The need for citizens to be engaged in the fight for clean energy in today’s America just grew more acute, with the result of the recent U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts.
Is that a political statement that will alienate large numbers of solar citizens?It shouldn’t be, for it was meant as a cold statement of political reality, not a partisan plaint.And the cold facts are that practically the entire Congressional Republican delegation and an uncomfortable number of Democrats have decided that clean energy, energy independence, and climate regulation are not worth advancing through legislative means.It’s not even the case that senators dissatisfied with the Kerry-Boxer bill combined to offer alternative legislation, perhaps with a carbon tax instead of cap-and-trade.No serious alternative—by which we mean a bill with even a modicum of co-sponsors—was presented as a challenger.The strategy for the minority party is simply to defeat whatever initiative is out there and hand the Administration a major defeat.
It’s also clear that the minority party has been, for the last year, much more disciplined and united than the majority.One would think that a party controlling 58% of the votes in the upper chamber would be able to proceed with a fairly robust agenda, but that hasn’t been the case.Nor did the proposed energy and climate legislation especially smack of ideology;it was a long overdue attempt to exercise common sense and face up to reality.But, in a way that is endemic to our political system, parochial and personal priorities won out over farsightedness.And now that the governing party’s supermajority (which was always conditional upon the adherence of two independent senators) has disappeared, the kind of far-reaching and comprehensive energy legislation we need will be significantly more difficult to achieve. (more…)
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the trade association for the solar industry, recently published a ‘Solar Bill of Rights’ for the United States.The eight-point bill, reproduced below, appears not to contain any revolutionary concepts;nothing in it should appear unreasonable, irrational or excessive.Yet every one of the points listed is there because it has been, and in many cases still is being, resisted or abrogated by authority.
Of course, that other Bill of Rights—the eighteenth century one—was considered revolutionary at the time, and only in retrospect was seen to be unequivocally fair and reasonable.So if that seminal document from the early days of our nation could pass from being avant-garde to being accepted, how much more readily should these ‘solar’ rights, unquestionably fair, be accepted today?
Take a look at the Solar Bill of Rights and determine whether you feel Americans are entitled to them, whether they contain truths that are, in the words of another historic document of the time, “self-evident.”If you think so, perhaps your local and state officials need to consider adopting them too. (more…)
We wouldn’t normally revisit a subject as many times as this, but things are moving even faster than we thought on the subject of solar installations funded through property taxes.
We first reported on this phenomenon a year ago in connection with the first community to activate such a program: Berkeley, CA, in November 2008.This was, appropriately enough, the Berkeley FIRST program.By July 2009, interest in property-assessed clean energy (PACE) programs was spreading across the country, and in November last year we wrote about the efforts of the state of New York to allow for special tax financing districts as a precursor to launching their own PACE program.
Nothing succeeds like success, and there are now no fewer than eighteen states with PACE legislation on their books.*Better yet, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is offering free technical assistance to local governments who are starting PACE programs with ARRA (stimulus) funds. (more…)
In a recent joint announcement, Constellation Energy Group and Mount St. Mary’s University of Emmitsburg, MD described plans for what could become the nation’s third largest photovoltaic power plant.The project serves as an example of the level of solar deployment that can be achieved with a favorable climate of incentives from state and federal sources.
part of Mount St. Mary’s campus
Clean Horizons
The project is being developed under Maryland’s Generating Clean Horizons initiative, which was launched a year ago to spur the development of large-scale commercial renewable energy projects.The initiative specifically calls for projects that encompass long-term power purchase agreements (PPA), under which customers would agree to purchase power at a price that is fixed, or that increments per an agreed schedule, over an extended term (in this case, twenty years).
Constellation Energy will build, own and operate the 17.1-megawatt DC, $60-million solar farm on 100 acres of Mount St. Mary’s 1400-acre campus.The university will receive income from leasing the land and will purchase 1.2 megawatts of electricity from the facility.The rest of the power will be sold to University System of Maryland under a similar PPA.
Is that a political statement that will alienate large numbers of solar citizens? It shouldn’t be, for it was meant as a cold statement of political reality, not a partisan plaint. And the cold facts are that practically the entire Congressional Republican delegation and an uncomfortable number of Democrats have decided that clean energy, energy independence, and climate regulation are not worth advancing through legislative means. It’s not even the case that senators dissatisfied with the Kerry-Boxer bill combined to offer alternative legislation, perhaps with a carbon tax instead of cap-and-trade. No serious alternative—by which we mean a bill with even a modicum of co-sponsors—was presented as a challenger. The strategy for the minority party is simply to defeat whatever initiative is out there and hand the Administration a major defeat.
In a recent joint announcement, Constellation Energy Group and Mount St. Mary’s University of Emmitsburg, MD described plans for what could become the nation’s third largest photovoltaic power plant.