Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A Perversion of Power
Now more than ever it is critical that we set the record straight on energy use in the Un-
itedStates—totellthetruthabouttheprogressionofsolarenergyandtopresentthefacts
thatthemainstreammediahaslargelyignoredorunderreported:thatfossilfuelisthereal
dinosaur in the energy industry and that much of the world is seeing the light about solar
power.Wemustgetourelectedofficialstorecognizethetruevalueofsolarpowerandto
embrace the opportunity to build on this clean form of electricity generation and spawn
a new breed of entrepreneurs and businesses that will employ millions and pull us out of
dark times.
The Solar Ascent is kicking in around the globe, and we need to be leaders of this
movement. Our next step is to clear from our heads the fog of misinformation from the
fossil-fuel industry, assess the landscape clearly, and urge others to do so, as well. This
means getting our friends in the news media to start reporting facts on
all
sides of the
energy debate.
Working in the solar industry in the months following the Solyndra scandal at the
end of 2011 really felt like slipping through the looking glass into a crazy, upside-down
world. I'd been working with others for about a decade to realize solar's potential. Sun-
gevity, the company I'd helped build, had just doubled in size and we'd had a banner
year, as had most of our competitors, selling solar solutions to mainstream Americ-
ans. Yet in the months following Solyndra's crash, from Thanksgiving to the New Year,
everyone started worrying that we wouldn't make it. “Sorry about that solar thing”;
“Shame it didn't work out,” they'd say, or, “Would've been nice to have clean energy.”
What the hell is up?
I was thinking.
We're winning!
Solar is the fastest-growing
source of energy on Earth because it's the only source of energy whose costs are declin-
ing rapidly. All the others, including natural gas, are going up in price—no matter what
the gas industry says. Although there is
currently
a surplus of natural gas in the US mar-
ket due to the lower cost of fracking, it won't last because when you're dealing with a
finite energy source and consuming it in the vast amounts that Americans do, it's impos-
sibletokeepcostslowoverthelongterm.Andnomatterhowmuchtheindustrytoutsthe
wonders of fracking, when its technology causes earthquakes—as fracking did in March
2011 in Youngstown, Ohio—costs and other ramifications are sure to mount.
On the other hand, sustainable solar energy is swiftly becoming earth-shattering in
much more figurative and economically beneficial ways. Solar prices are coming down;
and if we stay the course we're on, they'll continue to drop. Globally, solar is the fastest-
growing industry, valued at more than $100 billion. And in the United States, it's the
fastest-growing job-creating sector. Solar grew nearly 7 percent as an employment gen-
erator while the economy flatlined—a tenth of that growth from August 2010 to 2011.
