what's the energy payback on fossil fuel or nuke? There is none - it's infinite, because you have to add fuel to get energy out.
Nuclear uses far less non renewable resource per lifetime kwh than solar.
Twenty years from now all the junk dirt cheap solar panels from china costing over 60 cents a kwh with gas backup and 5 times sized transmission lines, will be dead from seal failure like a cheap skylite and will be filling toxic waste dumps with cubic miles of debris.
The 'about two year' number you reference is a projected in at least ten years time frame estimate.
There are a lot of problems with solar, just as with any other energy-producer. On a small scale it can work well, but it is in no way a replacement for current models. In fact, there are no replacements for current models. We will have to get used to consuming less power. Period.
Extremely depressing, just like the rabid cheerleading for mass-scale desert death for Chevron Solar and BP Wind so our "clean" energy future can be dominated by wilderness killing multinationals who are simultaneously CAUSING the AGW problem and being paid both coming and going. Total racket. Not to mention that all the solar power being generated in the deserts is being sold to locations that could PRODUCE THE SAME SOLAR POWER ON ROOFTOPS FOR HALF THE COST and without killing off endangered species and entire ecosystems.
Time to seriously reconsider how you approach solar - some of it is as bad as the problems you are pretending to solve (desert), most of it is pointlessly expensive (leases), and the best of it - local, democratically-owned solar in the built environment needs legitimate advocacy for German style feed in tariffs and PACE loans NOW!
However, many parts of the US are not blessed with the same number of sunny days. SC is hot and unbearably humid from the middle of May to the beginning of October. Our home here is overhung with large deciduous trees which do a dandy job of mitigating both heat and humidity in the Summer and insuring the sun shines into our rooms in the Winter. Solar would not be economical.
We need to be considering a choice of "all of the above" including solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind, coal, natural gas, hydrogen, biofuel and petroleum.
No coal, no fracking, probably no hydrogen for decades if ever, no nukes, no oil. These we want to phase out over the next couple decades.
Hello! Reality to Middle Earth. Gas at anything over $3.99 per gallon and energy your average lower middle class family can't afford is going to put this country into an economic Winter that will make today's dismal economic numbers look like 1999.
There certainly isn't a "one size fist all" answer to this problem. We need multiple approaches.
-Owner of a solar system that was made possible by petroleum energy.
How many reason do we need to stop our Fossil and nuke dependency and go green?
Global climate change,
Wars for oil,
Muslim fanatical funding for oil,
Oil spills killing billions of fish, and destroying gulf sized ecosystem for oil.
Mountain top and river system destruction,
Fossil toxic heavy metal pollution,
Nuclear waste, disaster, proliferation and terrorism,
And Green is cheaper or very soon to be cheaper than all the fossil and nukes.
What are we waiting for?
rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio char bio fuels (FT too).
in combination,
Can provide all the fuels, chemicals, energy we need, more than now, forever, 24/7 using the waste bio fuels in existing gas turbines, safe, clean, carbon, land and water negative, ready now to grow by doubling every year or so as it has been, to replace fossil and nukes within 7-15 years.
http://solarcellcentral.com/companies_page.html first solar 2.5$ per Wp installed.
http://solar.gwu.edu/Research/EnergyPolicy_Zweibel2010.pdf 1-2 cents KWH
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/
http://www.sunelec.com/ 75 cents per Wp.
1-2$/Wp http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/EnergyBalanceofWindTurbines.html 3 months
http://www.plancanada.com/biochar_basics.pdf
2$ per watt bio chart.
Biofuels can provide only a tiny amount of energy destroying vast areas of soil. forest and farmland.
21st century Nuke power can provide all our energy needs fat 3 cents a kwh - a 40% rate of return on investment. Nuke waste is nuke fuel awaiting reuse in GenIV reactors. Nuke power has nothing to do with proliferation wwith plans for $10M weapon production equipment on the innernet and terrorism dangeri is far less with nuke power than with LNG for example.
71% of new tech companies go bankrupt in the first few years. 50% of nuke companies are expected for fail, but we gave them 54B$ in loan backing.
the republic should invest in R&D, rooftop pv solar is now the cheapest electricity for million of roof owners, and we should be installing it using 90% of our solar energy money, and 10% for the new 40% efficiency solar panels research to get the price down. We need to set up a green bank for roof owners to get low interest loans like the bankster get from the FED(.004%? how about 1%?)
No nuke companies are expected to fail. All solar and wind companies will fail when lucrative feedin tariffs and taxpayer giveaways are removed by angry taxpayers.
Rooftop solar could provide a most 3% of America's energy needs at costs well over a buck and half a kwh when green storage is included.
Just the installed cost is is over 35 cents a kwh on the average American rooftop,
show a house and tell what the power bill is show another house and tell what the power bill is.
If it really saves it will be obvious and more people will join in