Solar is very expensive !

There will be things we haven't thought of yet. In San Francisco at the
Exploratorium, there is a bicycle that you pedal really quickly to keep a light
bulb going.
There's little pockets of small changes that aren't too hard to like - Ikea
charges a nickel for a throwaway plastic bag and under 1.00 for their great big
bag. Half the shoppers at the grocery stores I go to bring their own bags.
We need a touch of I-Energy and I-Wind and I-Solar. It's a small world and I
think the need to change walloped every country. Something like 30% of all
children have some form of asthma - it's just not a bad idea to move towards
cleaner and hopefully renewable energy.
I think it's the best idea.

"Energy" is not just used for energy. Oil and natural gas, for
example, are used also for making plastics, fertilizer, detergents, lubricants.
You can't make this stuff from solar cells!

we're not printing money for the war...we're borrowing that money from japan and
china, we're giving $40 mil every year to mexico to help keep their kids off
drugs.

How else do I drive my car on a cloudy windless day?

why don't we go back to school house teaching where we have 1 teacher a
classroom of 30, no a/c or heater.....very energy conservitive...and the kids
can help teach each other, the young kids that grasp knowlege better would be in
an enviroment that would let them....sort of like the way our great leaders of
the past grew up, not the keep it slow, lower the curve learning standards of
today catering to the a.....slower students.

Jewald, Kathy, Kart

Great posts. Helped explain many questions I had.

I wasnt in any way saying make the public put solar panels on homes.

I was more refering to public buildings. We could save alot of money in the
long run, placing solar panels on public buildings even if the initial cost is
alot.

Blurpkin, changing existing buildings to solar is very costly. I checked into
it for my house, and it would be over $20K, which might not be a good investment
for us at this time (money saved does not equal money input ito investment).
However, when NEW buildings are being built, if they have solar in the first
place, they are much cheaper. I would advocate the gov't making some sort of
mandate for public buildings to be made with solar panels to save towns money
for NEW buildings, but I would be against them mandating it for private
citizens. The thing is that schools go through local property taxes so are not
overseen by federal gov't. Communities have to be willing to change.

I think the homebuilders should offer it as a feature. Maybe people are ready
for it now.

We have an organic farm here in my town that is fully supported by alternative
energy. The homeowner did it when they gov't was offering tax rebates for it,
so it made it more affordable but she did say that they are just "even", not
really AHEAD by doing this because of the cost of the investment even with the
rebate. However, she feels good. If energy costs continue to rise, at some
point, her investment will pay her. But she loves being green, and it is so
awsome for me to go there and visit knowing all the electricity is from solar
power.

An enterprising political candidate might try to come up with some ideas of how
to make solar power/alternative energy affordable for regular folks. The
installation of the panels, etc, would create jobs. Jobs are good.

Kathy in NJ

look i could go on and on about this had to stop

you can put solar panels and wind all around this country and we will still use
the same amount of oil or more as some of thst has petroproducts in it. why you
ask because oil is not a power generation fuel it is a transportation and
byproduct commodity.

We are using natural gas engines to generate power all over the country. Some
of the landfills are not ready for engines yet it takes years for the landfill
to finally produce consistant methane gas, we put some new engines/generator
packages in a very new under 5 year landfill and had a ton of problems where i
use to work. The best landfills are older than 10 yrs.

Power generation in the US: 50% coal, 20% nat gas, 22% nuke, 8% other.

I changed my lights in my house and my energy bill YoY is down, i am using less
A/C, less heat by changing the thermostat. Those things should not be govn.
things that is the america people being american.

Remember there are supply constraints in the solar area for the ones that use
silicon. The other guys Ener/Fslr how other issues they cant produce enough
fast enough.

The govn does need to step it up on the energy front. I would attack the jet
fuel and diesel areas first. THe majority of that use is by US companies. I
would give heavy support to a fuel blend 50/50 mix of diesel of jet fuel with an
alternative like LNG, biofuels, etc. I would give tax credits to the developers
of the fuel, engine companies that guarantee that it will work. Then I would
give a tax benefit to the companies that use it the airlines, railroads,
trucking companies.