The Fourth of July: fireworks, steak tips, beer and American flags. I’m writing from Boston, where the historical connection is particularly strong, and the fireworks celebration especially excellent. We love our Independence Day. But how many of us try to relate the meaning of the Fourth to the state of the world today? We’ve been an autonomous country, for good or for ill, since 1776. Two hundred and thirty-three years. We’re good buddies with our former sovereigns, and while taxes remain contentious, they’re not sparking any secessionist wars (at least not yet, eh, New Hampshire?).
The Boston Tea Party was staged to demonstrate resistance to the idea that we were subsidizing other countries’ profits at the expense of our own. The colonies were being told to pay more tax on tea so that, in essence, the British could woo the East India Trading Company with lower import tariffs while not losing any money themselves. Nice deal for the mother country, but the colonists weren’t standing for it. The Tea Party was three years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but it was this sense of desire for fiscal independence that precipitated that world-shaking event.
Okay, you are probably saying, why am I reading a history lesson about tea on GetSolar? Because independence–fiscal and otherwise–is still something near and dear to American hearts, and energy independence is one of the most vital issues facing our country today. In 2008 we imported nearly half of our petroleum: we may be ranked #3 in oil production, but we have the singular honor of being ranked #1 in consumption (Energy Information Administration). Our needs, habits, and trade systems mean we are eminently vulnerable to fluctuations in the cost of fuel. While world trade demands we be interdependent rather than independent, it’s still nerve-wracking to contemplate the degree to which we rely upon foreign products to maintain our way of life.
Solar power plants, wind farms, hydropower, biomass: renewable energies present an escape route. We don’t have to be trapped by rising import costs if we’re importing less. And yes, solar energy and other renewable technologies are very expensive. Yet I like to think of it as buying a house instead of renting. All that money we throw at other oil-producing countries to feed our insatiable appetite for energy, and what do we get out of it? Sure, we get energy, and a functioning (sort of) world economy. But putting money into domestic renewables is the investment that keeps on giving.
Cost does need to come down. Grid parity, the point at which the cost per kilowatt-hour of renewable-generated energy works out to be the same as the energy from traditional sources, is the holy grail of the solar industry. We’re on our way, though. President Obama has stood behind promises he made on the campaign trail and thrown heavy funding behind renewables development. Perhaps not quite as he envisioned–the stimulus funds were an emergency transfusion. All the same, we’ve been seeing positive signs in this country of renewable energy adoption. The EIA sees a sharp growth in the percentage of our energy that will come from renewables over the next 15 years or so:
This forecast puts solar power and other renewable energies as a 14.2 percent slice of the energy pie by 2030. Not bad, right? At the end of 2008, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) tallied 9,183 MW of installed solar power capacity in the US, with another 6,000 in the pipeline–and that number has undoubtedly risen since the end of the March, when the report was last updated (full report here/PDF). An attainable goal in the near future of 20,000 MW of solar capacity equates power for about four million homes. You can see that the burden of energy production in this country is not going to rest squarely on the shoulders of the solar industry, but at the same time, solar can sure do some heavy lifting.
We love our freedom in the United States of America. To pursue freedom from the bonds of imported energy is a mission in keeping with our nation’s history as well as with our sense of national identity. We need imports, but we also need options. Solar power can and should be part of the greater energy solution.
To end on a lighter note, you’ve got to check out the Census Bureau’s “Fun Facts” about the Fourth of July. Did you know that Georgia leads the nation in watermelon production, for instance? Happy Independence Day, everyone!
The SEIA document you reference actually states that only 1,547 MWs of PV solar capacity have been installed by the end of 2008. How did you come with up 9,183 MW?
And by the way, those 1.5GW generate less than 2 billion kilowatthours a year. It does not even register on you chart. World-wide PV installed capacity is about 15GW. That is still just 20 billion kilowatthours a year. So solar PV will NOT be a significant part of grid-generation. Not now and probably not in 10 years.