Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
For example, $88 billion is paid from the budgets of 11 of the world's poorest coun-
tries for kerosene and diesel subsidies, according to the IEA and the International In-
stitute for Sustainable Development. The air pollution caused by diesel and kerosene is
killing these people and barely providing them the electricity service that the rest of us
take for granted. We can do better than this. According to the IEA's analysis, it would be
possible to achieve universal energy access for the world by 2030 with about $48 billion
per year in global investment. That's half of what we spend on the obscene kerosene and
diesel subsidies! “Solar is going to play a huge role in improving energy access,” says
Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the IEA.
Solarentrepreneurscanfilltheneedforthepeopleoftheworldwhodon'thaveaccess
toelectricityaswedo.Atleast$2trillionto$5trillionwillbespentonenergyworldwide
inthecomingtwodecades.Assumethatonly20to25percentofitisspentondistributed
energy solutions, which include solar power and all other clean energy, battery storage,
demand-side management, and energy efficiency improvements; it's $1 trillion, at least,
that these solar entrepreneurs are playing for.
ThesolarleasehashadasimilarlydisruptiveimpactonthesolarmarketintheUnited
States. Whereas it was not an option five years ago to pay for your system over time
with no deposit, it's now the most common way to go solar. More than 60 percent of the
US residential solar market in 2011—the biggest year ever—benefited from this creative
customerfinancesolution.Nowthatpeoplecanpayfortheirsolarpowerininstallments,
it's set to spread like wildfire, just like the adoption of Dish TVs and other home im-
provement services.
6. Value
All energy programs are subsidized, but solar power returns the best value of all energy
subsidyprograms.Fossil-fuel-basedsteampowerhasreceivedatleast$72billioninsub-
sidies over the past decade, and yet electricity prices have risen by about one-third. At
the same time, solar-panel companies received single-digit billions in subsidies from the
US government while their prices dropped by more than half. If the solar industry had
the same kind of subsidy support that the fossil-fuel and nuclear industries received in
the first five decades of their respective emergences, solar power would already be far
cheaper and much more widely spread. With it would come more jobs, greater consumer
savings, and a leadership role in the technology set that would dominate the energy in-
dustry in the twenty-first century and beyond.
