

The Hole in the Rooftop Solar-Panel Craze - quaffapint
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hole-in-the-rooftop-solar-panel-craze-1431899563

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bronz
I will save everyone some time and quote the only definitive statement in the
entire article.

>"Most people buy rooftop solar panels because they think it will save them
money or make them green, or both. But the truth is that rooftop solar
shouldn’t be saving them money (though it often does), and it almost certainly
isn’t green. In fact, the rooftop-solar craze is wasting billions of dollars a
year that could be spent on greener initiatives. It also is hindering the
growth of much more cost-effective renewable sources of power."

He then goes on to explain that the costs are low only because of
unsustainable federal subsidies. He does not mention what source of renewable
power it is that is so much more cost effective than solar. Nor does he
mention what the "greener initiatives" are or why solar is not green. No
evidence provided whatsoever. Solar is in fact "green" and sustainable. And in
my opinion it is the best source of renewable energy available to us. The rest
of this article is spent talking about the subsidies and why they are bad. And
he says that if the utilities erected solar farms, we could have sustainable
energy at 5 cents per kWh. This is true, but the utility companies have
refused to implement solar in any meaningful way. Whether it is because of
greed or red tape does not matter. Continuing to burn fossil fuels to generate
our energy is out of the question and if the utility companies do not reform
themselves people are going to buy those panels and eventually prune
themselves from the grid entirely. And everyone knows that the utility
companies are going to drag their feet until the brink of disaster.

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justonepost
They neglect to mention the benefit of independence. Many people, assuming
they can do it without significant expense, like the idea of not being reliant
on a grid. Also, while they're redistributing subsidies, how about
redistributing the fossil fuel subsidies towards solar and wind.

