A friend of mine living in the Bay area recently asked me how much he’d have to cough up for a PV system. While there are far too many variables involved to provide a spot-on estimate, I promised him I’d try to come up with something. So without further ado, I bring you the California example residential case study.

For starters, the state of California offers some of the country’s best incentive programs for solar power. I’ll assume that Dave is looking for a solid system that’s big enough to make it worth his while, but not so big that his neighbors think a spaceship has landed on his roof. A 3-kW system is pretty standard for residential systems. Average cost for installed PV in California is currently around $8.73 per watt, which yields about $26,200 for Dave’s 3-kW system.

Now, here comes the first somewhat tricky part. Like most situations of supply and demand, electricity is more expensive when demand is high—during so-called “peak hours.” This is important to know, because it has implications for (1) the amount of electricity you can avoid using at times when it’s most expensive, and (2) the rate at which you can sell any net excess generation (NEG) from your PV system back to the utility. Peak hours are from 12pm to 6pm. Luckily, it just so happens that PV systems pump out the most juice around mid-day and in the afternoon. Put simply, you can save a lot of cash by avoiding peak-demand surcharges.

Anyway, assuming for now that Dave is a PG&E customer, he’ll likely find it best to be on their Time of Use Schedule (PDF). Essentially this means that his PG&E account will be credited more for the energy he produces during peak hours. Since he works during the day, his house draws very little power during these hours. This is a great time for his system to be “selling” electricity back to PG&E. Solarpowerrocks provides a great look at how to go about picking the interconnection agreement that’s best for you.

So now for the rebates. Under the California Solar Initiative, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has set out to provide $3 billion in incentives for PV power. The goal is to get 3,000 megawatts of PV up on people’s roofs by 2016. To do so, CPUC offered a residential rebate of $2.50 per watt of installed AC power, based on expected performance. As the state closes in on the 3,000 mW goal, this rebate decreases in predictable steps, outlined here. As you’ll see, PG&E is on the fourth step, which means that Dave can expect to get $1.90 per watt. Assuming that the 3-kW system has an expected performance of 80% means that there will be 2400 watts (0.8 x 3,000 watts) eligible for rebates. Thus, Dave can expect to receive $4,560 in state rebates.

So far so good. Subtracting $4,560 from total project costs, and figuring in the $2,000 federal tax credit, we’re at $19,640. Still a good chunk of change. Putting this is perspective, though, Solarpowerrocks encourages us to consider that a PV system increases property value by an average of 20 times first year energy savings. Since Dave can expect to save about $90 with his new system, this means that (on paper, at least) he’s already in the green: $90 x 12 months = $1080 x 20 = $21,600—about $1,000 more than final project costs. Also, remember that California has a property tax exemption for PV panels. This means you can install PV power without increasing your property tax liability. Finally, note that electricity prices in California are ever on the increase. Thus, to paint a truly accurate picture of the system’s net benefits, the net present value of avoiding peak-demand charges five years from now must be taken into account.

Of course, if Dave isn’t planning on selling his home any time soon, he’ll still have to finance upfront costs approaching $20,000—no small feat. I’ll tackle this issue in my next post. Essentially, if you’re able to secure a loan that has lower monthly payments than the amount that you’d otherwise be spending on electricity, you’d be a bonehead not to take the loan, install the panels and start generating your own power.

When you’re talking about research into solar power, the sources for scientific investigation can be extremely diverse, as money is flowing in from private industry, governments, and even academia. And the benefits should be seen for years to come.

Stanford University just announced that some of its researchers received $25 million for solar research from a Saudi Arabian university. This is fantastic news, and is particularly interesting as an instance of international cooperation on solar efforts. The specific focus is also heartening, as “the center’s goal is to make solar electricity at a cost that is competitive with coal plants.” While that may or may not come to pass, the focus should at least provide work for others to pick up upon if they can’t reach their goal, and also zeroes in on perhaps the most crucial milestone for solar energy adoption.

SVTC Technologies Inc. also has announced a major new research initiative, the opening of an R&D lab in Silicon Valley. It’s another instance of international cooperation, this time with a German corporation, Roth & Rau AG. The lab will have a particular focus on commercial application of the technologies they develop, which should help in the gradual process of making many of the exciting solar research announcements of the past year closer to mainstream affordability.

Stories like this keep pouring in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if next week I’ll have a couple more to talk about. The best news from both is simple: a clear financial commitment from all the most important sources towards solar research; a diversity of approaches; international cooperation; and a sense of optimism and energy surrounding the value, public and private, of such research. Scientific research with the same broad net of funding has fueled many other important scientific initiatives throughout the 20th century that improved people’s quality of life, and that trend looks to be quite healthy heading into the 21st. Let’s hope the research dollars keep coming in!

You may or may not have heard about the market implosion for New Jersey solar installations that occurred earlier this year. The state offers these amazing incentives to individuals, small businesses and corporations to install photovoltaics systems. For individuals, whose private systems pretty much always fall into the state’s first incentive bracket of less than 10 kilowatts (kw), the incentive amount is 3.50 per watt. That’s a lot of cash back when you’re talking about a 4 kw system. The program was so wildly successful that New Jersey stopped being able to pay for it: funding for the incentives comes from surcharges on everyone’s utility bills, so there’s no way to grab more money for the program without raising people’s energy costs so high that it would become a bit backwards. Spend more on energy…to save more on energy?

Perhaps New Jersey didn’t see the money running out quite so quickly as it did, but the state has been trying to figure out a way to move away from this model of funding. Their solution, approved in September of last year and being fussed over in today’s New York Times, is to transition away from incentives altogether and move into a REC trading market. Here’s what New Jersey has to say about it:

New Jersey is recognized as a solar market leader and a model program that integrates one of the nation’s best set of rules and financing programs for solar energy. The Board decision on September 12, 2007 to move to a market-based Solar Financing Program ensures the continued growth and health of New Jersey’s solar market. New Jersey’s decision to phase out rebates by 2012 and rely on Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs) to spur private investment and market development sends a strong message of fiscal responsibility and commitment to New Jersey’s solar market and is a model for other states to follow.

Looking at the above statement, one clear question springs to my mind: if you have a highly successful program with “the nation’s best set of rules,” why exactly are you changing it? I see that there’s a need to solve the funding crisis, and that shifting that burden off the government makes them happy and those who can afford to buy and sell SRECs at leisure even happier. The problem is for small and mid-sized solar companies who, under the new plan, will be forced to compete with the big guys when it comes to buying and selling. Sure, competition is healthy, but it’s not a level playing field. Here’s a different perspective, offered by the vice president of the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association (as reported by the NYT):

…[These] attempts to make the solar market more competitive could backfire, actually hindering competition by squeezing out smaller companies…the state’s proposed safeguards did not go nearly far enough. While a portion of new projects would be subject for a few years to caps on how many credits one company can control, he said, those caps would not apply to existing solar installations.

A representative for SunEdison, one of the nation’s larger installers and certainly one of Jersey’s, doesn’t demur, although SunEdison is enthusiastically in favor of the shift to an open market for solar: he admits that “very small players will probably go away” and that most others will be bought out by larger companies. On one level this is fine; but on the level of a robust local economy, it’s not so hot. Those small companies are local jobs, and place holders, in a way, for communities who will become bigger players in the expanding green sector.

It’s not like New Jersey is asking for anyone’s opinion at this point–they’ve made their decision to move towards RECs and away from government funding, with a few provisions to see residential installations supported under the current structure for the next few years. It may be the right choice for the state, or it might not be. Either way, it will be the first program of its kind in the U.S. and the other 49 states will have the luxury of watching how the experiments turns out before having to make the choice for themselves.

Last week, I had the fortune to tour a production site of Beijing Tsinghua Solar Co., Ltd., one of China’s biggest manufacturers of solar hot water systems. While the facility itself lies in the brownish, dusty outskirts of Beijing, where the grass grows sparsely and the sky remains a stubborn gray from sunup until sundown, its products are anything but dirty—and I don’t just mean grubby.

Right now, China is one of the world’s most exciting solar markets. Here in Beijing, solar hot water systems crown the shingled rooftops of apartment and administrative buildings alike, a heartwarming sight given the PRC’s abysmal environmental record. Although China still has no nationwide solar subsidies for end users, it financially supports research and development of renewable technologies, and government decrees and subsidies apply to a few projects. In 2007, the Chinese market for solar water heaters grew at a rate of 30 percent, and the country’s total sales of solar water heaters came in at a hefty 32 billion RMB (around $4.6 billion US). $65 million US of this came from exports, and China’s newly installed solar hot water systems soared by approximately 75 percent, catapulting it to the forefront of countries in terms of newly installed capacity. China’s solar thermal capacity is projected to reach 2.3 billion square meters by 2015, with 20 to 30 percent of the population using solar thermal! One of the aforementioned big exporters, in addition to being a major force at home, is Beijing Tsinghua Solar Co., Ltd.

Tsinghua Solar is a venture of Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua (Qinghua) University—basically the Chinese MIT. Incidentally, Tsinghua University also happens to be the original developer of evacuated tube technology, which is found in most Chinese solar thermal systems today, as opposed to flat plate collectors, which are predominant in Europe. An evacuated tube consists of two or three glass tubes, typically coated on the inside with aluminum or copper (or any other material with high conductivity) and enveloping one another like a cylindrical Russian doll. A robust, well-functioning Chinese-made solar thermal system typically lasts about a decade, sometimes more. As the evacuated tube technology was developed in the eighties, it has had plenty of time to mature.

The facility that I visited last week focused primarily on the production of the evacuated solar collector tubes. As soon as we—my Chinese host family and I—stepped inside the first room of the factory, I felt a blast of fiery heat from all around. Our tour guides, a blue-collared worker and a manager, warned us to watch out for the glass shards on the ground. Workers to my left and right unloaded stacks of individually wrapped glass tubes—the outer tubes—and placed each long, thin cylinder on a serrated conveyer belt. The heat came from the flames that erupted from a small machine halfway down the conveyer belt, and they heated up one of the open ends of the tube to melting point as another machine pulled said tube forward. This forced the open end, now melted, to collapse on itself and close up. At this point, the machine dumped the remnants of the tube’s “end” into a large metal bucket filled with other “ends,” their molten glass tendrils quickly solidifying. Further down the production line, three workers attached straw-like, reedy glass tubes to the newly formed closed ends by heating them up with a powerful flame and then fusing them together. It was fairly brutal work. The workers had to stick their faces right near the flames in order to attach the tubes accurately; at several points I actually feared that their hair would catch on fire. Several fans spun furiously in the cavernous room, although I’m not sure how much help they were.

Next, all of the tubes—both the outer and thinner inner tubes—underwent sterilization in several steaming chambers.

Then, in the following two rooms, the workers used giant, oven-like machines to plate the inside of the outer tubes—the ones that we just saw the workers heating up and fusing with other glass parts—with a coating made from various metals, presumably those with high conductivity. They did this by inserting the tubes into oblong chambers resembling refrigerators, which coated the inside of the tube with a mixture of chemicals that had to be baked to a certain temperature, at which point the coating would turn black. Numerous tests, tubes baked to a Prussian blue or navy, rested on nearby carts. Joining them were other rejected tubes, apparently faultless but full of defects to the workers’ practiced eyes.

After that, we entered a room dedicated solely to the fusion of the inner and outer tubes. Once the inner tube had been properly inserted into the larger outer tube, workers laid the assembled tube on a conveyer belt, which brought it to workers who would heat the open end—the one without the small thin tube sticking out—with a concentrated flame and then use a paddle-like tool to push the pliable ends together as the tubes spun quickly, thus ensuring uniform smoothness.

Afterward, workers transported these tubes to a room, where they were inserted into a box-like apparatus that created a vacuum in the tubes. Here, temperatures were extremely high and our guides warned us not to get too close.

Eventually, the now-“evacuated” tubes were transferred to a room where they were placed upright on an assembly line, with the thin tube that a few workers attached at the beginning of the production chain sticking out like a glass proboscis. As the tubes gradually migrated down the line, a worker heated up the protruding tube with a tightly controlled flame and then swiftly pulled the evacuated tube out, effectively closing up that end of the tube and leaving a curled tip where the narrow tube used to be.

Finally, the workers wheeled the solar collector tubes into a room where more oven-like machines awaited, preparing to layer the inside of the inner tube with a membrane of barium. Workers discarded those tubes that they deemed even slightly defective. Tight quality control ensured that there were stacks and stacks of rejected tubes, seemingly without defect.

Although we did not get to see how the solar collector tubes were attached to their accompanying water collectors, I walked away nonetheless impressed by the diligence and the quality control from the staff, and the passion and pride of the managers for their solar technology. Here’s to hoping for the increased success of solar in China, and more government incentives for solar—we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any further developments.

Following up on Margaret’s post, I’m still holding to my cautious optimism that worries over the solar bill are over-stated; there’s still a lot of time left for this measure to pass, especially when legislators realize the huge damage of letting the bill lapse. Southwestern and Western Senators, at a minimum, are not going to sit back and let themselves be blamed for the blows to the solar industry.

That being said, including solar in a large bill with multiple provisions and sub-provisions – as happened with the most recent rejection of continued solar subsidies – offers a shield for senators to nix legislation like this without taking the blame of a straight “no” vote to solar. Solar is undeniably urgent, but it’s for that very reason that we can’t tie it to other legislation and complain about the larger culture of the Senate and American politics regarding environmental and conservation issues.

Ezra Klein at the American Prospect took up a similar point: putting aside the very, very strong arguments in favor of broad bills like this, if there’s going to be too much political debate around them to pass them as a suite, then let’s break them down and pass small pieces of legislation. Solar could be just one of those – in the context of government spending, the money we’re going to be sending towards subsidizing solar won’t be anything that will tie up the works in Congress for weeks, even if the long-term costs are going to be significant on a yearly basis. Make it an independent bill – or even tie it to a relatively minor concession on oil or coal taxes, if necessary – and get it through, and we have the issue wrapped up quickly.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough that Margaret is substantively and ethically accurate about the ridiculousness of the stonewalling and ineffectiveness of the Congress on climate change issues. But this problem isn’t going to change in time to help solar in 2008, and as a result I think we just need to accept it and keep the focus small and direct.

Not just solar, of course. All branches of the renewables industry suffered another real frustration yesterday when the Senate, once again, failed to extend the renewable energy tax credit, thanks to a Republican filibuster. One wonders if they were reading the Yellow Pages to keep the filibuster going, or perhaps something more relevant, like, say, the quarterly reports of oil companies? Analysts are saying the fault is partly the Democrats‘, too, for failing to separate out “controversial” issues in the bill from the tax credit, although I’m not sure when funding for renewable energy under the Bush administration ceased to be controversial.

The most controversial provision in the bill seems to be the removal of a tax break loophole for oil and gas companies (I know, I know, contain your surprise). The Dems want to fund this new tax credit essentially by raising this specific tax on oil and gas, and the Republicans are quick to shout “tax hike!” While it seems likely that the bill will pass if the Dems push it through again this summer and take out this provision, it’s possible that it actually won’t come to the Senate again until around election time, and who can predict how that will affect the outcome? At this stage of the game, the presidency is already fairly lame-duck, with Congress remaining more vital; but on the brink of a turning of the tides, the whole system might stall out.

The failure of the Senate to pass this bill comes in the same week as a new study predicting that 10% of US energy will be solar by 2025, thanks largely to the role utilities have to play in adopting the technology. Released by Clean Edge, Inc. (linked to GreenBiz.com) and the Co-op America Foundation, the report projects that ten years from now, “solar power will be cost-competitive in most regions of the U.S. on a kilowatt-hour (Kwh) basis,” even if some “disruptive” event or force occurs to the market or technology. Getting to this point won’t be a cheap ride, the authors note:

Our figures show that the investment will be between $400 billion and $500 billion to install the required PV and an additional $50 billion to $60 billion to install the required CSP to reach the 10 percent target. That’s a total projected price tag of between $450 billion and $560 billion between now and 2025, an average of $26 billion to $33 billion per year. [These figures] represent procurement and installation capital costs paid for by utilities, businesses, residences, governments, and others installing solar systems. In this scenario, solar would represent more than half of all new generating capacity installed in the nation by 2025.

If the government can’t get it together to properly incentivize growth in the industry, however, I wonder how the bright future depicted in this report will be affected. I think renewable energy, and solar in particular, is so attractive as an investment and as an energy source that the market should, on its own, encourage enough growth and R&D to bring the technology to cost parity with traditional energy sources sooner rather than later. (For a much more detailed discussion of a related topic, check out Adam’s great post on Monday about climate change regulations.) But if the government can’t level the playing field by making the tax horizon as approachable for solar as it currently is for gas and oil…well, can you blame the big players for not getting in on the action?

If both parties are as dedicated to diversifying our energy resources as they claim: Pass that bill already!

It’s clear that reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a costly process. Doing so at a level that stands a chance at stabilizing atmospheric CO2 at a “safe” level amounts to a fundamental transformation in the way we produce and use energy. We’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps even trillions, spent over a long timeframe and in the face of considerable uncertainty.

In climate change negotiations, namely those held by the UNFCCC on the Kyoto Protocol, a major concern of the U.S. hasn’t been total costs, per se, but relative costs. In other words, our policymakers are in principle opposed to policies that would potentially hurt U.S. competitiveness. If our legislators were to enact costly mitigation policies in the absence of comparable efforts from, say, China and India, American firms would potentially be at a disadvantage relative to their foreign counterparts. In fact, past legislation—like the Byrd-Hegel Resolution of 1997—has made U.S. participation in international climate agreements contingent on emissions reduction commitments from the world’s largest emitters (like China, and others). Whether you agree with this approach, or not, it remains unlikely that the U.S. will participate in Kyoto—or whatever comes after—without credible reduction commitments from other large emitters.

One of the more interesting, and undoubtedly controversial, means of obtaining such commitments is through international trade. I’ll avoid the details here, as they’re both elusive and boring, but essentially it works like this: the U.S. enacts a law requiring that all domestically produced steel, say, must be manufactured in a way that reduces the steel sector’s GHG emissions by 20 percent by 2020. To get our trading partners to adopt the same standard, the legislation is accompanied with a clause stating that steel imported from China that fails to meet the 20 percent target will be subject to what amount to trade sanctions. In practice, the Chinese manufacturer would have to purchase emissions allowances to make up the 20 percent gap.

This approach is no doubt controversial. It smacks of trade protectionism and could potentially lead to a trade war, where China would retaliate by refusing to respect U.S. intellectual property, for instance. What’s more, this trade-based approach would most likely be viewed, externally, as a unilateral attempt by the U.S. to foist its regulations on the rest of the world. Finally, there are questions over equity and fairness. The U.S., which has been by far the largest emitter of GHG, would be forcing other countries to take on costly emissions reductions—despite the fact that these countries have, up til now, contributed very little to the problem of climate change.

Despite these potential snags, it seems as though U.S. policymakers are willing to explore the notion of combining trade-based measures with domestic climate legislation. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008, which was debated a couple of weeks ago in the Senate, but failed to move forward, includes such measures for importers of primary goods—like iron, steel, aluminum, glass and cement. Under Title XIII, the Bill stipulates that importers “from countries not taking comparable action [compared to U.S. actions] to reduce GHG emissions must purchase special international reserve allowances to cover the GHG emissions associated with the manufacture of that good.” (Whether Senators Lieberman and Warner really envision enacting such measures or are simply just posturing to bolster their bargaining position vis-a-vis other countries, remains to be seen.)

Again, I won’t get into the details (because they’re boring and, admittedly, I don’t understand them all), but it’s not entirely certain that such a move would be disallowed by World Trade Organization rules. In broad terms, WTO members are permitted (under Article III) to implement any regulations they deem necessary provided they do not discriminate between domestic goods and imports. In the hypothetical case presented above, the U.S. could plausibly argue that since there’s no discrimination, there’s no violation of GATT (WTO) rules. Both imports and domestic goods would be required meet maximum carbon-intensity requirements.

Another issue, however, is whether WTO rules permit states to regulate how a particular good is manufactured—the so-called process and production methods (PPMs). Traditionally, the WTO Appellate Body has held that regulation of PPMs is unacceptable. To take an example, a state would be permitted to regulate those characteristics inherent to steel—it’s tensile strength, for example—but not those aspects of its manufacture (i.e., the amount of CO2 released in the steel-making process). If challenged, the U.S. could try to claim an exception under Article XX. Whether such an exception would be upheld remains unclear.

In the end, there are a lot of unknowns. There’s a lot of allure to the notion of regulating emissions through trade measures, mainly because they provide firm enforcement measures to ensure compliance, while at the same time addressing concerns about American competitiveness. The risks of setting off an era of protectionism shouldn’t be weighed lightly, however.

For more reading (i.e., if you want to geek out on some climate-related trade law), be sure to check out this 2007 working paper by Joost Pauwelyn: “U.S. Federal Climate Policy and Competitiveness Concerns: The Limits and Options of International Trade Law” (PDF)

你好 (ni hao) from Beijing, home to the eponymous duck dish, a treasure trove of cultural sites and relics, and a blanket of smog that would put Los Angeles to shame! Week two of my stay in the “Middle Kingdom” has almost passed, and already I have been surprised by: 1) how many people can physically squeeze themselves into a subway car, 2) how quickly prices have risen since my last visit two years ago, and 3) how steadily the Chinese people are going green.

As proved by Americans’ sluggish response to voluntary bans on plastic bags in cities such as L.A., people generally won’t do something they consider inconvenient unless they absolutely have to. As of June 1, a nationwide ban on thin plastic bags took effect in China. The ban primarily targets the ubiquitous, 0.025 mm-thick plastic bags, which are commonly referred to as “white pollution”—白色污染. The use of sturdier plastic bags carries a fine. Because the Chinese tend to buy groceries or cooked goods almost daily—the produce is fresh and street vendors are as common as Starbucks cafés in the States—a few of these flimsy bags a day for each person can culminate into an environmental disaster. According to multiple resources, China’s 1.3 billion people currently use at least 3 million of them a day, or, a wasteful 1.6 tons each year. The country’s largest manufacturer of these thin bags, Huaqiang, has already closed down, and with the official ban on thin-plastic-bag production and distribution, China hopes to save the 37 million barrels of oil it currently uses to manufacture these bags.

When I was in Shanghai last week, my grandfather carried a collapsible metal cart with him every time he went to buy groceries. When we went to Wal-Mart (where, by the way, you can buy live toads and turtles for your soup, and see an in-house butcher cleave hunks of meat for you), the only plastic bags we used were to wrap meat, seafood and some fruits and vegetables. Granted, they were plastic bags, and, from the feel of them, they were the banned bags. However, unless Chinese plastic manufacturers come up with a cheap, biodegradable version, shoppers have no option but to continue keeping their beef, catfish or clams in plastic bags. There’s progress, though, at least in the big cities like Beijing or Shanghai. At the Shanghai Wal-Mart we visited, not a single customer left the store with his purchases in a plastic bag. In Beijing, my host family proudly uses a blue Carrefour tote for their grocery shopping.

While the response to the ban has been mixed—many small vendors fear that they will lose business if they charge customers for a plastic bag, when the cost of the goods they’re selling barely exceed the government-decreed fine—environmental awareness in China has risen over the years. My grandfather and my host family support the plastic bag ban, and the latter uses environmentally-friendly detergents made from organic products, in addition to a solar thermal system. From the protests against a proposed chemical plant in Xiamen last year to the prevalence of residential solar thermal systems and green advertising, businesses are learning that there’s money to be made in going green in China (or, money not to be lost), although China still has a long way to go before it loses its position as the world’s top energy-guzzler.

Whether we can attribute this increased desire for greenness to an administrative desire to show off for the Olympics, to a dawning realization of the profitability of going green or to a Chinese understanding of how much damage the environment has sustained, the fact that many Chinese have been making lifestyle choices less wasteful and less energy-inefficient than they used to be certainly gives cause for hope.

Yesterday, SCHOTT released the results of a poll , conducted by Kelton Research, asking Americans what they think about the role of solar energy in this country. Turns out, pretty much everyone thinks it’s integral to our future. I’m going to quote some results directly from SCHOTT’s site:

• 98% of Independents, 97% of Democrats, and 91% of Republicans support development of solar
• 74% of Independents, 72% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans favor extension of Federal tax credits for renewable technologies
• 77% of Americans feel Federal government should make solar power development a national priority

Great news, right? Well, it is, but I have some reservations about the data.

First: this survey was conducted over a matter of a couple of days (May 29 through June 2); respondents were requested via email to complete an online survey. I realize that most people in this country do have personal computers and access to the internet, but it surely limits the responses of some populations, especially given the remarkably brief response period.

Second: a link to a solar fact sheet was provided, which would have been a bit more helpful to the average layperson if said facts had been set in any context at all. I talk to people every day who have questions about solar energy, and their questions tend to start at a very basic level. This fact sheet, to me, reads as a very good synthesis of why solar energy is so important…but it hardly presents a well-rounded view: discussion of cost is notably omitted. I think solar energy is vital to this country’s future, but I think that because I have had the opportunity to examine the negative and positive aspects of the burgeoning industry, and choose for myself. If I knew nothing about renewables and had only this fact sheet to go by, well of course I would jump on the bandwagon!

I’m glad that this information has been disseminated, and I’m glad people are coming to the “right” conclusion. I just wish the survey had been more in-depth and more transparent: in their section on “Methodology”, nowhere does SCHOTT list the actual number of respondents, stated as a cold figure or expressed as a percentage of the population. Not even a hint. For all I know, this could be a case of “1 in 3 dentists recommend Crest” where only three dentists were asked for their opinion.

Americans should know about the enormous potential for solar in this country. I want them to overwhelmingly support investment and growth in the nascent industry so that our next president, whoever he is, will have no choice but to listen to the people. And if Americans were presented with all the facts and not just a select few, they would still come to the conclusion that really, renewable energy is the way to go; as Alexander Pope once said, a little learning is a dangerous thing. If you’re reading this, you’re someone who cares about making informed decisions about renewable energy. Encourage your friends to read about it and learn; bring it up at an office lunch. Spread the word. The better informed we are as a nation, the better our choices will be when it comes time to vote, either on a ballot or in that most revered of American methods–with our dollars.

This blog title could have been a headline for The Onion not so long ago. And yet now, it’s all in earnest. With oil topping $130 per barrel, a vehicle that gets somewhere around 10mpg suddenly seems like a burden rather than an asset. Remember when every new year seemed to bring another, bigger version of a GM SUV? Well, right now, “Eighteen of 19 planned new GM products will be cars or crossovers, and extra shifts will be added at plants that build some of its best selling compact cars, such as the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6.” (GreenBiz)

This graphic, from Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, pits Hummer sales against Toyota Corolla sales:

The drama of the Hummer’s rise to gangsta popularity makes for a good story, but of course the story doesn’t actually end there: heavy vehicles, market-wide, are losing out to smaller, more efficient ones. Last month, for the first time in over fifteen years, Ford’s reliable pickup workhouse, the F-150, was not the best-selling vehicle in America. The Honda Civic was.

I was just in London, where gas topped $11/gallon. Here in Boston, it’s over $4, for the first time in history. Ridership on public transit is up, SUVs stagnate unsold in dealerships across America, there’s a waiting list for hybrid vehicles despite stepped-up production, and owning a truck or SUV can be a bit like owning a house in this market: many people are finding they owe more on their vehicle than the vehicle is actually worth, due to rapid depreciation.

GM has the go-ahead for its all-electric-capable Volt, which may hit the streets as early as 2010 (where you’ll plug it in at work, no one knows yet…). Fuel efficiency and alternative energy sources are the new driving forces behind automobile conceptualizing. If those forces can bring us as far forward in 50 years as the driving forces of greater speed and power brought us over the last 50, the days of the gas-fueled internal combustion engine may truly be over.