Greenhouse gas emissions must stabilize by 2015 Earth because is warming faster than previously predicted. We are way behind schedule on this.

Pursuing the “best” feed-in tariff solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective.

The definition of victory is replacing fossil with non-GHG power producing technologies as rapidly as possible. By that definition Spain is doing just fine while the U.S. fiddles away.

This should not be a low priority for California or the U.S., or India or China who are most responsible for this train wreck we are facing.

Seneca

The $600 per KW is what California offers, as a one-time rebate on just the initial cost of a rooftop solar install. The average Californian uses 550 kwh a month, so a 3 or 4 KW system is big enough to supply them their power. CSI pays about $1,800 to $2,400 ($600 per KW installed) to offset that initial investment of about $15,000 – $25,000 by the homeowner.

It is a very good deal for California, as each system will produce clean power for 40 years, at no cost to the state. Or very tiny: $2,000 divided by 40 years – $50 a year.

For each measly investment the state reduces (by that home’s need – about 6,600 kwh annually – for $50 a year) its need for new gas-fired electric power plants, safeguarding our water from fracking dangers that would cost more than $50 per year to fix.

And it reduces our contribution to climate change that even with just the first three degrees rise in the last three decades, has already impacted our farming (most of our unemployment is driven by farm unemployment as high as 40%), and will end it by 2100 for many fruits and nuts now grown here, if we don’t act.

http://bluelivingideas.com/topics/water-politics/oil-companies-anti-climate-ballot-initiative-clever/

In Spain now they are paying 0,29€/kW. You say in california they are paying $600/MW ($600/kW must be a mistake), which means they pay 72% more than spanish goverment. ¿Why should it be more sustainable in California than it is in Spain?

Long term, solar is a wiser (and cheaper!) investment than wars-for-oil in other nations, to meet a nation’s energy needs. Solar produces for at least forty years, a fuel-free energy. Short term, though, it was a gamble.

The electricity IS being ‘used by the people’, so it is helping ‘the planet’ ( it is helping people, actually, because it is people who won’t survive climate change, not the planet) because if not clean, then the people would have to use dirty energy. That is a danger to the people, long term. Ending food production in the Midwest, leading to cities like NYC having to be moved inland over the next five centuries, and so on.

But, they sure overpaid. FITs generate investments at 2 x retail.

A Feed-in Tariff of 2x or at most 3x the rate should be enough to sustainably move investment.

The first Feed-in tariff was 575% the price of the megawatt hour. But it has been reduced since then. In the actual system of tariffs every 3 months the new installations get different tariffs which are going down.

What they are trying to do will kill the sector of the renewable sources. Nobody will have confidence in it any more, and we will not grow any more in clean energy. The Earth will be the great looser of it!