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

[Ray Zorz <RZorz@ScottsdaleChamber.com>]

I don't have a lot of good counter arguments.  Frankly, I don't care who develops the technology, just get it done so I can afford it.  As a taxpayer, I'm also paying to analyze ketchup flow, effect of sheep farts on the environment, and who knows what other inane pork barrel projects.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Carmine F. Vasile [mailto:gfx-ch@email.msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 7:58 PM
To: Ray Zorz; greenbuilding@crest.org
Subject: Re: [GBlist] CA-Look to the Sun!-NYTimes 4/25

     I agree to a point; BUT NREL used taxpayer dollars diverted from other green programs to develop green PV technology for export.

 

    Where's the environmental-benefit & return-on-investment to U.S. taxpayers &  California ratepayers?

 

    If PV technology has no U.S. market, why is NREL using U.S. resources to help reduce air-pollution overseas, while we import oil to mess up our own country?

 

    Don't forget, 2,250 megawatts of exported PV power requires about 7,200 megawatts worth of primary fuel to be burned at a U.S. power plant. That's equivalent to 177,340 gallons of oil burned per hour of sunshine!

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Ray Zorz

To: greenbuilding@crest.org

Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 5:30 PM

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.