Stimulus Money to Help Renewable Energy

If the world does indeed go on past 2012, the U.S. should see major stimulus money improve renewable energy efforts.  Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, “Government stimulus spending has put the country on track to double renewable energy production capacity by 2012 and halve solar power costs by 2015.”

“The report outlined a goal of doubling renewable energy capacity from the 28.8 gigawatts of solar, wind and geothermal sources installed as of the end of 2008 to 57.6 GW by the end of 2011, which would be enough to power 16.7 million homes, or 55 million electric cars, for a year,” reports Reuters.

This sounds great on paper, but the Associated Press seems to believe we didn’t get all the facts in the report Biden presented on Tuesday.  One such fact check is below, to see all of them go here.

“The claim: Government stimulus money will lead to “cutting the cost of solar power in half by 2015, putting it on par with the cost of retail electricity from the grid.”

The facts: That projection assumes a huge payoff from stimulus spending on technology improvements in solar energy (define solar energy). [Robert L ]Nelson, who has worked in renewable energy for 25 years, called the prediction “highly unlikely,” unless there is a big increase in utility-scale solar power projects.”

Many states seem to be putting more efforts into renewable energy, but some aren’t stepping up to bat. The SunSentinel is reporting that, “Florida taxpayers spent $135,000 on a study that concluded that the Sunshine State has sufficient sunshine to power 20 million homes. There’s zero support to the mass production of a zero-energy house standard by Florida officials, politicians, even the “people’s governor.” This level of efficiency is mandated in the 27-nation EU and in California by 2020.”

Hopefully this report will jumpstart states like Florida to take note and do their part.  For now most of us need to research what we can do to keep up with renewable energy.  There are many options (and usually tax write-offs) available to all of us.

Photo credit: www.badidea.co.uk

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer on payroll processing based in San Diego, California.  She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as small business payroll services at Resource Nation.