RE: [GBlist] CA-Look to the Sun!-NYTimes 4/25

["Ralph Bicknese" <ralph.bicknese@christnerinc.com>]

If enough PV's sold here the manufacturers would not have to export to support production and boost sales.  Which came first the chicken or the egg?  Perhaps now there will be sufficiant demand in the US to boost PV sales to a profitable level.  Perhaps as mass production is increased prices will come down and innovation and efficiency will improve.

 

Cheers

-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Zorz [mailto:RZorz@ScottsdaleChamber.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 4:30 PM
To: greenbuilding@crest.org
Subject: RE: [GBlist] CA-Look to the Sun!-NYTimes 4/25

Interesting argument.  I'm once again guessing that it got exported because it fetched a better price.   Capitalism at it's finest.  If the Chinese gov't mandated every house in China had to have your device retrofitted, and you got at least as much from them as you would from us, you'd be saying goodbye American public.   I know I would.   It's done all the time.  You live in NY.  Ever heard of a Pine Island onion?  Arguably the best onions around, grown in Orange County NY.  They never sold them locally - they shipped them elsewhere to get a better price.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Carmine F. Vasile [mailto:gfx-ch@email.msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 2:24 PM
To: Ray Zorz; greenbuilding@crest.org
Subject: Re: [GBlist] CA-Look to the Sun!-NYTimes 4/25

    I'm not saying he was right, but you must agree that he and his advisors feel so. 

 

    If PV is an "obvious source of power for the future" in America, why are we exporting it for use today in Germany & Japan?

 

    Mr. Mahridge wrote they have "aggressive solar power programs", to somehow justify our export of a product that we needed yesterday to fight "aggressors" that targeted California.

 

    In October of 1999 I saw a NIST display for their patented PV water heating system. A poster had a graph projecting a "near term" PV-cost of $2,000/kW. After decades of hype & research, I thought the definition of "near term" meant a couple of years or so.

 

    BUT if we create short supplies and high prices by exporting 75% of our PV production, will "near term" ever arrive? 

 

    Based upon Mr. Mahridge's story, had there been ZERO exports of solar arrays there would have been an extra 3,000 megawatts to help mitigate rolling blackouts in California.

 

    BUT the Clinton Administrated approved the export of about 75% of our PV production in 1999; thereby exporting 2,250 megawatts of clean power, which was, in fact replaced by some very expensive, dirty power. According to a chart held up by Senator Feinstein on TV, a mere 4% annual increase in electricity use in California from 1999 to 2000, I believe, was accompanied by a whopping 700% increase in rates.

 

    So it would appear to a novice in PV power that neither Democrats nor Republicans want the fruits of NREL's research. If they did, one could argue that export restrictions would have been applied to protect limited production and research funded to boost production for export of PV power.