Comments on: Colorado Solar Industry Association Readies Launch of Million Solar Roofs Campaign

By: robert

robert — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:10:00 +0000

Nobody is claiming that rooftop solar power by itself will “save the planet”. It is only one of a mixture of many kind of alternative energy. There is no reason not to take th free energy available. Furthermore, there is money in this. Solar and wind power is exploding not so much from government subsidies but because its production is becoming cheaper and cheaper and becoming more and more competitive with fossil fuels.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:15:00 +0000

California and a number of other states have been pretty good about reducing electricity use.

Heating oil use nationwide is down 40% from a few years back.

Oil for transportation use is down in the US.

Many European countries have done better than we have.

If you were to read the Budischak paper you’d see that we probably need to put solar on only one out of every four rooftops to get all the solar input we need. At least for the very large eastern US grid they studied.

It’s quite doable….

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:04:00 +0000

There no way that rooftop solar power will save the planet when the world is consuming more energy than ever before. Who is actually using less energy in the world?

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:47:00 +0000

Colorado has a bit over 5 million people. Let’s assume for back of envelope calculations that the average occupancy of CO houses is 2.5 (roughly the US average). That suggests 2 million houses. Solar on 50% of CO houses.

In the Budischak, et al. paper they found that the least expensive mix of wind, solar and storage involved putting solar on about 25% of all rooftops.

Sounds like CO is on the right track. If, later on, someone does the math and finds out that they are likely to install too much they can scale back. But better to get there too early than too late.