What Solar Needs: Its Own Karl Rove

Sunday, 17 October 2010 16:35

What Solar Needs: Its Own Karl Rove

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What Solar Needs: Its Own Karl Rove The solar industry has risen in popularity, in part as a result of its good intentions — but soon it will have to start to play ugly.

Public opinion data from Gotham Research group provide numbers for what many of you already suspect. Solar enjoys overwhelming approval from the public, who see it as a way to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and stimulate local

economies.

Eighty percent of Americans rated solar power favorably, compared to 39 percent for nuclear and 32 percent for oil. Seventy-four percent believe that solar is a “long-term solution for the country’s energy needs.” Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have renewable portfolio standards.

The renewable industry is getting beaten in the nasty department by fossil fuels. Here’s how to fight back.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, meanwhile, says that 94 percent of Americans see solar as important and 80 percent want to see subsidies transferred from fossil fuel to solar.

Unfortunately, the public also said solar is too expensive, will remain an intermittent source of power, and can’t really directly compete with coal or natural gas. Only 41 percent thought solar was affordable, and only 34 percent thought it was reliable.

Seventeen percent said solar would “never” be the largest source of new electricity for whole cities. Most of those polled were largely in the dark about the subsidies provided to oil and gas. Just 19 percent correctly estimated that the fossil fuel industry gets more than $10 billion in subsidies.

And chances are it will get worse as fossil fuel providers pour on the money for ads and lobbyists to turn back the gains of the renewable industry. Valero, Tesero and Koch Industries have poured millions into the campaign for Prop 23 that could put California’s greenhouse gas regulations on hold for years. Natural gas has been flogging the airwaves with ads starring the Flonase woman informing us how wonderfully patriotic methane is.

The open question is whether the industry has the stomach to fight back — which is where Karl Rove comes in. The industry needs to outline in clear, sound-bite-like blurbs how solar will become the affordable best option in the future. More importantly, the spokesman needs to dig up dirt on the fossil industry.

Things like:

The federal government lets the richest oil companies take oil out of the Gulf of Mexico for free. And then the oil companies sell it to you for $3 a gallon.
Solar and other renewable energy companies have created 500,000 new jobs in California since 2005 according to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Most new jobs in fossil fuel have been at gas stations.
BP may only pay one-tenth of the cost of the Gulf oil spill cleanup because of big-government rules designed to protect them.
Solar plants built in California’s Mojave Desert over 20 years ago have had fewer down days that coal or gas plants. The last time these plants saw a dip in power production was when Mt. Pinatubo blew.
Did you know the state of Kentucky pays $115 million to the richest coal companies in the world every year despite chronic unemployment among its residents?
Recent studies indicate that nuclear power costs 3 to 4 times more than wind or solar power, and that’s not even counting in the cost of storage of nuclear waste. Nuclear plants also can take far longer to erect and create far fewer jobs.
Solar employment grew by 37 percent in 2009 and will account for 60,000 jobs in 2010. Most of these jobs will come from small businesses.
The federal government gives the coal industry more than $17 billion a year, including nearly $1 billion in tax breaks, to dig on federal lands. That’s your real estate.
Solar, wind and other renewables accounted for more new power than coal or fossil fuel in 2009.