{"id":1452,"date":"2011-10-02T10:24:34","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T14:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/solar-infinite-and-clean-michael-noll.html"},"modified":"2011-10-02T10:24:34","modified_gmt":"2011-10-02T14:24:34","slug":"solar-infinite-and-clean-michael-noll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/solar-infinite-and-clean-michael-noll.html","title":{"rendered":"Solar: Infinite and Clean —Michael Noll"},"content":{"rendered":"In today’s VDT. -jsq\n
\nIf we are to believe Fox News and the Tea Party, solar doesn’t work\n\n<\/a>\nbecause the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went belly up, despite the\nfact that it received $535 million in subsidies. While wasting an enormous\namount of tax dollars on a company with a flawed business concept should\nraise everyone’s eyebrows, the conclusion that the Solyndra mess means\n“solar doesn’t work” is mind-boggling. It\u2019s like saying “cars don’t\nwork” because Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009, or “T-shirts don’t work”\nbecause Fruit of the Loom filed for Chapter 11 in 1999.\n

\nSolar is one of the most attractive renewable sources of energy throughout\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\nthe world, from China to Europe, and from New Jersey to California. Just\na few days ago National Solar made the announcement that it will build\na 400MW solar farm in Gadsden County, Florida, only a few miles west of\nTallahassee. This project will not only provide hundreds of temporary\njobs,\n\nit will also lead to about 120 permanent jobs,<\/a> while contributing\nto America\u2019s energy security.\n

\nIn the US the solar industry employs more than 100,000 Americans,\n\n<\/a>\nworking at more than 5,000 companies, the majority of which are small\nbusinesses. The solar industry is one of the\n\nfastest growing sectors in the U.S. economy,<\/a>\nand in the last couple of years the price of solar\npanels has dropped so significantly that solar has become viable even\nfor smaller residential projects. With or without Valdosta and Lowndes\nCounty, the solar industry will continue to grow and will contribute to\nour efforts to become independent of foreign oil.\n

\nShould you own a home with southern exposure that gives you plenty of\n\n<\/a>\nsolar radiation, this is a perfect time to invest in a solar array. A 5kw\nunit (20 panels \/ 360 square feet) costs about $9,000 after tax savings\n(federal and state) have been applied. If such a solar array is paid in\ncash, you will recover these costs after about 9 years, since you now\nproduce your own energy. If you need to finance the solar array with the\nhelp of a bank, this may take up to 15 years, depending on your monthly\npayment. However, since solar panels have a warranty of 30 years, you\nwill make money for at least half of the life time of your solar array.\n

\nWe can go a long way as a society in terms of our energy security by\n\n<\/a>\nembracing renewable sources like\n\nsolar, wind and geothermal.<\/a> If combined\nwith measures to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation,\nthis will not only save us money and create jobs, it will also protect\nour natural resources and provide us with a healthier environment.\n

\nP.S.: Between 2002 and 2008 the U.S. coal industry enjoyed subsidies\nof around $17 billion, while the solar industry only received $1\nbillion. (See also\n\nhttp:\/\/www.elistore.org\/Data\/products\/d19_07.pdf<\/a>)\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In today’s VDT. -jsq If we are to believe Fox News and the Tea Party, solar doesn’t work because the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went belly up, despite the fact that it received $535 million in subsidies. While wasting an enormous amount of tax dollars on a company with a flawed business concept should raise […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,14,15,264,265,3714,21,22,23,24,133,700],"tags":[8704,8721,8751,3716,8701,7,703,8713,8714,6,8796,8716],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-economy","category-education","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-national-solar","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-vdt","category-wace","tag-economy","tag-elections","tag-florida","tag-gadsden-county","tag-georgia","tag-lowndes-county","tag-michael-noll","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-valdosta","tag-wace","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-nq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}