| Toby Barlow on Sun, 24 Feb 2002 05:57:40 +0100 (CET) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
| <nettime> the development of a solar infrastructure |
Despite the arguments of free-market thinkers, it is hard to see an existing large scale infrastructure in which government funding did not play a major role in its establishment or proliferation. The silicon chip, the internet, nuclear power, and more have all benefited from government aid in the form of subsidies, procurement, or tax breaks, allowing the development and expansion of the economies that now exist on their own in the competitive markets. A new grass roots movement is growing to expand renewable energy's share of our energy portfolio. The methodology is quite simple. Instead of relying solely on local utilities to provide their energy, local governments issue revenue bonds for a mix of solar, wind and conservation to provide power to their own buildings (public schools, libraries, city hall, rooftops on parking lots, etc) The benefits are two-fold. Obviously, the local government lessens its own increase in greenhouse gas emmisions, but in the broader benefit is that their investment will increase the demand for renewable technologies. The beauty of pure capitalism is that a growing market is generally met with an increased supply. An increase in supply will precipitate efficiencies of mass production, driving costs down and making these technologies, especially solar availible to a larger audience. So solar bonds accelerate the solar economy, just as large government purchases of computer chips in the fities and sixties pushed down the costs and accelerated the computer economy. With solar mw costs being what they are today, the payback time is too long for most individual and commercial property owners. It is not, however, too long for a local government. If it's a 15 to 18 year payback, and the estimated life span of a solar installtion is at least 30 years, that's at least 13 to 15years of free energy local governments can provide their community. And since the revenue bonds pay for themselves out of the energy savings they provide, no additional taxes are needed to pay for them. In fact, 15 years from now they could be the basis of a tax cut, since the local community would no longer need to charge for any of those energy costs. votesolar.org is a web based organizing tool devoted to disseminating information for community organizers to use in developing their own local solar bonds. It uses San Francisco's Proposition B as a model other communities can follow. Since, during an off-year election (in which voters are generally more conservative), 73% of the voters backed B, the popularity of solar bonds should prove attractive to any local, state, or national politicians looking for a positive alternative to Bush's Alaskan drilling proposals. B will provide between 30 to 50 million dollars in photovolatic purchases. Imitated in, say, 20 other cities and you have suddenly given birth to an industy worth between 600 million to 1 billion dollar dollars. The enthusiasm shared around the Porto Allegre and Davos gatherings points to an interest in finding solutions to global warming and globalization. A solar economy could provide both, serving as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and by empowering local governments through the ultimate in energy deregulation, home grown power. It would be interesting to see what communities find this applicable. It would also be interesting to see what the internet's role in virally spreading effective local legislation on a national or even global level can be. Toby Barlow votesolar.org ===== -------------------------------------------------------- Toby Barlow 250 Texas St. SF CA 94107 (415) 385-6679 cell (415) 863-4069 home (415) 733-0783 work [email protected] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]