I think this is a pretty good sign of things to come--a conservative group in Florida is pushing to increase access to solar power via a ballot initiative to allow businesses and property owners to generate and sell solar power. This makes a lot of sense for Florida, which doesn't naturally have a lot of fossil fuel sources to begin with but does get a lot of sun, and uses a lot of electricity for air conditioning, having a special climate that combines the heat of Texas with the humidity of Philadelphia.
I like that instead of adding a regulation, the idea involves easing up regulations, and creating choices for consumers in a way that makes a fairer market. Along with recently introduced legislation proposing a state ban on fracking, it shows that there's a local interest in protecting the environment (especially the aquifer, delicate wetlands, and the beaches). I hope they get somewhere with it.
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Yeah - this is even more important with Crude Oil under $50/bbl. At $110, alternatives were at least close to grid parity, but oil and gas once again have a huge market price advantage over renewables. So it becomes more of a marketing problem - making sure that the benefits of solar, wind and wave include more than cost.
One of the upsides I see in the oil price drop is a failure of fracking to be profitable, but the teachable moment and scary thing to know is--some fracking projects were done on borrowed money, and the reality of fracking is that wells don't always pay out, so property owners borrow more to drill again. It's a cash-suck. I'm a little glad this oil price thing came up to remind people that their Marcus shale (allegedly) backyard is not a cash cow if she doesn't produce over and above the market for her little bitty cowtitty. And in the meanwhile, they are poisoning their groundwater and all that. Renewables, once adopted, are marketproof because of the old renewability. Fracking is dangerous because it ends, abruptly, whether investors profit or not.
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