Solar energy faces challenges in California

Solar power is a simple idea, but it is expensive, difficult to accomplish and possibly environmentally unfriendly. Despite this the solar industry is still growing for 2 reasons:

1) Rapidly lowering cost curves for producing PV cells (converts the solar into another energy form)

2) Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) which are being rapidly adopted by many states. RPS sets standard requirements about how much of the state’s energy portfolio must be obtained from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro-electric, etc.)

California recently increased their RPS to 33% by the year 2020, and ‘sunny California’ is a prime candidate for solar to achieve their 33%. While solar is very efficient, at about $0.80/watt to produce, it is actually still 5 times more expensive than comparable fossil fuel energy sources. The discrepancy in price arises as the average cost for residential solar installation is between $8,000-$12,000.

Environmentalists have concerns about California increasing the solar portfolio; large tracts of land would become ‘solar fields’ which could cause temperature inversion in the area, also the fields would interfere with habitat. Additionally, solar is actually very water intensive, using water to cool the cells. Currently the US Department of Energy, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of the interior are conducting an environmental impact study to determine the effect solar would have on the environment.

But how can solar be made more affordable? Increasingly both economists and environmentalists are releasing reports signaling that solar needs to be advanced more in order to be cost effective. Perhaps if the cost of remediating the externalities caused by burning fossil fuel was included in the cost of oil and coal, comparatively solar would seem like a good option. Aside from incorporating government incentives in the form of grants and tax breaks, the solar industry needs to continue to evolve before solar begins to out-pace fossil fuels.

--Ashlee Harvey with thanks to this article

E-wasted

This article is about how developing countries are dumping their “e-waste”, electronic waste into undeveloped countries. This is very bad; the waste from electronic is harmful to the environment and the people that are surrounded by it. And most of the people that are surrounded by the e-waste are poor individuals that cannot get away from the harmful debris or prevent sicknesses easily. Much of the waste is coming from America and China. E-waste is continually growing due to the increase in technological advances; such as cells phones, computers, and other devices. The article reports that cells phone on average are used for 18 months and then disposed, so you can only imagine how many are just thrown away, ending up in poor countries land and streams. China and other countries do their recycling inefficiently and in unregulated backyard operations, leading to more harmful environmental problems and illnesses. And this problem is only going to get worse because both America and China’s economies are growing along with this problem.
I think that this problem is going to get worse before there are any impacting law that inhibits dumping or sending these products to these countries. Since we don’t want the electronic waste in our nation, we have no problem dumping it somewhere else, or sending it to them with out them knowing that it is waste. This shows what kind of country we are, careless in our actions, and negatively affecting the world’s environment. This also shows that we have a growing and wasteful economy. We are a growing economy because we have many advances in technology, putting new and exciting things like cell phones, laptops out on the market, but this also means that they all become out dated quickly. And when they become out dated, people wanted to have the latest technology, creating a lot of electronic trash to be dumped into undeveloped countries, harming their environment and people.
--Jackie LaMonica

568 million chickens

Last year on the Eastern Shore, factory farms produced 568 million chickens. As we've talked about earlier, that's a lot of poop! Nice article in the Post today talking about the issue, including a few quotes from Kathy Phillips, whom Damien referred to in our first presentation of the year.

Good news: industrial pollution and other types of nastiness that used to be a problem are much less of one now. Bad news: there's really an awful lot of poop out there, though chicken producers are indeed taking some steps to deal with it.

Farmers vs. Fishing

It's simmering a little lower now, but different groups in California have been fighting for water for at least 150 years, and the droughts of the past few years have pitted farmers against fishing in a battle for water. Both depend heavily on surface water, as salmon need to spawn and farmers need to water their fields. Recently California Senator Diane Feinstein, a Democrat, has chosen farmers over fish, promising to fight the Endangered Species Act in order to protect the livelihoods of farmers. Recent information shows that there will probably be enough water to go around this year, pushing the struggle onto the backburner for awhile, but resentment is already building, as shown in this editorial by a California State legislator.

On one hand, I definitely value people more than fish, but on the other hand, I know that people are more adaptable than fish. My personal response is that Sen. Feinstein is being short-sighted. Do you agree?

Cleaning the Chesapeake, Prospective edition

Baltimore Sun article today on what property owners can do to limit their runoff into the Bay (rain barrels, rain gardens, and planting trees) and on the other options for getting more done, which mostly involve expensive government action. What do you think? The government is already going to force the city to spend more money on picking up litter. Should that be the city's priority for how it spends its money?

Bag taxes

We discussed bag taxes briefly in class, but here's an article from the Sun on the current tax in Washington (5 cents) and what's proposed in Baltimore (25 cents). They say a 5 cent tax has cut use by half, and they wonder what a 25 cent tax would do. What do you think the demand curve looks like for plastic bags?

One man interviewed in the article doesn't like the tax, saying, "I don't think we should have to pay for bags at the grocery store." I guess he doesn't realize he's been paying them all along through higher prices for his groceries!

Economy & pollution: an either-or?

Depending on the way they are constructed, poll questions have the ability to cause a biased response favoring the person or group that creates them. A prime example is a poll that was released last week by a public opinion research firm in Annapolis, MD. The poll asked:

“Which do you think should be a higher priority for Governor Martin O’Malley’s administration right now?

• Taking steps to create jobs and improve Maryland’s economy, or
• Taking steps to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.”

The poll was paid for by the Maryland Builders Association, a group that is interested in dodging new stormwater regulations that are proposed for the state. The poll created the false sense that if the regulations took effect then jobs would either be lost or not created. Poll results showed that 77% of people statewide favored the choice of an improved economy. By constructing the question as they did the MBA made people choose a side when in reality people would like to see both occur. The fact of the matter is that pollution in the Chesapeake Bay has hurt the state’s economy, and an effort to curb pollution would have a positive effect.

When reading this article it made me think of all the times I filled out polls quickly, while failing to think about what was being asked. It seems as though it is an easy task to sway people with the wording of a poll, which is unsettling. In a society where polls are used in a variety of ways, it is important to read carefully for a hidden agenda.

After reading the article I totally agree with the CBF writer. New regulations would go a long way towards making the Bay healthier. The fishing industry which is a huge part of the economy in Maryland would see a boost in harvests, and the overall health of the Bay would draw more tourists. It would be interesting to force those that were responsible for the wording of the poll to live on an extremely polluted waterway, and to see if their mindsets would change. I have a feeling that they would realize that both of these are essential for the growth of Maryland as a state, and that with a healthier Bay comes a better economy.

--Chris Zorn