April 18th, 2006
Off the grid or on, solar and wind power gain
It’s no surprise, given how astronomical heating and fuel prices have skyrocketed over the winter. Perhaps this will drive down the price, so that even more people will get off the grid.
Off the grid or on, solar and wind power gain - Yahoo! News
Despite a hodgepodge of state laws, the trend points up a budding grass-roots movement to displace at least some of the nation’s power generation from pollution-belching plants to small, clean neighborhood nodes. That eases strains on transmission lines. Some 180,000 families live off-grid, a figure that has jumped 33% a year for a decade, says Richard Perez, publisher of Home Power magazine.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:51 am
Don’t you think that if supply goes up that there will be less motivation to continue to make strides on the state level?
April 19th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
No, not at all. In fact, I see government as an impediment to adopting green technology. I am currently working on an essay as to why I feel this way, based on an article I read a few months ago. (Which I will be linking to when I’m done with the essay.)
One short answer is that when government gets involved with something, competition sometimes stops. The government will always get money (regardless of sales), whereas the private sector does not. This has a drastic effect on the market, one of which is that companies give up. Another is that people think they’re getting something for free, so they refuse to search out other alternatives, causing the private sector to dry up. Is this a good thing? No, because the private sector is far more knowledgeable about these issues than government. Sure, the government can hire experts, but the people signing the checks aren’t that knowledgeable. Funding gets cut or shifted for political reasons, not practical reasons.
It’s going to be a long essay.