As a passionate enemy of suburban sprawl, I listened intently to an interview this morning on NPR with Brookings Institution demographer William Frey in which he notes that housing prices are falling faster in the areas outside cities. Is this a permanent correction that is making “exurbs” less desirable overall? And how are gas prices influencing this loss of home value? Mr. Frey was cautious in his answer, saying “the jury is still out” and that Americans have a history of moving outward from cities in order to buy more housing for less, seeing long commutes as an acceptable trade off.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to see that, when a commute costs more than one is saving on housing, while sucking up hours of one’s valuable time, (and as the saying goes, “They aren’t making more of that”) why would one buy a home in the far suburbs? Why, indeed?

Sperling’s Best Places did a survey two years ago when gas prices were at $2.90 a gallon. The following were the most expensive cities in which to commute and listed the average annual commuting cost:

City Annual Commuting Cost (2006)

1. Atlanta $5,772
2. Birmingham, Ala. $5,464
3. Orlando, Fla. $5,404
4. Jacksonville, Fla. $5,360
5. Pensacola, Fla. $5,173

So, if gas prices reach $6.00, Atlanta’s commuting cost would be over $10,000 per year. Yikes.

A posting on Wall Street Journal’s online edition reports that even the conservative International Energy Agency is moving toward the Peak Oil Pessimists’ camp. The conclusion is that it’s not speculators making oil go higher but simple capitalist principles like the law of supply and demand – developing countries are going to be driving up demand for many years to come.

So will this result in an end to sprawl? Will avoidance of driving cause the demise of the ugly, cookie-cutter mini-mall blight that has mushroomed around our cities like an invasive species? Let’s hope so.

Sprawl Kills

Addressing Peak Oil at the Local Level

“Maker’s Mark’s new facility will anaerobically treat the liquid portion of the whole stillage and process waters produced during bourbon-making, generating methane-rich biogas, a renewable energy source, that will offset 165 MMBtu, or 15 - 30%, of the facility’s natural gas consumption.”

Ecovation is also working with Simi Winery in Sonoma County, to help lighten the burden on publicly-owned treatment facilities by using an ecologically sound method of pre-treating wastewater. The company won a 2007 Environmental Excellence Award from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for its dairy waste stream management solution for Breyers Yogurt Co.

Image Credit: Maker’s Mark

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While adoption of solar energy steps up around the world, two key challenges remain: how to store the energy created during the day so it can be used through the night and how to dispatch the energy to where it is needed. Both of these problems may be solved by coupling molten salt with concentrating solar power (CSP), according to a June 26 article in Renewable Energy World.

You will recall from previous CleanTechnica postings that CSP technology concentrates the sun’s power to create steam, which turns a turbine to make electricity. But how did molten salt get into the picture?

“Terry Murphy, Chief Executive Officer for SolarReserve, who along with others helped develop the molten salt technology at Rocketdyne. ‘Molten salt is a heat storage medium that retains thermal energy very effectively over time and operates at temperatures greater than 1000°F, which matches well with the most efficient steam turbines. Second, it remains in a liquid state throughout the plant’s operating regime, which will improve long-term reliability and reduce operation and maintenance costs. And third, it’s totally ‘green,’ molten salt is a non-toxic, readily available material…..’”

Molten salt storage was a key component of the Solar Grand Plan, published in Scientific American in December 2007, which outlined a plan to supply 69% of U.S. electricity and 35% of its total energy by 2050. The Grand Plan, written by By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis, proposes molten salt storage concentrating solar, among other proven technologies, and calls for an aggressive plan of government subsidies to allow solar energy to compete fairly with oil and other fossil fuels.

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In New Jersey, demand for solar installations is high, but 700 customers are on waiting lists for solar rebates, and some smaller installers are laying off workers while waiting for the rebates to be funded. So the state is considering moving to a system of energy credits that can be traded on the open market, according to a story today in the New York Times. That’s because, while New Jersey has grown its solar market, now it needs to grow it even faster.

• Solar must provide 2.12 percent of NJ electricity by 2020 to meet the state’s commitment, but is only providing only .07 percent thus far.
• The state has paid out $170 million in rebates and 3,100 solar systems have been installed.
• There is pressure to keep electricity rates from rising further, as NJ’s are some of the highest in the country, yet if rebates continue at the needed level, rates will rise even further. (Rebates are funded by surcharges on electrical rates.)

It is believed that energy credits would reward larger companies, allowing them to ramp up solar installations at a faster rate. This faster growth would also take the pressure off the state to supply rebate funds.

Image: Rob Bennett for The New York Times. Installing solar modules on the roof of Kohl’s

Another way solar is growing is through power purchase agreements.

“Under those agreements… property owners do not have to buy or operate their solar projects, or handle the sale of energy credits. Instead, they avoid all up-front costs by contracting with SunEdison or other large companies, who bill property owners at fixed rates that are lower than utility company rates. Experts say these purchase agreements can promote the move to solar power. And regulators hope that a vibrant market for energy credits will speed that growth to the point where solar power can compete with conventionally generated electricity.”

Though renewable energy financing may be the dull side of the renewable energy debate, it is essential to market growth, and New Jersey’s experiment is being watched closely by everyone in the marketplace. To states like Indiana, where there are no state solar incentives at all, New Jersey’s problems seem enviable.

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Atlantic City Convention Center Plans Largest Solar Roof in U.S.

Having staffed a booth two years running at the Chicago Green Festival, I know what a challenge it is for meeting planners to stage a truly green convention. The Green Festival posts volunteers at the garbage cans, to help the public choose the right bin: compost, recycle, or trash. Exhibitors have to attend a conference call and sign a “leave no trace” agreement.

Now, it’s the DNC’s turn to wrestle with the inherent problems associated with inviting thousands of people to converge on a city for a giant party, while keeping their carbon footprints as low as possible. The Wall Street Journal’s front page story on “The Greenest Show on Earth” provides some insights into the problem:

• After trying to source an organic, union made fanny pack to be given to volunteers, Bob DeMasse, the convention’s organizer reported that such a thing doesn’t exist.
• The same goes for baseball caps: there are union caps and organic caps, but no cap with both requirements. (Come on, unions, step up!)
• Andrea Robinson, the convention’s Director of Greening, is testing balloons to make sure they are really biodegradable — by burying them in steaming compost piles.
• She has also hired an Official Carbon Advisor to measure the show’s carbon footprint so that it can be offset by investments in renewable energy.
• “Lean and green” catering guidelines are calling for no fried food and 70% organic or local ingredients.
• And, yes, the DNC will also have a team of garbage monitors.

Some inevitable compromises have resulted, but the Dems can at least be given credit for forcing everyone to think about the environmental impact of their meeting — and perhaps building a template for future meetings as well. It’s all part of an encouraging trend in the meeting planning business, which the Green Meeting Industry Council is helping to lead, and it’s creating ripples throughout the hospitality industry, evidenced by such organizations as the Green Hotels Association.

Image Credit: Kevin P. Casey, USA Today

We are all familiar with touch-less faucets, which not only decrease infection rates but keep lazy people from letting the water run as they brush their teeth. Great idea, but an idea that requires electrical energy or a battery to run the infrared sensing device. Now Toto, the Japanese company that makes simple, elegant, and water-saving bathroom fixtures, has developed a touch-less faucet that also saves energy.

The EcoPower faucet contains a small turbine inside. The turbine, powered by the water running through the faucet, creates an electrical current that is stored in rechargable cells. The faucets supply the very energy they consume by using the flow of water to spin a high-efficiency turbine to both create and store power. Eco Power replenishes its charge with as few as 5 uses per day, and with as few as 10 uses a day, the backup battery itself is seldom used and can last up to 19 years. Elegant!

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“Jeffrey Vasser, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority, said the group began planning a solar project a few years ago when Gov. Jon S. Corzine pushed for greater use of sun and wind power in New Jersey.

‘We have a great building to do this on, and we wanted to be the first kid on the block to get in on it,’ Vasser said. This helps a young industry grow into a mature one, helps reduce our dependence on oil, and produces electricity that does not increase carbon emissions into the air,’ he said of the multi million-dollar project.”

State Governors, take note what a little forward-thinking leadership can accomplish. And think about the vast acreage across the U.S. devoted to industrial-size roofs that could be deployed to save businesses millions of dollars on energy while lessening our dependence on foreign oil. Oh yeah, and helping the environment.

Image Credit: Solar Service, Inc.

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Though many states and localities are waking up to their water shortages and taking steps to plan for “peak water”, people generally continue to waste water and to ignore the energy-water link. In 2004 the Natural Resources Defense Council did a study in conjunction with the Pacific Institute called “Energy Down the Drain” on how saving water saves energy. We need to do more to spread the word. Here are seven ways to save energy by saving water:

1. Use local water.

Transporting water uses energy, so rainwater harvesting is a serious water-and-energy saver. According to the NRDC/Pacific Institute study “California’s State Water Project (SWP), which transports water from Northern California to Southern California is the state’s largest single energy user, consuming 2 to 3 percent of all electricity. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to pump the water 2,000 feet over the Tehachapi Mountains — the highest water lift of any water system in the world

2. Use less heated water in homes and businesses.

Heating water uses a great deal of energy. Small things magnified a million times over — like washing clothes with cold water or taking shorter showers — saves large amounts of energy.

3. Use energy-saving appliances.

Energy Star appliances will decrease water and energy use.

4. Learn from Australia.

Why reinvent the wheel? Since 2006, when the BBC reported Australia’s biggest drought in 1,000 years, the situation has not improved. In an island nation, this has a tendency to focus the mind, and water-and energy-saving inventions have been pouring forth from that country, while the government introduces policies that save energy and water almost daily.

5. Rethink your bathroom.

Toto, an innovative company from Japan (another island nation concerned about water use) offers an EcoPower hands-free faucet that recharges itself each time it is used.

6. Rip out that lawn and replace it with a rain garden.

Watering grass, fertilizing it with petroleum-based fertilizers, and mowing it with a gas or electric mower…..need I say more?

7. Eat more vegetables and grains; cut down on the beef.

Animal farming takes more energy and water. “Beef production requires large volumes of water–as much as 100 times that required to produce equivalent amounts of protein energy from grains.” (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2002 And the cows are fed from corn that is farmed using energy-hogging fertilizers, insecticides, and fossil fuels.

If you think about it, it’s impossible to separate our energy use from our water use. If we can start thinking holistically about the systems we use in our daily lives — and get our governments to create policies that promote wise use of energy and water, we’ll be more ready for the limits to resources that are only going to increase.

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As part of the Kyoto protocol, Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) were created to help developing countries lower carbon emissions while continuing development. The program is administered by the United Nations and is supposed to work like this:

Company A must meet targets requiring lower carbon emissions, but it is expensive to do so in its own country, so it invests in Company B in, let’s say, China. Company B is supposed to use these investments (CDMs) to develop energy sources with lower carbon emissions, such as solar, wind, etc. The world wins when this mechanism creates fewer worldwide carbon emissions. Patrick McCully, Executive Director of International Rivers, is sharply criticizing this program because he has found evidence of polluters gaming the system. His article in Renewable Energy World is long and informative, but I’ll summarize here:

• Coal and oil companies and destructive dam builders, and even some wind and solar companies, are using the CDMs as an income generator for projects that they would have built anyway, even without the CDMs. (Only projects that would have NOT been built without the CDMs are considered eligible. This “additionality” has been impossible to monitor.)

• But it gets worse. (Now stay with me as I introduce another acronym.) CDMs qualify as CERs, or “Certified Emission Reduction” credits, and companies who pollute can use them to achieve their carbon emission reduction targets. McCully’s point is that CDMs + CERs = carbon disaster, because some companies may make more money creating pollution and then taking CERs to mitigate it than by simply not polluting. He uses an extreme example to illustrate:

Image credit: Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations measured at Mauna Loa Observatory.

“The single project type slated to generate the most CERs is the destruction of a gas called trifluoromethane, or HFC-23, one of the most potent of all greenhouse gases. HFC-23 is a waste product from the manufacture of a refrigerant gas.

Every molecule of HFC-23 causes 11,700 times more global warming than a molecule of CO₂. Because of this massive ‘global warming potential,’ chemical companies can earn almost twice as much from selling CERs as from selling refrigerant gases. This has spurred concern that refrigerant producers may be increasing their output solely so that they can produce, and then destroy, more waste gases. It is even feared that new refrigerant factories could be built only to destroy HFC-23.”

Supporters of carbon cap-and-trade legislation (and I am one of them) must be alert to the need for figuring out how to correct this flaw in the system. As the United States enters the carbon management economy (which everyone expects to happen with the next administration), let’s hope that improvements will result. (Note to readers: I edited this last sentence in response to an article on U.N. Dispatch, a blog covering the UN.)

]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/11/un-managed-carbon-offsets-called-global-shell-game/feed/ http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/08/t-boone-pickens-says-peak-oil-reached-plans-worlds-largest-wind-farm/ http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/08/t-boone-pickens-says-peak-oil-reached-plans-worlds-largest-wind-farm/#comments Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:37:27 +0000 Carol Gulyas http://cleantechnica.com/?p=497

When one of Texas’s richest oil men bets big on wind energy, it gets attention. Yesterday NPR’s Living on Earth broadcast an interview with Mr. Pickens, who shared the salient facts about his planned wind project:

• It will be the largest in the world, he reckons, at 4,000 megawatts
• It will provide enough power for 1,300,000 homes
• It’s a $10 billion dollar project from which he plans a 15%-25% profit

Asked why he is investing in wind now, Pickens replied:

“For a number of years I’ve watched the wind turbines develop — and I feel like it’s time for it. I think that oil has peaked at 85 million barrels in the world. We’ve got to develop other forms of energy — wind, I think solar will be next, and I hope I’m still around to be in the solar deal.” (Pickens is 80 years old.

But what if Congress doesn’t vote to extend the wind Production Tax Credit?

“Well, I think they’ll vote on it. They’ll either do that or they’ll give some kind of carbon credit because, the wind has to be developed in the United States. We’re now importing 72 percent of the oil we use every day. I think everybody can see that we’re gonna break the country if we pay 700 billion dollars a year for, uh, imported oil……I’ve got a good team of people that are knowledgeable in wind energy, and I don’t worry about it. I think it’s a good project, and it’ll do well and we’ll make money. And it’ll help the country.”

I took a look at Pickens’s bio on Wikipedia. He grew up poor but worked hard. He became a geologist in the 50’s, which “were difficult times for the oil industry and petroleum geologists.” He stuck at it and obviously his bet on oil paid off; Pickens is worth $3 billion now. But he’s moving on — to wind. Find out more about this story in the current issue of Fast Company.

Image credit: www.boonepickens.com

New legislation in Germany is making geothermal electricity a viable option for the first time. Germany’s support of solar energy, mostly in the form of incentives and high return for consumers who sell excess solar power back to the grid, has made it a world powerhouse in solar energy generation and solar panel manufacturing. Now it promises to surge ahead in geothermal electricity generation, according to a story in Renewable Energy World. A new tariff structure has made deep drilling for higher temperature steam financially feasible, causing a boom in plant construction and a shortage of drilling equipment.

“… Germany could be generating several thousands of megawatts (MW) of electricity from geothermal sources in a couple of decades. More plants — some as big as 8-10 MW — are due to go into operation in 2009-2010 …. And looking 3 to 5 years ahead, there could be more than a hundred plants. About 150 geothermal power plant projects are in the pipeline representing an investment of 4 billion euros, according to the German government.” — Jane Burgermeister, Renewable Energy World

1,300 households get heat, and 500 households get their electricity from a geothermal plant in Neustadt-Glewe, which gets 97-degree centigrade water from a well dug 2250 meters deep.  Image credit: Exorka.com

“Indiana is on the verge of explosive growth in wind energy…. There is not one single energy issue or technology that has fostered more interest and discussion among Hoosiers. As these turbines begin sprouting on Indiana farmland there is a huge appetite for information about them, which is why we’re bringing all these people together.”

The conference has been put together partly by the Indiana Wind Working Group, among other entities. Along with the Indiana Renewable Energy Association, they are advocating what has worked to build renewables in other states: a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). RPS’s assure investment in renewable technologies by requiring that a state have a certain portion of its energy generated by renewable sources. Given the need for jobs in Indiana and the potential for wind in the state, we can expect more support for a state RPS going forward.

“At noon on a typical workday, technicians in a two-story control room monitor a dozen screens showing the heat generated by each array of mirrors. As temperatures creep past 700 degrees, icons blink to red from green, indicating the center is ready to feed electricity to the California grid.”

The resulting steam turns turbines that generate electricity — enough to power 112,55 L.A.-area homes. Concentrated solar thermal’s potential has not escaped the attention of forward-thinking investors with big money:

“Chevron, Goldman Sachs, FPL, PG&E and other companies have filed more than 50 applications with the Bureau of Land Management to lease government-owned desert property for solar power systems. Google’s philantropic division put $10 million into eSolar, a start-up in Pasadena, California.” –Greg Chang, Bloomberg.com

• Congress is missing opportunities to save energy because of its narrow focus on achieving carbon-emission goals thirty years in the future.
• Older manufacturing companies have no incentive to clean up their plants because the EPA’s New Source Review rule requires that with any physical changes made, companies have to add all new technology.

New source review sounds good to us environmentalists, but in practice it makes rust belt companies avoid upgrades in their current operations that would save vast amounts of energy, because of the expense involved in completely revamping their entire operations.

The next day NPR aired a story on waste heat capture. ArcolorMittal, a European-based steel company with a plant in East Chicago, Indiana, has placed boilers above its coke ovens to capture the intense heat generated by them — heat which used to be entirely lost. The heat is used to generate steam which turns turbines that create electricity. Further, the NPR story quotes Tom Riley, ArcelorMittal’s manager of utilities:

“‘We can produce almost a hundred megawatts of electrical generation out of the steam that’s produced off the waste heat that we’re capturing here today.’ That’s enough electricity to power more than 60,000 homes, according to Department of Energy Statistics. Recent EPA and DOE studies suggest U.S. industries waste enough heat to generate an estimated 200,000 megawatts of power — nearly 20 percent of what this nation uses. That’s enough electricity to replace up to 400 coal-fired power plants.”

In this, as in so many areas, we are behind our friends in Europe and Japan. According to NPR, Denmark generates nearly 55 percent of its electricity through heat recovery; in the Netherlands and Finland the figure is nearly 40 percent, and in Germany 35 percent. In the U.S. figure is only 8 percent., according to the Department of Energy. While we are pressuring Congress for laws providing incentives for renewable energy, let’s not forget the impact of waste heat recycling, and the legislation that needs to occur to make it more widespread. (Image from Minneapolis Public Radio.)

Envision Solar is causing a lot of excitement in the beleaguered shopping mall world with its innovative use of solar energy: as Solar Trees™ in a Solar Grove™. Panels placed on retail parking lots — traditionally barren, heat-producing landscapes — can now provide shade for customers, while generating up to a half-megawatt of electricity. They can also block light pollution from nighttime parking lot lighting. I spoke to Pamela Stevens, EVP of Promotional Development for Envision Solar, who was visiting Las Vegas for the ICSC Recon show.

“In a competitive economic environment, shopping malls and big box stores are looking for a way to differentiate themselves. Our Solar Trees are not hidden away on the rooftop, and so they create visibility for the store, while providing comfortable shade for their customers, and generating clean energy.”

In addition, financing programs let retailers enjoy the benefits while avoiding initial capital outlays, making these clean energy generators even more appealing and easier for retailers to adopt. Down the road, Envision’s designers hope to make the solar parking lot the ideal place for recharging electric vehicles. I applaud Envision Solar, which was founded by architects seeking ways to design for sustainability, for seeing a problem and turning it into an asset.

A May 16 article in the New York Times focused on the debate in Germany regarding whether generous subsidies for solar energy should be continued. Buried in the story was the remarkable fact that Germany has created 40,000 jobs in formerly blighted industrial areas by “turbo-charging” the growth of the solar industry there. Imagine if our government took a leadership role in jump-starting solar production in areas like Pittsburgh, Indiana, and Michigan, where much of the infrastructure and work force still remain from the declining steel and auto industries. Some facts:

• Germany has half the sunshine hours of San Diego.
• An American company, Signet Solar, chose to build its thin film plant in Germany, not the U.S.
• The engine that grew Germany’s solar industry is its feed-in tariff, which requires power companies to buy citizen-produced solar energy at an above-market rate for 20 years. Citizens have responded — by putting solar panels on nearly every available surface.
• Spain, France, Italy and Greece have copied Germany’s subsidy plan. California is using a version of it by requiring utilities to pay customers rebates for the amount of energy they would have bought if they didn’t have solar modules.
• Growing solar has helped other alternative energy production to grow as well: Germany gets 14.2 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, putting it ahead of the EU target of 12.5 percent from renewables by 2010.

Critics of the subsidies argue that they will eventually make solar energy too costly vs. other energy sources; defenders argue that the support for solar still doesn’t match subsidies to the dirty and declining coal industry, and that conventional energy costs will rise at a higher rate. Others charge that this is a classic attempt by large centralized power companies to weaken the role of distributed generation — citizen-generated, de-centralized power sources. Whether or not Germany decreases subsidies at a faster rate than planned, for now they are the world’s largest market for PV systems.

“To develop a technology, you’ve got to create an industry,” said Mr. Milner, the chief executive of Q-Cells, referring to the German success story. “You can wait and wait and wait for costs to come down, but it takes too long.” –Mark Landler, New York Times, 5/16/08

• From Bosch, a new generation of solar flat plate collectors (used in solar thermal water heating applications) that can be mounted on the roof at a lower angle, addressing some peoples’ aesthetic concerns. The panels are also lighter-weight and easier to mount even on high roofs. Low-profile collectors were also unveiled by Schuco, Viessman, and Velux. Perhaps next year, one of the innovative solar companies will be from the U.S.?
• Solar thin film technology is exceeding expectations, with market share estimated at 3%, vs. 1-2%. Thin film is the new solar kid on the block, celebrated because of its lower cost, higher efficiency and more flexible applications.
• SolarBuzz reported a 62% increase in world PV production. “Germany’s PV market reached 1,328 MW in 2007 and now accounts for 47% of the world market. Spain soared by over 480% to 640 MW, while the U.S. increased by 57% to 220 MW, [making it] the world’s largest market behind Japan, once the world leader.”
• ASES (American Solar Energy Society), the conference’s sponsor, announced a push to establish more student chapters, in order to enlist solar energy’s future leaders. (Photo from VELUX image gallery.)

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This is one key reason why Illinois, my home state, came late to the table in wind energy development behind Texas, which ranks first among the fifty states. (Another big reason why Texas is first is because it had already created a statewide, uniform system of taxing oil production, which was easily transferred to the wind industry; but that’s another topic for another blog post.) The AWS Truewind map covers a land area of over 9 million square kilometers, and is sure to be an asset for companies and entrepreneurs wishing to identify and develop wind energy.

“With more than an order of magnitude growth potential and an expansion in wind capacity of 45% in 2007 alone (16,818 MW installed currently), the US represents one of the largest markets for wind energy development worldwide.… being the first developer on the ground at an attractive site prospect is mission critical for many.”

“Negawatts”, a termed coined by Amory Lovins in 1989 to describe savings created by using less energy, are becoming a reality. The fact that saving energy is much cheaper than building new power generation capacity has motivated the markets to create financial and other incentives to monetize that savings. According to an article in Renewable Energy World, several market mechanisms have emerged:

• Demand response: enrolling large users of energy in programs to lower their usage in return for compensation, which helps take pressure off the grid. Examples of demand response networks include Comverge and Gridpoint.
• White Tags: businesses earn energy savings certificates for the energy they send back to the grid based on efficiency measures they put in place. White Tags can then be sold or put toward achieving mandatory emission goals.

The potential of energy savings is largely untapped, but there is plenty of precedent for it in California. “Since the 1970s, California, through the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), has worked with utilities to encourage conservation rather than consumption. As a result, Californians now use about half as much electricity as other Americans.” –Glenn Croston, Renewable Energy World.

The solar panels on the roof heat the water (and they seem positioned to shade the air conditioner, another energy-saver). An article in Kiplinger.com summarizes “sunshine economics”:

“A few big variables dictate whether a home PV system makes economic sense. But in rough terms, here’s how the numbers break down in states with the best incentives: The average solar-power system is 4 kilowatts. (Think of kilowatts as the size of the system. The power it generates depends on size, efficiency and sunlight.) Figure the price, including installation, is $10,000 per kilowatt, so the total comes to $40,000. Through various rebates, credits and tax breaks, some states pay half that cost. The federal government will also chip in 30% of the cost, up to $2,000. Taken together, those subsidies drop the total to $18,000. Manufacturers say that solar panels will last 25 to 30 years, and they guarantee them for 20 years. Assuming a 20-year life span, that averages out to a cost of $75 per month.” –Solar Finally Pays Off, Bob Frick, Sr. Editor, Kiplinger online

Even better: The economics above are for Solar PV, which generates electricity; the economics for solar thermal, which heats water and air, are even more favorable in even more states. Can we now stop grumbling about “payback” and move on to building the solar industry?