Mr Sustainable

September, 2011 – Peter Loscher, CEO of Siemens (announcing their exit from nuclear business): “Germany’s shift towards renewable energies is the project of the century.

April 2013 Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “we are beyond the tipping point for a cleaner energy future”. 

Fossil fuels are dirty and polluting.  Nuclear creates waste that lasts “forever” and we can’t find a place to store it.  Existing power plants are aging and scheduled for retirement.  Foreign oil dependence puts us at the whims of others, and trying to squeeze out the remainder of our domestic fossil fuels, like coal-mining and gas-fracking, just perpetuates our subservience to 19^th and 20^th century polluting fossil fuels.  The 21^st century is here.  It’s time for a renewable energy transition! 

In the same way that we created a new electric industry in the early 1900s, we should plan for – and immediately start building — an infrastructure where eventually most of our electricity will come from renewable, non-polluting sources.  Just as in the 20^th century, government planning, support and incentives and private capital should establish a forward-looking plan, with periodic milestones that will be achieved along the way.  This effort is over-due, and the only way to achieve a transition that will benefit this country by providing plentiful, renewable, non-polluting, home-grown electricity that will power our lives, industries, and future.

Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro, will be speaking on rebuilding sustainably after Superstorm Sandy.  Since we have to rebuild anyway as a result of the catastrophe, we have an opportunity to do it right!  The event will be held on Monday, May 13, 2013 at 7PM at the Monmouth County Library – headquarters, 125 Symmes Drive, Manalapan, NJ.  The event is open to the public.

Earth Day 2013 is the perfect time to work on sustainable energy and sustainable building, especially at the New Jersey shore that was so heavily impacted by super storm Sandy.

Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro, will be a speaker at the Earth Day Gathering at historic Camp Evans, 2201 Marconi Rd, Wall, NJ, 07719.

For event information.

PV America East is one of the major conferences for the solar industry in the United States.  It’s in town in Philadelphia this week with close to 4,000 professionals and nearly 100 exhibitors.  Leaders in the industry and interested customers will all be there showing off the latest in technology, financing, and services.

Everyone is excited about the continuing drop in the cost of installing solar energy generating systems.  Much of the cost reduction has come from the plummeting in the price of photovoltaic panels, which have gone down more than 75% over the past five years.  This is making solar energy more and more affordable, and approaching “grid parity” the time at which the cost of solar will be equal to the cost of producing electricity from conventional, more polluting sources.

There’s also excitement about the continued rise in the amount of PV installed in the US.  In 2012, the Solar Energy Industries Association reported that residential rooftop installations were up 30 percent from the previous year, and total rooftop installations, including commercial buildings, grew over 100% during this time.

Solar energy is especially beneficial when the demand for electricity is the greatest and cost of electricity is greatest.  When a high level of power is called for – such as on a hot summer day when air conditioners are in use – solar and wind already out-compete coal, nuclear or natural gas, since the added cost of sending more electricity to the grid from solar panels or wind turbines is much less. This is sometimes referred to as the “merit order effect” and it has already cause savvy consumers to turn to solar power.  See Bloomberg BusinessWeek  “Solar Energy is Ready.  The U.S. Isn’t.

And there’s good news from other countries about the success of solar providing larger and larger percentages of a country’s power demand.  For example, Germany passed a notable benchmark in last year, when its solar power market met almost half of the country’s electric demand at mid-day on Saturday in May, and a third of its needs on a Friday, when industrial usage what high.  Wharton School University of Pennsylvania Article  “Germany proves solar energy is no mirage.”  http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2012/05/sunspots-germany-proves-solar-energy-is-no-mirage/

Germany, a world leader in the development of solar power, is not producing a small overall amount of solar power by any stretch of the imagination: on these very sunny two days, it produced power equal to the generating capacity of about 20 nuclear stations.  See Wharton Article.  These facts continue to establish that solar can play, and in places already has played, a successful role in large-scale energy production.

This all makes it a good time for the United States to get squarely behind solar.  We can build our economy, provide good jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign sources of fuel – all while improving our environment and health.

If you get the chance, check out PV America East 2013, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, and please stop back again to read future posts.