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

["Tom Thomas" <tomthomas@uswest.net>]

Hey, aren't we forgetting that if someone wanted
to buy them here at a price greater than the cost to make and install them,
we would likely see additional capacity allowing production of both Europe's
demands and our own. It may take a while to get the capacity in place and
those who did so would have to be convinced that the demand was not a fad. 
In the short term, we could even outbid the current buyers if we really wanted
it.

On another note, if Germany or Japan or anyone else on this spaceship wants
to replace fossil fuels with solar power and pay the bill to do it, doesn't
that benefit all of us both environmentally and economically?  More power
to them.

Tom Thomas
Macurco, Inc.
"Gas Detection"

Ray Zorz wrote:

C0D57A674B32D411808900105ACCFA0E58A78B@scottsdalechamber.scottsdalechamber.com">

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.