Fossil fuel and renewable energy subsidies need parity

Published on April 28, 2011 by Dan Hahn.
Categories: Environment, Infographics.

According to a study by the Environmental Law Institute, U.S. fossil fuels industries enjoyed direct federal payments totaling roughly $18 billion between 2002 and 2008. Of course, that doesn’t include the $54 billion in tax breaks.

Over the same time period, subsidies to renewable power producers totaled just $5.5 billion.

Now, the government included corn based ethanol as a “renewable source” of energy which is frankly maddening, considering more fossil energy is used to produce ethanol from corn than the ethanol’s calorific value.

Really, the graph should look more like this:

I just watched Bill Ritter, Colorado’s former governor, debate a couple fossil and nuclear industry knuckleheads. He valiantly pushed for solar energy adoption and enhanced legislative efforts on a recent intelligence squared debate:

http://www.vimeo.com/20896432

While the two coal and nuclear advocates fired away at the premise of ratepayer subsidized renewable energy, he spoke calmly regarding the enormous benefit the solar industry has had on Colorado communities, jobs created, and clean energy served up. I couldn’t help but have the following stream out of my mouth as I watched:

“Ratepayer subsidized solar?! Aww that’s terrible!!, I take it you’re much more comfortable with TAXpayer subsidized coal and oil, right?”

SPR Throws down the gauntlet: Time for a live Obama solar summit to explain the lack of solar panels on the White House

Published on February 21, 2010 by Tor a.k.a. "Solar Fred".
Categories: Environment, Help us, Municipal Financing.

LOS ANGELES. SolarPowerRocks.com, a solar blog and residential solar referral service, is offering to sit down with President Obama in a live television summit to discuss why solar panels have yet to be installed on the White House.

“We’ve tried to contact the White House about this issue, but for some reason they’ve ignored us and the two or three other people who’ve responded to our recent email campaign,” said SolarPowerRocks.com spokesperson, Tor Valenza, a.k.a. “Solar Fred.”

Solar Fred said that he realized that the Obama Administration appears to be attracted to live, on-camera debates, and so decided that offering to sit down live and on camera might be the carrot that the Administration has been waiting for.

“Let me be clear: We’re not laying down any pre-conditions to this summit,” said Solar Fred. “All options are on the table. We’re happy to talk to Obama about health care too, but getting solar back on the White House is really what we’re after. In fact, the public option is cool with us, so Obama will get a lot farther talking to us about health care than with Orrin Hatch. That’s for sure. Plus, we’ll bring beer.”

For such a pro-renewable energy White House, solar advocates like Solar Fred have long wondered why the White House has not immediately made plans to put solar electric and solar hot water systems back on the White House. President Carter installed solar hot water panels on the White House in the 1970’s, and then President Reagan subsequently took them off. In 2003, the National Parks Service installed solar on a White House maintenance shed during George “W” Bush’s tenure, but Solar Fred said that solar on a maintenance shed sends a terrible message to  America.

“Solar on a maintenance shed? Give me a break,” said Solar Fred. “That’s like telling the world that solar is only good for charging up the batteries for electric drills and secret service walkie-talkies. Solar photovoltaic technology and solar hot water are mature and affordable technologies today. Solar PV is currently powering the Space Station. Hello? Not to mention millions of homes and businesses throughout the world. It also happens to be a dominant power source for the entire parliament building in Germany. How embarrassing is that?”

Fred explained that  solar advocates are only asking that Obama offset at least the residential portion of the White House’s energy needs.

“We know the Capitol building is filled with too many coal and oil lobbyists to allow solar symbols of clean, renewable energy to be right over their heads. Heck, that would send the wrong message to those lobbyists, like ‘I’m retiring’ or ‘Please feel free to send gobs of money to my opponent,’” said Solar Fred.

Putting solar on the White House, Fred said, will bring attention to many consumers about important solar policies, such as net metering, and local solar rebates, as well as new types of financing, such as PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) programs, All are contributing to making solar affordable to home and business owners with little or no upfront costs.

Fred also stated that if the President doesn’t sit down with him in the White House for a live solar summit, then he will be forced to hold the live summit without Obama at a local bar.

“It will be embarrassing for the President if he doesn’t show, I know,” admitted Fred. “That’s why I’m giving him a chance on his own terms. And believe me, it will be far easier to sit down with me and a few beers to talk about solar (and health care if he insists) than to just talk about health care with Orin Hatch. I don’t think Senator Hatch even drinks beer, and voters should know that.”

About SolarPowerRocks.com

SolarPowerRocks.com is a solar blog and solar referral site founded in 2007 by Dan Hahn and Dave Llorens. Tor Valenza, aka “Solar Fred,” merged SolarFred.com with SolarPowerRocks.com in 2009, mainly due to their mutual love for finding simple, entertaining ways to educate consumers about solar technology, solar incentives, and solar financing. They also mutually enjoy beer.

Visit SolarPowerRocks.com for more information.

Below, a little history of what happened to the solar panels that used to be on the roof of the White House.

3 reasons why the Sun blows my mind

Published on October 12, 2009 by Sam Harriman.
Categories: Environment, Solar basics.

Image by NASA

I love the sun. Any bask in it is a revitalizing pause. Even when it’s cold outside, that radiating warmth from way out in space makes me feel pretty lucky. Here are 3 reasons why I think the sun is so amazing:

#1: There’s enough energy delivered here from the sun in 1 hour to power 120 trillion light bulbs for 24 hours!

That’s like giving every single person on the planet (that’s 7 billion people) a light bulb which will shine bright for their entire lifetime. Every hour, each square meter of the upper atmosphere receives 1.367kWh of solar Energy. Since a 60 watt bulb consumes 60 watt x hours in one hour, or 60 Wh x 24 hr/day = 1440 Wh per day and there are 120 trillion square meters in our atmosphere, that’s like dropping 120 TRILLION 60 watt light bulbs and still having enough electricity in one hour of sunlight for ALL of those light bulbs to shine for 24 hours!

#2: The sun is a giant nuclear explosion!

Located a mere 93 million miles away from our planet’s surface, the Sun is a thermonuclear fusion reaction. A good thing, since nuclear fusion involves temperatures in excess of 5700 ^oC, (and as high as 14 million ^oC in the case of earth’s sun). This reaction requires massive amounts of pure hydrogen gas which is found exclusively in outer space.

#3: The sun continuously pelts the earth with 35,000 times the amount of energy required by all of us who now use electricity on the planet!

That is a MASSIVE amount of electricity. That purple square above is the land area required in the United States covered in concentrating solar technology to power our entire country. Curious? Just see how far using $68B to develop solar thermal plants would go to securing our energy independence.

The #1 reason we must do better:

Out of all that energy from the sun, we only use less than .1% of it for electricity. More than any other source, we depend on electricity generated from the combustion of fossil fuels to power heat engines, which in turn rotate electrical turbines. Fossil fuels are matter which once lived on the earth’s surface, absorbed the sun’s radiant energy, died, decomposed, and became integrated into the planet’s metamorphic geology. When fossil fuels are dug up and combusted in the atmosphere, fossilized solar heat energy is released and can be harnessed to do work.

However, this turns out to be a very inefficient use of energy.  The second law of thermodynamics dictates any energy conversion involves an efficiency loss, and heat engines are one of the least efficient ways to convert energy. (Further inefficiencies result from the extraction of fossil fuels and the transport and transmission of that energy to all of us.)

In addition to being inefficient, combusting fossil fuels for energy is also impractical. Fossil fuels are the product of millions of years of undisturbed geologic action. Burning them releases carbon into the atmosphere at a rate which disrupts ecological processes.

Luckily, we’ve come up with more direct and efficient means of soaking up solar energy. Huge mirrors concentrate the sun’s rays on a thermal storage agent like water, which in turn generates steam to power turbines. Photovoltaic cells convert photons of sunlight directly into voltage and generate electrical direct current. Radiant solar energy effects movement of atmospheric fluids like air and water. And kinetic energy of moving air or water can then be harnessed to rotate an electrical turbine. Brilliant!

Solar panels, wind farms, and the like are a great solutions for the long term. If you’re wondering how you can avoid the hassle and destruction of old skül energy extraction, you’ve come to the right place. Ask your local installer how you can start harvesting energy directly from our sun.

Norwegian pro-planet propaganda

Published on December 29, 2008 by Dan Hahn.
Categories: Environment.

The argument here is pig and cow farts are much worse for the environment than driving an SUV. So, some Norwegians are proposing an animal tax to deal with the problem. Not a bad idea, though this would never fly here in the states. Here, we subsidize all things meat related and have been for the past 75 years. The cost of a hamburger really should be about $10. Instead, it’s $3. There’s your tax dollars at work.