Solar Man

14 Stem Cell, Renewable Energy Opportunities for the Obama Era

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is missing an opportunity. Whenever he talks about renewable energy sources, he primarily talks about the need to upgrade the utility grid. (newmexicoindependent.c... as example).

He talks about wind farms and solar farms and the need to upgrade the electricity grid to deliver the energy to where people are located. This is great, but more immediate approaches need to be taken at the same time. In addition, there are environmental issues with this approach, since it would convert vast areas of open space into energy farms.

There seems to be no mention of increasing the production of energy on residential and commercial roof tops. Solar systems installed on existing homes and businesses have a number of positive advantages that centralized renewable power generation does not have. There is little immediate environmental impact.

Since the power is generated in the area that it is required, there is no strain on the electrical grid for delivery and can reduce the strain on the grid by reducing the need to bring in power. This approach also creates jobs right away for installers in the immediate community, where the jobs are needed, not in a remote area with solar and wind farms or in building a new delivery grid.

By Mr. Chu concentrating on the need to upgrade the grid, it delays taking immediate action, which can occur using solar photo voltaic systems on rooftops. The technology exists right now, there are people ready to implement it that need work, and there are examples in Germany, Spain, and Japan that show that it is a successful approach.

One concern Mr. Chu has expressed is that it is difficult to store energy generated by renewable sources. I think that his concern is missing the point. If we use the energy we generate using renewable sources when it is available, and continue to use traditional sources of energy when the renewable source is not available, we will immediately make a significant reduction in the use of energy generated in the traditional manner, such as coal.

Local generation of electricity can be installed in commercial locations that generate energy for the community. Warehouses, malls, schools all can be used as great sites for Solar PV system installations. This creates lots of energy being generated in many locations, which makes it less vulnerable to acts of nature or sabotage.

Additional incentives and financing need to made available for local installations of solar systems to promote this area of renewable energy generation. This approach will immediately create jobs in our community, reduce our use of traditional energy sources. Both approaches would be nice. Do more distributed systems now while we build some sort of longer term renewable transmission backbone.