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Friday, Aug. 3, 2012 | 2:02 a.m.
It’s not often you hear so much cheering when a Nevada factory is forced to close.
It might sound strange, but that’s what happened when Amonix, a company with a solar panel manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, announced in July that it was shutting down its facility.
Despite this closure, the truth is that the solar industry is growing and innovating.
But the opponents don’t like to admit this; they’d rather celebrate the failure of a Nevada business as a proof point for their claims that private investors aren’t interested in solar or that it can’t compete.
Of course, not every company will succeed in a fast-growing, innovative and global industry. But the long-term trend is clear: Solar is creating jobs, and the industry in the U.S. is here to stay. Solar employs more than 100,000 Americans and is attracting hundreds of millions of investment from some of our country’s biggest investors.
As a proud veteran of the U.S. Air Force, I also know that solar power is helping our military strengthen its energy security. In fact, some of the most important innovations are happening here in Nevada, and that’s something truly worth applauding.
At Nellis Air Force Base, north of Las Vegas, more than 72,000 solar panels have been helping power the largest and most demanding advanced air-combat training base in the world since 2007. The base’s commitment to solar is continuing to expand. Earlier this summer, Nellis announced that the 99th Air Base Wing headquarters building is adding solar panels to improve its energy efficiency. It is the first of eight projects at Nellis, Creech Air Force Base and the Nevada Test and Training Range.
The military doesn’t invest in technologies without a good reason, and there’s a very good reason to invest in solar. The U.S. military pays the world’s highest fuel bill, and every time the price of oil goes up, it costs us billions. Our dependence on fossil fuels costs more than dollars — it costs lives. One in eight U.S. Army casualties in Iraq was related to protecting fuel convoys. That’s ironic, since we’re often buying oil from the same countries that are putting our security at risk.
When I served in the Air Force, I saw firsthand how much we rely on fossil fuels and other outdated technologies that we could — and should — replace with lightweight, clean and affordable solar and other renewables.
The good news is that our armed forces already are making the change. In Afghanistan’s violent Helmand province, two Marine patrol bases were powered entirely by solar panels for the duration of a seven-month mission in 2010. If it works there, it certainly can work here.
Indeed, it is working — and putting Nevadans to work. Just last month, a huge new solar power facility was announced in Clark County. The 350-megawatt K Road Moapa Solar project will be the first utility-scale solar project built on tribal lands, and the jobs it creates will help the Paiute Indians and the communities north of Las Vegas.
In Nevada, solar power is creating jobs during tough economic times and providing us and our military a source of clean, affordable power. That’s the real success story of solar in our state, the real story to applaud and a real, growing industry to support.
Paul Lambert served in the Air Force. He lives in Nevada.
In reply to Paul Lambert; and Republicans say that they don't want the economy to fail while Barack Obama is President. The Republicans not only laugh when a solar company closes, I'm sure they have a big hand in the conspiracy of it.
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Once again we are forced to explain that everyone wants solar and wind.
It is how we get there
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The government is good at pure research and has done so in the 10 national labs.
As a consumer the government can also lead in using the technology in its many facilities like the Air Force.
What the government should not do is pick and give selected product manufactures money like Solyndra to manufacture a product. That iis a high risk activities that should be left to the private sector. Let the private sector risk private Capitial.
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Future has this one exactly right. The government should fund 'research' into alternative energy, with the goal being to discover forms of energy that can compete cost wise with fossil fuels and researching innovations that can increase the cost competitiveness of existing alternative energy. That is a legitimate use of tax dollars.
The problem here is that this type of 'research' often does not result in a forced switch from fossil fuels to alternative energy at the pace many that favor alternative energy want.
The government has no place and no right to try to 'force' the switch to alternative energy by throwing tax dollars directly at 'manufacturers' of alternative energy in the private market. When government does this with an economically non competitive type of alternative energy, when the support dollars run out, those businesses fail and money that could have and should supported 'research' is lost and wasted.
Michael
The government has no business in business solar or otherwise. Leave business to the private sector and let the free markets and their customers determine the economic winners and losers.
CarmineD
CarmineD, August 3, 2012 4:37 a.m. stated:
The government has no business in business solar or otherwise. Leave business to the private sector and let the free markets and their customers determine the economic winners and losers.
CarmineD
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I totally agree with you 100%.
CarmineD - "The government has no business in business solar or otherwise."
If it weren't for government funding of NASA and the space program, half the items the private sector use wouldn't exist.
If it weren't for government funding, defense contractors and munitions manufacturers wouldn't exist.
Government funding provides subsidies for big oil and coal.
Government funding provides subsidies for farmers.
Government funding provides subsidies for pharmaceutical companies
It's time to head back to the drawing board and reassess your knowledge of government funding and business.
Solar power can be a terrific investment for property owners of any size, and installing solar panels is a great way to increase personal energy independence and U.S. energy independence as a whole. Solar panels, for example, can produce most or all of your electricity, and protect you from price fluctuations and blackouts. Here's a blog post on the issue http://www.energysage.com/blog/clean-ene...
Last year, we had 365 G of nuclear and 65 G of solar online worldwide.
Look around, and you'll see solar on the rise, here to stay and getting cheaper and more efficient every day.
Currently (!) solar is about $1.25 a watt. Coal is just under that. Out with the dirty and old-timey; in with the new and shiny.
Secret to success
Easy to express
Err and err and err again,
But less and less and less...Piet Hein
I actually have to agree with Carmine. " Leave business to the private sector and let the free markets and their customers determine the economic winners and losers." It worked fine for the banks - until 2008. It works fine in Somalia.
Mr. Branco:
After readding your list, including the declining and ever increasing expensive space program, I say the government has no business in business. Let the private sector do what it does best: Determine the economic winners and losers.
CarmineD
Banks sir in the USA have a money monopoly: The biggest 5 own and/or control over 60 percent of all the US money. That is a huge huge risk and nothing, I repeat nothing, done by the government to date with regulations whether Oxley Sarbanes by the GOP in 2002 and/or Dodd Frank by the Dems in 2010 and/or both combined have prevented it. Let alone have a contingency plan in place if and when there is another run on the US currency.
CarmineD
Rahm Emanuel and several other big city dem mayors stuck their gov't noses in business and look what happened at those restaurants. The best one day profits in their business ever. Economic power to the people. Voting with their pocket books.
CarmineD
The military is mandated to buy solar. Same with bio-fuels. The good thing is that it's only taxpayer dollars which are being wasted.
Mr. Traeger:
Do you ever opine that your facts and figures, based on incontrovertible historical truth, are no defense for those here who insist on dealing in fantasy and fairy tales?
CarmineD
Of course the Government is so good, really successful, at what it does that although the DOJ, and the AJ Holder, and our own President Obama have nothing to hide, and hide nothing, especially on the failed FAST & FURIOUS program, that the second highest ranking ATF official just so happened to decide this past week to retire early from government service. Probably, he wants to spend more time with his wife and family. Yeah, right.
CarmineD
Is TEA's list of failures accurate, and I wonder why people like him leave Bush out of the equation? Many of these current programs started under the Bush administration.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is a bill passed by the United States Congress on July 29, 2005, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005. The act, described by proponents as an attempt to combat growing energy problems, changed US energy policy by providing tax incentives and loan guarantees for energy production of various types.
"especially on the failed FAST & FURIOUS program"
Again, another program initiated under Bush but was ended by Holder when he found out.
Carmine, do you understand just how ironic your comments against government activities when you use the internet (which began life as DARPANET) and use semi-conductor-driven device (developed and subsidized by the government -- chiefly by the Air Force) to write and send it? Our modern stuff just didn't spring into existence like Nike from the head of Zeus. Before it could be commercialized the government subsidized the development of winners and losers.
Okay, all you "green" advocates. Why don't you tell us just how much of your "own" money you have invested in shares of "green" companies? You're all for "transparency" when it comes to other people, so how about shedding some light on whether or not your have put your money where your mouths are? My intuition tells me that few of you have invested a red cent. You lefties are "all hat & no cattle" and don't back up your big mouths with your money. You "talk the talk; but don't walk the walk," as the saying goes. Prove me wrong, if you can.
Lambert and Chapline...you are both incorrect in your statements, as there certainly was no cheering...moreover, for you to believe that half the citizens of the country want the economy to fail is borderline psychotic...
Purgatory
p.s. Branco, get new lyrics to your same old song...
Your government at work
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- Today GM is attempting lump sum buy out $26 billion of union pension obligation for current retirees in their under-funded defined benefit pension
- GM is using subprime loans to pump up sales. Loaning to under qualified people started the housing failure.
- GM sales are down 6.5% from last year
- GM is spending $600 million to sponsor the english soccer team Manchester United
- Today GM is heavily investing billions of American generated profits in Buick plants in China - so China can sell cars to South America. And the China profits are kept in overseas in China banks.
- GM has 200,000 workers in plants outside the US.
- Today GM has heavy cash losses in Europe and is fighting the French Government over thousands of necessary layoffs.
- Today GM is not investing in American plants and technology; and GM is not refreshing models because of a lack of cash flow.
- Today GM is pulling out of ads on Facebook and the next Superbowl as they try to hoard their cash
Today solar photovoltaic panels provide enough energy to power 22,000,000 households around the globe, well over 69 gigawatts.
Wind power adds another 237 gigs.
Fossil-to-steam electrical generation costs for fuel have more than doubled in 10 years.
Solar has significantly dropped in costs per kwh and efficiencies have risen.
Jerry, one of my companies invests in a combination of energy upgrades along with solar PV and many times a solar DHW system. After we find ways to drop consumption significantly, we give them a dollar a watt up to $3000 for going solar.
The cool thing is the mini-split heat pumps that like solar (and computers, cell phones, etc follow Moore's law and improve in efficiency and drop in price) work hand in glove with upgraded energy control systems to supply warmth and coolth with about 4 panels per ton of A/C. A typical 1500 sq.ft home would need 10 panels and 2 and a half tons of eqt. to stay comfy on the sun. Cash outlay = $6-8 G for a pro. $3-5 G for handyperson, get fed rebates of 30%, my little company's gift for $2000 or so.
So on a case-by-case basis we are building this stairway to reason, even as fossil-tramps have started wars, trashed the skies and beaches and I could go on but why?
Most Mutual fund protfolios will have investments in Solar or alternative energy companies... so you can bet that if you have a retirement account in a mutual fund that you do have a red cent in the game!
In case you people haven't noticed, the planet has been getting warmer. The heat waves, droughts, melting polar caps, the ice melt in Greenland, and an assorment of disasterous storms have all been predicted by computer models years ago. If we continue using fossils fuels there will be a point of no return, but some of you crazies would rather rely on false information spoon fed you by Fox News. Your screaming about "our children and grandchildren will carry the burden of taxes!" won't compare to what it will be like living in a hell on Earth.
Even as half the counties in the country are now under such a drought that they have been declared disasters, even as food prices are expected to rise significantyly, even as we are draining the Ogalalla aquifer with constant air-born watering systems to grow crops to feed cattle and ourselves, we are as Vernos points out all suffering not just from rising food prices, lack of food, significant and predicatble heat gain due to carbonaceous skies from fossil gluttony, but in fact we are still baffled by the big one - we refuse to accept responsibility for our actions!
Let's get a reality check here. Fossils mean no food, no water, no economy, no stability in dealing with foreign resources, mostly in hands of anti-Western countries, fewer jobs, less abundance, lowered quality of life.
Reasoned and logical utilization of free resources provide adequate renewable power, excellent non-exportable jobs for our citizenry, growing economic base, better educations as kids learn how to manage their lives within sane and practical limits by addressing realistic expectations as opposed to squandering resources, time and energy.
so where are we and why?...answer...we're stuck in a quagmire of uber investments in fossils, with media-dominated dictates inviting many to discredit science, remain fossil-consuming pigs, engage in foreign wars to provide greater fossil dependence, banish realistic learning opportunities, destroy our economic base with exportable jobs and importable energy supplies while masses of people are spoon-fed lies about how solar doesn't work or energy comes from the energy suppliers, not the sun, not the earth, not creativity, diligence and earnest investments in understanding.
And the outcomes of our demonstrable denial of how things are?:...a failing education system, a drying up planet, a dying culture of inbred fossil reliance, an ongoing distrust of our own self-reliance, a shrinking economy and really dumb people using way more than we need and half our bloated obese children with no idea in hell how things are.
Good job, America!
By airweare,Very well said,I could not agree with you more.
Mr. Branco:
The Bush program was a joint effort with the Mexican authorities. FAST & FURIOUS was not.
CarmineD
Mr. Goodman:
The internet is what it is today due to the private sector. If not for it, it would have died an ignominious death long ago thanks to government.
CarmineD
We are draining the Ogalalla aquifer because for years we have been using the resources up quicker than it can be naturally replenished. No doubt the current drought will make this fact more clearly evident.
CarmineD
Carmine,
Your comment at 9:35PM is inaccurate in the second sentence.
While there can be no argument that the private sector has taken the Internet far beyond anything envisioned for it in the 70s, the Internet has *never* been in danger of dying as you put it.
Even before the infamous Green Card spam on usenet, the use of the Internet by all kinds of entities, both public and private, was increasing at an almost geometric pace.
For decades the commercial use of the Internet was severely limited to only the necessary communications required between participants in various contracts. The primary purpose until about 1990 was to facilitate the exchange of information. Many of us who were commercial entities fought hard against the commercialization of the Internet because most of us were "brought up" in the tradition that information wants to be free.
It was the advent of the World Wide Web that drove the undreamt of expansion of the Internet in the 90s.
"Carmine,
Your comment at 9:35PM is inaccurate in the second sentence."
Agreed. It was a bad choice of words. Yours are better.
CarmineD
Joe Lamy: More power to you. You are doing exactly the right thing by "walking the walk." My beef is with the feds picking "winners & losers" with "crony" capitalism. Research is one thing, "investing" $535 million in a campaign "bundlers" wet dream is quite another. And now we learn that $511 million of that "investment" is lost to U.S. taxpayers FOREVER! I am a proponent of Capitalism, but I believe"private" industry is just that and should be funded by the private sector; not by the fiat of some pencil-pushing, bureaucratic drone.
Thanks for the support, Jerry.
In this business of retrofitting homes, I have found through the decades that some people want to do the right thing but don't know what it is while others think they know what is right but don't know how
When we invented the blower door, the duct blaster, digital manometer and lowered the cost of infra-red cameras to the point that all our auditors and installation crews could use scientific methods to discover hidden realities, we became quite successful because the reality of what the hidden conditions actually are drives the retrofit and enables realistic understanding.
Today when we find a homeowner who is frothing at the mouth to have shiny solar things on their rotting roof with incandecent lightbulbs inside, no insulation and a 1958 A/C unit - well, we can help them if they can take first things first. "Eat your vegetables and you get dessert!" is what this solar incentive says, and it seems to be working with many.
Within our growing staff, we have found a rather noticeable upswing in morale as folks we work with and work for seem to hold us in high regard for the integrity echoed in our new incentive and buttressed by the caveats that all energy-efficiency uogrades are mandatory before the solar incentives kick in. It's the carrot, the light at the end of the tunnel, the blue ribbon, the gold medal, the crown.
Motivation is a funny thing as we strive to envision the workings within the human soul. If we had a blower door and infra-red camera to access human drive mecahanisms, then we could do righter! As it is we just try stuff and guess what works and try something else.
Have agood weekend. I'm gone sailing!
China directly attacked our solar industry by subsidizing their panels to the point that they sold for $2/watt less than they cost to produce. Is it any wonder that US companies are having trouble competing w/ that?
Our govt should treat this like what it is. This is an attack on our economy, yet we do not fight back. If China were attacking our automobile industry, we would fight, but when they attack our emerging solar industry, we don't even pay attention.
Enact a tariff on solar panel imports equal to what China subsidizes?? Or 150% to make a point?
What vegasengineer quotes is the truth. The prices dropped like rocks once US firms entered the market and China dumped, DUMPED their panels on a market that has skyrocketed in the last few years.
Those who blame our president for the actions of a communist regime bent on world domination have soft footing and weak arguments.
The issue is international warfare in the realm of product price manipulation, not failed policy or bad investing.
China BOUGHT the solar panel market and competing with them is simply good money after bad.
However, once this threshold has been reached and the products are available with ~ 20% efficiency and 20 year warranties and selling for ~ $1.25 a watt, they are almost identical in performance terms ($.06 per kwh) with coal-fired steam generation like what we have running at a combustion efficiency of 29% at our nearby antiquated plants.
Add to the inefficiency of transmission (20%) and stepping down the power to usable from generated another (35%) plus the mining, transportation and waste clean-up (34%) and then a funny look should befall your sullen face when you consider what we're doing to the sky, the economy, the air, our health, wealth and welfare.
Not saying we ought to shut everything down and go live off the sun...just saying the time is right to upgrade as much efficiency as we can and distribute the power generation to rooftops, parking garages, office buildings, schools and malls, etc to eliminate as much waste as possible.
What China did to the solar market is already done - they produced and sold more panels in 3 years than the previous 8 years combined and sold them below cost, wiping out several US manufacturers but not all of us.
By using a solar tracker, we get 30% more juice than a fixed panel, and we get that bonus in the early morning and late afternoon when we really can use it.
In Japan alone, the thrust to replace nukes with efficiency and alternatives has driven a number of markets - solar PV, wind, conservation and efficiency upgrades and one that has implications for that bustling bastion of US engineering -fracking for methane.
We are fracking away and sending Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to the orient in quantities unheard of pre-Fukushima meltdowns and tsunami related disasters. In Japan the economy has begun to adapt to no nukes, and our products are the choice of experts wanting concentrated energy that is clean and cheap, reliable, available and transportable. A blend of solar, wind and LNG provide power where nukes were once slated to do at least 50%
US manufacturers provide electric generation equipment using lng and designed to ramp up or down to maximize solar and wind production while maintaining steady output, and do so with excellent efficiencies.