Now this is finally getting smart. Rainbow Warrior, I'm with you on this one and that large number of solar roofs is still not enough. We need more everywhere on every roof in the world. Then we'll start making an impact.

Humankind is always underestimating the effort, always underestimating the amount of time, and we don't frankly have any.

We all need to pressure every nation to "Solar the roof today!" And the energy companies need to get behind it and finance it. And every dishonest financier sitting on an illgotten pot o' leeched gold, needs to get their conscience salved by funding solar, even if the initial risk looks like it may wipe them out.

Great article Bob Audette. Even better is the initiative to go solar. Now let's get the world doing it.

Put a solar on every roof in the world and then fund the thing from profits already ripped off, and make the investment pay off by having the surplus energy repay the initial cost to put the solar on the roof. Banks and other finance companies fund energy companies for decades to build systems that pollute. Let's do a similar thing to put a solar on every roof in the world.

Are there any other Socialist candidates running anywhere?

It is initiatives like this that might help us out of the extortive relationship people are in with utility providers. The reason this type of solution has never been exploited is that it can't be exploited long term by "public" utilities. If the energy generation is democratized and the sources are millions of rooftops owned by private individuals, how are you going to make your customers pay exorbitant rates? There isn't much of a financial angle for utility companies to play when your source is also your customer, and there is no financial incentive to create a system by which the utility company is merely redistributing power through its grid.

I understand that the federal income tax credits for alternative energy expire this year. Does that make sense under the current circumstances? Our government should be doing everything possible to create incentives for individuals and businesses to invest in solar and photovoltaic options. Our local utility has "net metering," but the hitch is that they allegedly limit to a small fraction the number of customers they will allow to participate. This policy is designed to discourage homeowners from actually installing photovoltaic arrays while giving the illusion of being pro-alternative energy.

Don't worry about the efficiency of homes and home appliances - yet. $2000 -- $3000 in PV panels will power a fridge and microwave. If a homeowner is willing to hardwire those PV panels into the kitchen circuit to provide food preservation during a summer power outage with a toggle to power the electrical components of a furnace during a winter power outage, the costs should be 100% tax deductible. If your fridge is running on PV panels, aged air-conditioners are less likely to cause summer brownouts. The tax deductible PV panels must be wired into the kitchen/furnace circuits since there is no justification for tax rebates for watching TV commercials.

Don the Engineer has a point. But Henry Ford (also an engineer) did not wait for an electric starter or an efficient battery to power it. We cannot afford to wait for efficiency levels that satisfy cost conscious engineers. The efficiency and enhanced national security of independence from the grid is Inestimable. The residential grid should go the way of the buggy whip and the outhouse.
If the weight of PV panels is a problem, it will not be a problem for diy's to transfer the weight to the bearing walls. Civic minded engineers could explain it with one or two pictograms, without being overly technical about soil strength, etc. There is no reason to suppose that rooftop PV panels will not track or semi-track the sun - efficiently.

If the public actually buys tax deductible PV panels, we should expect, fairly soon, volume pricing on PV and thermal panels to solarize the rest of the house.

SMALLER IS BETTER. . . .NEVER MIND THE GRID! GET RID OF THE GRID! WHAT WE HAVE IS A FREE MARKET GRID THAT DESTROYS ALL SELF CONTAINED CONSERVER THINKING. Most of you are sold to the 'free market system" so free that it had freely destroyed the future of the human race. All this based in consumer ideolgy. These little pallatives offered timidly to save us all. . . .RUBBISH!

Regarding the post from "Toast," where he starts with:
Makhijani: "it might be best to first invest in energy efficiency prior
to installing rooftop solar panels. Without improving the efficiency of
household appliances and the homes themselves the nation would
basically be throwing electricity away".

No. This completely discounts market dynamics on an individual level.
If you allow individuals to compete, they will do so.
. . . You then go on to talk about conservation. Makhijani is talking about energy efficiency, not conservation. Conservation is generally used as in cutting use through doing with less. Energy efficiency is generally used as in improving the way in which you use energy. It will drastically improve the reduction of greenhouse gases if we become much more energy efficient, through more efficient lighting, motors, standby technologies, etc. If we are feeding electricity back to the grid, the homeowner will make much more money in sales to the grid if they are using their energy more efficiently. These sales to the grid will reduce fossil fuel consumption.

RE: WINDPOWER IS VIABLE - & WIDELY PRACTICED IN EUROPE - TOO

Tompaine has a lot on this. See, e.g.:

Schleswig-Holstein:
Cleaner Than Cows

Pollution-Free Power Leaps Forward -- In Germany, David Case

"This article is part of a series contrasting how Europe and the U.S. are addressing climate change....

"The state of Schleswig-Holstein, home to 2.8 million people as well as energy-intensive industries like shipbuilding, generates about 19 percent of its electricity from wind, according to the German Wind Energy Association. In certain locales, that figure jumps to 75 percent."

MORE:
http://www.tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/3875.html

A better idea is what the City of Berkeley, CA does now - it buys and installs the panels, and individuals pay off the cost every month as an addition to their electric bill. It's time payments, just like buying a car. After a certain number of payments, the panels are paid for and are owned by the individual, just like a house or car. This approach means that people don't have to come up with a huge chunk of cash in front, but the city is ultimately not out any money.

Another good thing about solar is that, because it produces power where it's used, it tends to remove the value of centralized power plants as targets for terrorism.

In case someone above has not already mentioned this:

Solar Living Resource Book, 30th Edition. Written and edited by John Schaeffer

Also discusses wind generators, water collection, and small scale hydropower.

This is a great resource for people getting their feet wet or doing large projects to go off-grid.

Some of you are dissing this idea because solar is not THE solution to the energy problem. Don't be an ass. If you weighed 600 pounds, and decided that you wanted to get healthier, but determined that NOT supersizing your 6 orders of fries a day wasn't going to get you to a healthy weight, and so kept on supersizing them, you'd be pretty stupid. And so you are, if you toss out a solution based on it not being THE solution. Sorry, not an easy problem, no easy fix.

The great thing about solar panels is not only that they are WHERE the demand is, but that they do their best work WHEN they are needed most. Peak Hours. Your idiot utility companies need to make enough filthy plants and infrastructure to cover our energy needs at their highest point. Reduce the peak, reduce it all. The filthiest plants are the ones they rev up at the peaks.

But as the article points out, if you have a home, you should immediately reduce your consumption. You can find many ways to do this. It's much cheaper to cut your consumption in half through efficiency than installing solar panels. Do it. Then do it some more. Then do it again. Do it.

Thin film PV is even less efficient than the rigid structures.
Around 6-8%. They're great if you need a flexible cell that will still produce something even after they're shot, but who's rooftops are being shot at?

I'm thankful that janrup wasn't my building safety and permitting agent. My roof is for solar thermal, not PV.

No new home should be permitted without a Photo-voltaic roof - the $m-plus monstrosities going up in our county (the best for sun-light in the whole world) are a disgrace! Not one of them has its own power source (wind is very good here, too) - moreover, almost all of them are built on ridgelines (no doubt so they can look down on the rest of us) with little access, and perfect updraft for wildfires - they best make good lightning rods. But they aren't the only sadness this time of year - June was traditonally a month for weddings, with their wild expenditures for 'one memorable day' - let's start another revolution by giving the happy couple a legup on the financial journey (money being the most common reason for divorce) - just $5K will give them a few PV panels and a very efficient refrigerator - another $K will provide a stainless steel cooler and another $2K gifts them with a low water, low power washing machine - for $10-15K the newlyweds get many many years of critical savings rather than a similar amount blown on 'one day' ... A few more panels at $700 can power the car they will buy (hopefully soon) ... And much of this investment is (and was 30 years ago) a tax exemption!!!! And most of the items mentioned above are made in the USA!
Happy birthday, Americans! I hope we have many more!

If you haven't heard of Permaculture yet, check it oug. Google the word, or go to sites like http://www.youtube.com/user/earthactivistas or http://earthactivisttraining.org

There are lots of solutions to our current mess!

If the damn government would give assistance based on income, this would help a lot. Carter was right, and a few of us had enough intelligence to know it back then. This, alone, says quite a bit about our species. Now we do the same lame behavior when Gore asks us to be adults: ignore the real crisis of the hour. Its a lot more fun to just ridicule those who ask us to be responsible.

On last week's Thom Hartmann Show he was broadcasting from Denmark. He interviewed a man in the wind turbine manufacturing biz. They are working on a plan to get people to buy elecrtic cars and essentially pay them to use the storage batteries in the cars as storage for the grid. When you park your car you plug into the grid so you can buy power when it's cheap and sell it when it is expensive.This idea works for solar and wind.
There is a company in the south-west manufacturing photo-voltaic cells using a lasar printing process. They are maxed out and and all of it is sold to Germany. The US government needs to make a deal with these guys to open a plant in every town that has high unemployment so america can print it's way to energy independance. All that money going down the rat hole in Iraq should just about pay for the crash program. We could be exporting energy by the end of next year.

Looks like a giveway program to the well off that will have minimal impact in the real world. I might consider to take them up on it if not for the tree that blocks the sun in the AM. Ten million homes and businesses over 10 years is 1 million homes and business per year, or less than 1% per year conversion rate, while the population is allowed to grow at 2% per year due to immigration.

I wonder how many trees get chopped down as peoples homes go solar.

I am big on solar, don't get me wrong, but mainly for solar power plants in deserts and other sun rich locations, which this bill does not cover. The government should loan 30 year bonds to the builders of these power plants, and allow them to sell bonds in equal amounts, and provide them free federal land (government owns over 30% of all land), as Lincoln did for the transcontinental railways. Payments can be made within 30 years, and after the plants are generating revenue. With our post-Fed economic system, we never would have built the transcontinental RR since we never would have had enough tax dollars since they were used to pay the interest on war bonds.

We also need to invest more in electric railroads to distribute more goods by rail and less by trucks, and coast to coast maglev trains for transport passengers between major cities that today rely on airlines for inter-city travel. Again, we issue the bonds and earn interest, as opposed to borrowing the money from China (they create RMB to buy USD their manufacturers want to exchange into local currency), and paying them interest. Nothing will change until the normal people understand this. Instead, Paulson and Bernanke will meet with Congress to give the Fed more control over our economy. Insane.

Meanwhile:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1214606212-YqVS8q1...

"The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

"It doesn't make any sense," said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. "The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry."

Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.

Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies' desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities."

Anybody remeber that if Jimmy Carter's energy program had been implemented we would be solar by now. How about taking the money we give to subsidize the oil companies to subsidize homeowners and commercial buildings for solar...hmmmmm. aw, no. way too practical.

Hey guys with all this flack about Solar on the roof int.if you want to know state of the art technologies regarding thin film photovoltaics including efficencies and costs as well as solar cells that work on cloudy days and at night please go to www.peswiki.com/index.php/directory:thin-film-solar.thanks Solarmix

Excellent responses.
I feel confident everyone responding here will be a "survivor" of our northern european ancestry. We built a rammed earth house and run our small AC sparingly.

Now for some of the more technical replies, I can't put nano paint on my green house, nor would I want to. Homes are expensive enough without adding $5 per square foot or more to motivate a few electrons for a few hours a day.

And to Bill the Engineer: "I think our money would be better spent on a somewhat lower efficiency, higher cost but proven technology" I appreciate your position, but don't want my part of "our money" wasted through inefficient use of finite resources. There are too many applications to list (telescopes, Satelite dishes, are two that immediately come to mind) that have proven the soundness of the technology. Your position is noted.

Now, please excuse me, but I have to go and tweak the business plan to put a healthy price increase in around year 4.5 ;-)

Rebuff the centralizers. Placing solar on each rooftop makes more sense. Getting out from under the yoke of public utilities makes us much more sustainable under the threats of war or natural disasters. It also provides the independence from central authority needed in a free society. Instead of giving money to Corporations which are nothing more than central planning organizations, give money through grants to homeowners for the installation of energy saving machines or materials including solar. This is the way forward.

We bought solar PV panels for our home with credits/rebates in Southern CA a few years ago. It was the best thing we did to upgrade the house we were living in. Once on the grid there is no getting off of it because the power companies write the rules, however, because we had a well, it was like getting water for free and electric only cost between $8-80 a month.The power company was not interested in purchasing any extra power we might have, but I did not care. The price was right.
When we moved, the real estate agent did not consider solar power as much of a selling point as the fact that we lived near a trail - go figure...
Now we live in Iowa. Would love to put in a wind generator, however the powers-that-be do not want people who are paying through the nose for electric to get a break. I may just build a wind tower and hook it up ---- let them complain.
May I suggest WRITE YOUR LEGISLATORS. We need to change the rules so we are not strangled by the power companies who own our politicians. Residential self reliance is pretty much ruled out by the big power companies. This can be changed. Our legislators have failed to extend credits/incentives here as well. Let them know this is not acceptable.

From yesterday's Santa Cruz Sentinel:

"The renewable energy tax credit, which can amount to as much as $2,000 for residential projects and a third of the cost of commercial projects, has been a major driver of investment in solar power. But the credit sunsets Dec. 31, and Congress has failed to extend the incentive amid partisan wrangling."

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_9762176

The provision to extend the credit was stripped from the energy bill. It's
interesting that this has not been part of the Presidential debate. The fight is over funding it by not renewing some of the Bush tax cuts for the
super rich.

The would seem to be a prerequisite to Senator Sander's proposal, which may actually divert attention from the real issue.

I have lived most of my adult life off-grid. Ten years ago I installed solar panels, an invertor and a battery bank. This allowed me to run a computer, lights, well-pump (with generator help)and t.v. among other things, i.e. vacuum. Solar transformed my life. I recommend it highly.

Learning to conserve and turn off phantom loads is paramount to solar living.

Education and awareness about one's energy usage is eye-opening and transforming. My life is rich and full--I do not feel as if I am giving up anything. Instead I feel proud and independent.

One of the most important things about solar is the decentralization of energy production. Very important, especially in the face of possible serious shortages of fossil fuels, rising prices, etc.

As time goes on, solar and wind become more fiscally feasible. Consider that many will spend $30,000 on a vehicle. So you spend $15,000 on solar, which I figure would pay for itself in less than ten years at my mother's home in the desert. Loans should be available at low interest for homeowners to do this. What will your car do for you? What will it be worth in 10 years? Your solar panels will continue to produce indefinitely.

All you Cassandras need more information! Give change a chance.

Twenty to thirty years ago, solar hot water heaters subsidized by the State of Calif. were being installed on every other house in my San Diego neighborhood. Very few are left (if any).
Did they wear our? Were they cost inefficient?

I figured at the time that the device would wear out before we recovered our investment.

Maybe I was wrong. Energy cost were a whole lot less then than they are today. We go to bed early, arise early, don't use the clothes
dryer except in emergencies.

Conventional building of homes and other structures need to be reconsidered, reworked,
and energy conserving materials developed.
How about smaller homes? Most new homes around here are way too big for the occupants to heat in winter or cool in summer.

Germany has a lot of solar panels. One really nice thing about rooftop generation is that it's where the load is. Selling power back to the grid at a premimum is a strong incentive to both generate and conserve. Now if these things can only cool the beer, heat the bath, brew coffee and bake bread at the same time...:)

Nah, l'd rather kill towelheads and wetbacks an' suc' the blood out of ther ground til we haveit all. l'll stop drivin' my Hummer when they pry my cold dead fingers off the steerin' wheel!!!!!

Now if only Obama and McCain would WAKE UP and follow this Cats lead: my gut tells me the politicos married to special interests like Bio and Nuclear will carry the day when either numskull is sworn in.

Don the Engineer:

Good luck with your startup.

I don't want to pop your bubble, but if the gummint is going to pump our tax dollars into a scheme such as this, I think our money would be better spent on a somewhat lower efficiency, higher cost but proven technology. I am leary of solar tracking at the consumer level, at least until it has been on the market and proven reliable for 5 years or more.

Bill the Engineer

I have lived nicely with limited PV for decades. My system costs less than $2000 including batteries and manages to power the lights, stereo, tiny refrigerator in the summer only....we have sun most days 7 months a year. In winter gotta live with "only" minimal lights and radio, and need a goddamn generator in the winter to run power tools....but do you see where I am going with this? WHO NEEDS MORE ???

In this line, IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE HEAT TOUGH SHIT! It burns me up (pardon) to hear how "Amurrikans "need" air conditioning and unlimited electrical power 24/7. Why can't we all see that we have been SPOILED rotten?? Humans got along for millions of year with hot summers and now we can't handle it? Just because our ancestors came from northern Europe. now we have the right to ruin the planet so we won't have to suffer underarm transpiration?

Humans! We have very little time to get serious about the overdue end of the old paradigm. I personally am ready for what Gary Snyder termed the Neo-neolithic....

This is one of the best discussions I have read on CD. I like the idea of decentralizing electric utilities. We have been so conditioned to think BIG is the same as being efficient. If the bill that Sanders is promoting passes, I will be first on the list to get my house retrofitted with solar panels. I have a glass solarium, which I do not heat in winter or air condidion in summer. In summer it is shaded by big trees and open windows provide fresh cool air. The passive heat gain in a cold but sunny winter day can be as much as 30 degrees. I have noticed heat gain even on cloudy or snowy days. So I'm thinking that a solar panel would supply some of my energy needs. If I could use 25% less electricity from fossil fuels or nuclear plants, I would consider it a gain.

It's a great idea. Can you imagine if it is applied properly? No new multiresident developments in the Southwest unless all the parking units are covered with solar panels. They would generate power during peak demand for cooling. The interior car temperature would be cooler lessening initial demand on the compressor and increasing initial mileage.

It is just one part of the solution. Conservation is still the lowest hanging fruit and should be pursued with vigor.

The government needs to give individual people money for solar and stop financing nuclear and coal. Install solar power on all the administrative buildings, starting by the Pentagon!
There is the same problem in France, England, etc. where the gov't/corporations want to build new nuclear power stations.

Go Bernie! I wish I lived in Vermont so I could vote for him. Here's a thought: Kucinich and Sanders for pres and vp. Doesn't matter which gets which job. Corporate CEO whores would be quaking in their boots.

Don the Engineer.....good news for you my friend!(and all of us)...check out nanosolar.com This is the future of solar energy. Solar panels? No, solar PAINT!

A good friend of mine just did a lengthy research paper on energy efficient homes. Everything from hay-bale homes to solar powered to geothermal. The fact is that the initial cost of building these homes is the same, but the savings in $ on energy bills is so huge that they are much cheaper in the long run.

We MUST insist that building codes are modified to require these alternative building methods. The status quo is simply not acceptable.

Don the Engineer:

our tax dollars are being wasted on the military and our insane foreign and domestic policies...but i agree with what you're saying--we do need more efficient solar panels. but until the day we can make them out of carbon polymers (should be possible because plants do it), and spray them on our roofs, we're stuck with these expensive silicon crystals that aren't that efficient.

my point was that even if they only supply part of our energy usage, thats still part of our energy not coming from fossil fuels, coming from the sun which is renewable (at least for a few hundred billion years or so...)

Bring on the bill, debate it, push for it. We need to start somewhere. Identify local alternative energy shops/providers and study up. The way is opening and the more attention given, the faster the changes and refinements will move forward.

Someone noted that the framing of our perspective is lodged in current conditions. We have the everpresent reality of not knowing the future, but knowing what has not worked. The journey of a thousand miles starts form where your feet are / with the first step.

there is so much passion on this topic by individuals
Even though times look gloomy, shallow corporations and politicians won't be able to stop this type of aspiration

Ceelee, interesting experience with photovoltaics and the Pacific Northwest is ideal for cogeneration. Running the meter backwards simply means the power companies can slightly reduce the water through the dam's turbines since they can respond instantaneously unlike nuclear, oil or coal fired electricity generation.

I dont think this will solve our problems, but I am still in favor of it. Sooooo...my suggestion?

Let's strip the Bush family, the Cheney family and every single neocon scumbag who got us into this war that wasted the tremendous wealth that could have been used to fund a Green Transition, of all of their ill-gotten, undeserved wealth and put it into a pool from which portions can be given to middle-class homeowners to buy solar systems.

I'd like to see George and Laura scubbing floors or waiting tables for a living - ya know, doing some honest work for a change. They want cake? Let them eat Food Bank!

Now, if someone will just come up with a plan on how we can create a non-violent revolution that would force these scumbags to pay for what they have done, we'll be in business.

Mr. E: says: this is not a new idea…we should have been doing this twenty years ago…and who cares if the panels arent that efficent yet…its sunlight we're talking about,"

I care. And everyone else should too. Why? Because we all have to pay part of the cost of this inefficiency. Our tax dollars are being wasted on PV!

What this story doesn't say, and what people don't know includes:
• The inefficient (14% conversion efficiency costs ~$6/peak watt) panels only deliver that peak watt on your rooftop for a few hours out of the day and when the sun is exactly perpendicular to that roof they are installed upon.
• Also a great number of roof structures for that 70% of the homes in the US, are not designed to handle the additional loads of the panels.
• Most people's homes will have central AC, a problem for anyone who is thinking they'll be installing $10K worth of panels and have their meter running backwards all day. 1kW will not run your house. Look at your bill. Most homes will be using 15-25 kWh or more per day in the summer.
• As an energy manager with the AEE, targeting energy efficiency for homes makes more sense. Upgrade your fridge for a whole lot less and make a much bigger impact.

I have recently started a company that will be manufacturing solar stirling engine (heat differential-driven, not combustion powered) generators that track the sun with a large satellite dish in one's back yard that will provide close to 2 kWh average that makes a heck of a lot more sense than using those resources to put PV everywhere.

Now don't get me wrong, PV has its uses... sensors to aim my reflector arrays, portable electronic devices, vehicle trickle chargers, etc. Not whole house or business applications. Without our tax dollars to distribute the cost among everyone, this would not fly period.

wow 70% of peak demand...I'm for that.

wild

Do we want clean or dirty energy? Decentralized power or centralized power? Conservation or waste? Sustainable or unsustainable growth? Egalitarianism or concentrating wealth? Peace or war? Life or death? Love or hate? Security or fear? Health or sickness? Nature or wasteland?

We want the former and we know lots how to get it. Mammon wants the latter and he'll fool us to get it, if we let him.

Thank you Bernie.

They envision millions of roof top solar panels going up? I do hope they are correct and I'm not.

Guess they haven't noticed the current economic mess in America, with over 300,000 lost jobs so far this year and the count accelerates and increases every month. With GM on the brink of bankruptsy, with all of the airlines ready ot fold up, with Starbucks closing 600 stores, etc, etc, etc.

Solar panels are expensive and what I envision is a looming depression with very few solar panels going up. What's going to be going up is millions of Chinese made, Wal_Mart sold, $40 dollar tents and phamplest sold on how to cook rodents and incects.

I envision that, because that's what I see happening.

In Kathmandu, one of the poorest cities in the world, there have been solar panels on the roofs of nearly every building for years and years. They even have an electric vehicle progam! TurnoffyourTV; Please reconsider the woodstove if you can. I live next door to a house that burns wood from the middle of September to the end of April every year. It is a rare day when we get any fresh air. prevailing air currents bring the thick smoke into our home, we can smell it in our house quite often. I hate our neighbor for it: one person living in a 3000 square foot home burning wood every day 18 hours a day and we have to choke on the smoke.

The good senator has a fine suggestion.

I would modify his suggestion to include solar thermal for hot water rather than just PV. Solar thermal is more cost effective for most home owners than PV.

I would also suggest that the PV collector size, at least at first, be limited to the real time load on the home. This would not get into the issues of 'spinning the meter backwards'. That is a real can of worms for the utilities and, unless there is a requirement for a premium purchase by the utility, not at all cost effective for the homeowner.

I disagree with Makhijani that domestic energy efficiency is a necessary percursor to this program. Efficiency is probably more cost effective than PV, especially in an older home, but there is no need for a mandatory linkage. A similar program in parallel for domestic energy efficiency would be a good idea.

I also disagree with Makhijani on 'doing' parking lots. Parking lot PVs would belong to the utility rather than the homeowner. PV is much more cost effective for the homeowner than a utility. (For the homeowner, the value is avoiding the retail cost of the electicity. For the utility, PV must compete with other more cost effective means of power generation.)

Bill

Makhijani: "it might be best to first invest in energy efficiency prior to installing rooftop solar panels. Without improving the efficiency of household appliances and the homes themselves the nation would basically be throwing electricity away".

No. This completely discounts market dynamics on an individual level. If you allow individuals to compete, they will do so.

Quick article on a new MA state law just enacted that also incorporates a leasing option:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/us/03brfs-BEGREENITSTH_BRF.html

We have NOT been conditioned to view savings in the same light as earnings. Most of the difference can be traced back to energy concerns that do not really want us to conserve... conservation to those who produce and distribute is akin to a farmer asking people to eat less of his product. Once we can connect the dots directly to earnings, people will be more conservation minded... no matter what message the energy types feed us.

One of the best chances to realize that kind of revolutionary change in perception, is to federally mandate that all homeowners be allowed to become producers... free grid connection and metering, with excess energy production paid at, or near, market rates, without yearly limits. Once alternative generation is rewarded, conservation will be a top priority to maximize profits.

Affordable, mass-produced electric cars are near-future. With a proactive program for grid connectivity, we therefore solve two very tough problems... reducing dependence on oil through new alternative energy generation that has many MILLIONS of sources... and increasing the *wise* usage of energy.

The next step would be to foster production and conservation competition on household, neighborhood, city, county, state and regional levels. All this is achievable and doesn't require war.

Hydrogen "power" is the worst concept ever. Water and hydrogen, that's the equivalent of collecting car exhaust from a bunch of tailpipes in a big balloon and thinking you can put it through an engine a second time; or thinking that throwing a match in a bucket of water will cause an explosion.

interesting, thanks for sharing Ceelee.
I'm trying to educate myself on how i can improve my older home, and found a couple links I've been following.
Austin is charging $35 for a full day on how to design your home to be more energy efficient.

http://www.austinenergy.com/Energy%20Efficiency/Programs/Green%20Building/Resources/GreenByDesign/inde...

Austin Technology incubator that has a couple small solar startups, but there seems to be tons of things on the web.
http://www.ati.utexas.edu/clean-energy/cei-portfolio.html

Hopefully this is taking off in all communities through technology incubators and city programs to help citizens.
PC's took companies by storm and changed things in many ways, all started by small companies, with large corporations missing the boat, or too big to change in the beginning. We can do this again with energy.

Using rooftop solar panels makes a lot of sense. They're long lasting, reliable, and readily installed. We used photovoltaics from 1983 to 2006 when we sold our house (the new buyers considered them a feature).

We were off the grid until 1995, so our house lights were wired for DC. When we went on the grid, we kept the DC lighting system, and used AC for appliances. Neither my husband or I are techies, but we found great resources to help us do this ourselves.

It should be noted, we lived in the Pacific Northwest, in the Cascade foothills, with lots of gray days. Because we were off the grid, we set up an array of batteries to store electricity. However, cogeneration is a better answer, and many states have laws requiring power companies to make that possible. Electricity can flow to or from any power source, and batteries can be a matter of choice, not necessity.

skeptism is heatlhy, good, but we need folks taking the lead too. the poorer countires of the world have a lot more progress with solar options than the U.S. You can see them using solar on their rooftops for simple things like heating water (south america, india). don't give up hope...we need lots of differnt options and i bet they come from small companies / individuals selling them

the evolution of the PC in the 80's and 90's raised personal productivity and created more opportunities for individuals. we should see the same thing for individuals with solar options in the future as well, not just large organizations.

we definitely need to conserve more, have smaller foot prints and look at cheap options to improve our homes. The city of Austin (TX) has been doing a great job of encouraging conservation options, and giving grants for solar energy implementations on homes. I have hope that this will continue in many cities. Large organizations change when there is pain, so maybe we have enough pain to make more progress now. Positive, open outlook is needed too

The poor and middle class people can't afford solar panels. They cost a fortune! Plus, how many panels are they using in the Mojave desert to generate enough electricity for 400,000 homes? That is not very clear but my bet these panels take up "ALOT" of land period. Wind machines are a joke as well. I watched a documentary on PBS about renewable energy and they said these wind turbines could cover the planet and still not generate enough energy for all the people in the world. That too is not the answer.

I don't buy solar panels are the answer either. On cloudy days they don't work. I have seen the 'tiny' solar panels police use on those machines that monitor and tell you how fast you are going...you know, like sleeping policemen. On weeks where there has been no sun for days, they are dead and they don't read car speeds anymore, they just sit there. How about winter months where clouds and snow are the norm? For Northern states, this is not totally the answer.

To me this is a new way for corporations to make money. OIL is fading so now the next 'get rich scheme is solar panels'. Solar panels are expensive and the average American doesn't have $10,000 just laying around. They are just trying to survive in our current economy by putting food on the table. There are many older homes that exist that may need massive revamps to get this to work.

Again sadly, the burden is pushed on the American people...what a load of crap. Spend Billions to fund a war and no help for the American people who live here!

Renewable energy will make many rich and money is what drives people, not compassion for others. The rich have the 'Green' houses (as they have all the money to pay for it).They can afford the solar panels and the hydrogen cars. Just ask good old Rich Arnold in California who has a hydrogen hummer.He imports the hydrogen he needs and he is rich. The Rich have always ruled in this country since it's inception..they still rule.

Sanders has a good idea, but corporate America won't allow it. Americans already pay triple the price that Canadians do for electricity making it a very profitable venture for the utility companies. Bush and McCain are firmly committed to these energy conglomerates who will continue to refuse to surrender any of their protected turf.
To complicate matters more, as the price of oil rises, more and more peolpe will heave to switch to electrical alternatives. This means that even if the US were to implement 10 million solar panels, it would not be enough to offset the projected increases in electrical consumption over the next decade. A larger initiative is required along with much stricter control of the utility companies.

A 10,000 investment for the home is not bad. How much do we spend on cars and cable TV every year. We're putting in a wood stove this summer. And next summer we start the solar panels set up for our home. We can't sit around on our collective hands anymore and wait for the government to do anything. It is up to each of us to start the change we wish to see.

Lets see...we've already pissed away $500 billion in Iraq. $500 billion divided by $20,000 covers 25 million rooftop installations free and clear. Corporate America would still be getting 500 billion tax dollars but at least it would not be going to war.

this is not a new idea...we should have been doing this twenty years ago...and who cares if the panels arent that efficent yet...its sunlight we're talking about, free fusion energy that showers us daily and 99.9999% of it goes unharnessed...

I have a nice flat Southwestern roof that soaks up plenty of sun, but a $10,000 'investment' is pie in the sky for me and I suspect the majority of people struggling to put food on the table right now. And right now is when we need that solar energy harnessed. Something more practical like universal 'coverage' needs to be put on the agenda sooner rather than later if we are to make a difference as we all would like to do. Isn't there a project similar to the first Ford cars, which were inexpensive enough for everyone to get involved in? It doesn't have to be a cadillac system - just a solar tin Lizzie would do for a start.

Solar should be used on individual roof tops to cut the expense for the home owner by 70%!. We need to decentralize and dismantle the centralized corporate control systems that have taken over. Too much wealth and power has been consolidated over the past couple of decades. The renewable alternatives are the perfect way to do this. The less dependent you are on goods and services provided by others, the more control you have over your life.

Another reason not to throw your vote away on the corporate candidates, instead Nader/Gonzalez are seriously committed to solar, partly as a way to get out from under the jackboot of big oil and coal.

Go Bernie! It took an Independent Yankee to finally stand up and propose a positive first step to Oil Independence and, even more, a direct reduction in Carbon pollution that drives Global Warming.

Bernie Sanders for President !