“It’s likely that as the Solar PV (or any other renewable technology) demand increases, prices will come down and technology will improve.”

We need to have well developed technology before pushing the older, tried and true technologies off to the side. It makes no sense to force the new technologies into place until they are ready.

Now, if we want to talk about incentivizing people to implement solar at home, and incentivize municipalities and states to implement other forms, that’s a different matter.

What we don’t want to do is to force — through higher costs on conventional energy and obstacles to acquiring new supplies of oil and gas — the implementation of immature energy technologies, hoping that at some point the technology will improve and become less expensive, as the administration and Congress are trying to do.

“I continue to believe that the biggest enemies in this discussion are the utilities. As long as they control the delivery of the power and have influence over the state legislatures, we will always be at their mercy and they will ultimately decide how much of what technology advances.”

Perhaps you are unaware that the leading developers of alternative energy technologies are the oil and gas companies. Of course, they will sensibly resist shutting down the existing technologies sooner than necessary because of the tremendous investment that has been made in it, but they would be foolish to ignore new technologies

Ausra’s Las Vegas solar thermal plant , a 130,000-square-foot facility, will only provide 700,000 megawatts per year while a nuclear power plant can produce Giga Watts per year in 1/3 of the space needed. It’s not even worth an investment if you don’t live somewhere where the sun is shining almost… like..um… all of the time. They built wind turbines right by my house, lots of them. Covered the mountain top. Maybe you’d like to explain why my energy bills have gone up? I look up and some of them aren’t even turning, what happens on the days that have no wind, do we run on “squirrel in the cage” power?

I see potential in these technologies but after 20+ years of development, it’s small potential. Nuclear IS our best option.

So why not do the smart thing. Grab more domestic oil while we build more nuclear power plants.

In the meantime the DimWits are passing out CFL light bulbs and tying up every permit for a nuclear power plant out there.

Solar and Wind technology is not “rocket science.” It is simple, proven technology that works and can be implemented much more quickly (and economically) than building new fossil-fuel plants, or nuclear plants. I believe that the real obstacle is the utility companies, which wield much influence at the state government level. Renewable energy sources, particularly if installed at the consumer level, amount to a deregulated energy source and a loss of revenue for the utilities. Hence, the utilities and local governments have no real incentive to advocate for new technology. As a contractor who is trying to help reinvent ourselves and create or save jobs via the renewable energy market , it’s troubling that there is so much misinformation among the general public and no real government or utility support.

If we can send men to space to live for months on end, we can figure out a way to make renewable energy a viable priority without taxing our country to death.

LIAR!!!

I don’t believe ol’ Nancy, or many of her cohorts, understand that “making” jobs, whether they are so-called “green jobs” or make-work jobs like the CCC, is false job creation, and won’t last without real economic support.

When ideology/idiology trumps common sense, we get what we’ve got.

Unfortunately, those jobs are going to be in “China! India! Pakistan! Korea!”