As I listened to what Obama’s inaugural address, I found myself alternating between listening to the specific things he was saying, and thinking about his overall message and what people might take from it. To the specifics, he did specifically mention energy policy changes, harnessing the sun and seems committed to renewables. Great news.
But the overall message does seem more important – the problems, challenges and responsibilities that people, companies and nations had yesterday are going to still be there tomorrow, but that we can rise to meet them. Real hope. Powerful stuff. The contrast between that and anything our current leadership here in Canada might have to say is striking.
In Canada, we prefer our politicians to be safe and boring, and usually it works for us – we avoid leaders like Bush, but it seems we lose out on the Obamas too. Food for thought.
In other election good news, it looks like Ballot Proposition 7 didn’t pass in California. Prop 7 required increases in renewable energy uptake by utilities and spelled out some guarantees – but was opposed on the basis that it was so complex and had so many in-built faults that it was guaranteed to fail. It’s goals were worthy enough, increase California utility Renewable portfolios by 2% a year, but it was so fundamentally broken, and with so many bad additions, clauses and exclusions that it was basically going to hurt the industry.
This was a weird one where environmentalists and big electrical utilities teamed up to try to stop it. The “Yes on Prop 7” people a pretty flashy website, and some really slick commercials, with the “Yes on Prop 7″ groups being funded by the two guys who wrote most of the law. Most analysts agree that it was well intentioned and just basically badly written, and written to favour a specific type Concentrated Solar Thermal technology (that happens to be produced by the people that wrote most of the law). Also, it would had inadvertently protected the natural gas industry since the price of renewables would have ended up tied to natural gas the way the law was written. Still, even the “No on Prop 7” people seem to think it was well intentioned incompetence rather than an attempt to get a broken law into place for some nefarious end. (The NO camp doesn’t have cool adds for me to link to.)
If you’re American and you’re reading this – go vote!
They say the best time to go down to the polls is between 12:00 and 3:00 PM, when the lines will be shortest and you’re least likely to encounter problems. If you can’t get the long lunch, email me and I’ll call your boss with a lecture on civic duty.
If you’re interested in finding out about who represents solar interests, check out Vote Solar and Solar Nation. Solar Nation has a very handy voting guide by state that gives you different candidates views on solar energy, energy policy and environmental issues.
Also, here is the Associated Press’s summary of Obama and McCain’s proposed energy policies. Not really much difference, but Obama has been MUCH more ambitious about clean energy and has visited solar farms and factories that produce solar panels during his campaign, McCain is a little more pro-nuclear power (which is zero carbon and a proven technology).
Very busy as we get ready for Solar Power International 2008 next week, but a couple of things caught my eye that were worth passing on.
Possibly the most useful link I’ve stumbled across lately, How Electric Power is Measured in Watts. I’ve seen this explained before, but this explanation is simple and easy to understand, without sacrificing accuracy.
Great long weekend, and we’re going to be having an interesting week. More on that later, I assure you.
The announcement I mentioned on Friday is still on track, but I want to have everything sorted before saying anything, so it’ll be a little later this week, Thursday probably. It’s pretty cool though. For now I wanted to comment on a couple of goings on in the solar industry:
Solar Power Conf & Expo 2008 changes name to Solar Power International 2008. It’s still the same conference, we’re still going to be exhibitors there, and we’re still sponsoring the event, it’s just changed names. On that note, our exhibit will be the first completely public look at our panels, and we’ll have live data from the demonstration facility available via the web.
We simply cannot pretend, as Senator McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem. We need a much bolder and much bigger set of solutions. We have to make a serious, nationwide commitment to developing new sources of energy and we have to do it right away.
Sadly, he also says:
Now, increased domestic oil exploration certainly has its place as we make our economy more fuel-efficient and transition to other, renewable, American-made sources of energy.
Finally, on a lighter note, since I just got an iPhone, I thought I would point people to this Solar Powered iPhone Case. I want one (and the reviews are surprisingly positive).
Energy, unsurprisingly, is turning into a major election issue in the US this year. With the latest round of ads with the two candidates hitting each other over energy, it seems like a good time to start talking solar politics.
Over the next few months I’ll be summarizing various legal and political issues regarding solar, including tax incentives, legal requirements for renewable energy, political platforms on energy and solar and generally trying to summarize events in solar politics.
But, to start, let’s look at the two new Energy policy ads in the US:
As it pertains to solar, Obama mentions the German national renewable energy plan that began in 2000 and which made Germany the clear world leader in energy (50% of all the world’s solar power is implemented in Germany). So it’s encouraging that it’s being talked about. It doesn’t have to just be solar (or even mostly be solar) but a real focus on renewable energy has to be the cornerstone of any realistic energy policy.
Coming soon, an analysis of Obama and McCain’s Energy and Environmental Policies, especially as they pertain to solar.
Oh, and for the record, we’re Canadian, so we don’t get to vote and so I’m really not interested in taking sides – they’re both proposing positive changes to National Energy policy, and personally I don’t think either are progressive enough or committed enough to breaking US dependence on oil and coal. (Not that Canada is much better.)
