What about small to medium-sized businesses with large flat rooftops?
I tried to find the answer to that question, but good luck navigating the labyrinth at PG&E's website. Each locale and each energy company treats the little fish differently, with all sorts of come and go temporary "programs" that are not only confusing but discourage long-term investments.
A recent push for "Net Energy Metering" in California has provided some token opportunities and good public relations, but it's highly limited in scope. A "cap" of five percent of the "utility's aggregate peak energy demand" limits the competition from small suppliers.
These problems are structural political issues more so than technological limitations. If everyone had been allowed to enter the much touted "market" then the alternative energy sector would be much larger today than it currently is. The costs of R&D and mass-producing the energy collectors would drop far below what we see even now.
Many of the companies at the leading edge
of clean renewable technologies are not American. The jobs will be
created elsewhere. The rewards will be accumulated overseas.
And the bad news...
Still Obama clings to his big nuclear plant subsidy scheme, his Department of Energy having the brass cojones to label nuclear "clean energy." In the wake of Fukushima, the DOE continues to claim:
I suppose the people at the Department of Energy are too busy to read a newspaper. Not clean. Not safe. Change your absurd web page please and the absurd policies that accompany it.
Nuclear industry flaks will tirelessly argue their case, usually based on dollars per kilowatt hour with cooked numbers that ignore most of nuclear's real costs and damage to society. One wonders how their calculus is faring over in Japan these days.
Closer to your home, AP reports three quarters of all American nuclear plants leak radioactive water from old rusty pipes. Often water containminated with Tritium leaks down into groundwater. Representative Edward Markey(D) said, "There would be no warning because no one ever checks the integrity of these underground pipes."
Tell us something we don't know.
I've read a pro-nuclear defense of Tritium, as it's the stuff inside your watch that makes it glow. Allegedly safe then, except trapping it in a metal and glass box and ingesting it are two completely different things.
I'm quite tired of the nuclear industry's position that we have no choice but to be exposed to their radiation. We aren't supposed to complain, nor to stop them from poisoning us and our children further. We're supposed to be grateful, apparently, that the doses aren't immediately lethal. It doesn't seem to occur to them that we have a say in the matter as well.
That's quite a bit to digest, and perhaps we'll tackle wind, tide generation, fuel cells and geothermal heat mining another day. Cold fusion? Is that for real? A whole host of inventions, proposals, implementations and outside the box ponderings awaits.
Article originally appeared at Counterpunch
I tried to find the answer to that question, but good luck navigating the labyrinth at PG&E's website. Each locale and each energy company treats the little fish differently, with all sorts of come and go temporary "programs" that are not only confusing but discourage long-term investments.
A recent push for "Net Energy Metering" in California has provided some token opportunities and good public relations, but it's highly limited in scope. A "cap" of five percent of the "utility's aggregate peak energy demand" limits the competition from small suppliers.
These problems are structural political issues more so than technological limitations. If everyone had been allowed to enter the much touted "market" then the alternative energy sector would be much larger today than it currently is. The costs of R&D and mass-producing the energy collectors would drop far below what we see even now.
And the bad news...
Still Obama clings to his big nuclear plant subsidy scheme, his Department of Energy having the brass cojones to label nuclear "clean energy." In the wake of Fukushima, the DOE continues to claim:
"With the significant energy and environmental challenges facing the nation in this new century, the benefits of clean and safe nuclear energy are increasingly apparent."
I suppose the people at the Department of Energy are too busy to read a newspaper. Not clean. Not safe. Change your absurd web page please and the absurd policies that accompany it.
Nuclear industry flaks will tirelessly argue their case, usually based on dollars per kilowatt hour with cooked numbers that ignore most of nuclear's real costs and damage to society. One wonders how their calculus is faring over in Japan these days.
Closer to your home, AP reports three quarters of all American nuclear plants leak radioactive water from old rusty pipes. Often water containminated with Tritium leaks down into groundwater. Representative Edward Markey(D) said, "There would be no warning because no one ever checks the integrity of these underground pipes."
Tell us something we don't know.
I've read a pro-nuclear defense of Tritium, as it's the stuff inside your watch that makes it glow. Allegedly safe then, except trapping it in a metal and glass box and ingesting it are two completely different things.
I'm quite tired of the nuclear industry's position that we have no choice but to be exposed to their radiation. We aren't supposed to complain, nor to stop them from poisoning us and our children further. We're supposed to be grateful, apparently, that the doses aren't immediately lethal. It doesn't seem to occur to them that we have a say in the matter as well.
That's quite a bit to digest, and perhaps we'll tackle wind, tide generation, fuel cells and geothermal heat mining another day. Cold fusion? Is that for real? A whole host of inventions, proposals, implementations and outside the box ponderings awaits.
Article originally appeared at Counterpunch
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