If you really mean what you say, don’t be a hypocrite.

I am pro Arab. I have friends that are from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Palestine. They are good guys.

They feel the same way that I do. They would feel alot better if you didn’t buy their products if youare that serious about your views.

Hypocrites are low. Very low.

Sincerely,

Nick Taylor

We will certainly see installed cost of large scale solar fall to around $2-3/W in the next few years.

That said, it sounds like prop 7 is poorly implemented. let’s do a rewrite and rethink and try again next year, this time maybe with the buy in of the utilities and solar companies and environmental groups.

Utilities didn’t cause the energy crisis, Gray Davis did. It almost bankrupted all the utilites in SoCal… Edison managed to avoid it but PG&E didn’t.

The article is being realistic. To provide that much renewable power in that time period is just flat out not possible. All the utilites are paying extreme prices right now to fuel natural gas generation of power. It only makes sense for them to get off natural gas dependancy and go to renewable power…

Natural Gas cost has risen over 50%!!! Its not the same price as gasoline. I don’t see any of the utilities raising their rates 50%… not even close, the PUC won’t let them!! So they are absorbing the cost of natural gas.

The idea is already there, this is just a burden too heavy to bear.

I have read with increasing alarm the confusing and muddied points surrounding Proposition 7, otherwise referred to as Big Solar. Under current provisions, the utility companies in California are supposed to expand their renewable portfolio standard by 1% in order to meet the current milestone of 20% by 2010 (according to SB1078 and SB107 and AB32). But as of this writing their commitment is only 10.9% and we are in the 3rd quarter of 2008. Apparently, mathematics isn’t required when shaping a law, or someone would have been able to add 1% annual growth to 10.9% current progress and realize that 20% is unachievable in 2010. It’s no wonder that the US educational system is the laughing stock of the industrialized world.

In fact, according to Sacramento Bee’s own article, “Utilities are not likely to reach the current target until 2012 or 2013, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. The portion of renewable energy California consumes actually has declined in the past five years, from 14 percent to 12.7 percent.” In other words, we’re currently going backwards and now the opponents of Prop 7 don’t want to buck the trend. Is it little wonder why they wish to sweep this under the rug?

Proposition 7 will require California utilities to increase their purchase of electricity generated from renewable resources by 2% annually to meet Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requirements of 40% in 2020 and 50% in 2025. This is the most aggressive approach to switching to renewable energies and it is little wonder why the corporate giants, knowing that they are currently reducing, not increasing, their portfolio of renewables, certainly don’t want to go back to being environmentally responsible, especially if the fines they have to pay for noncompliance will be prohibited from passing along to their electric rate-payers. Also, they won’t be able to stick the consumers with all the costs associated with the switch to renewables as price impacts on consumer’s electricity bills will be less than 3 percent.

This citizen is concerned that big business has once again reared its ugly head and decided to oppose improving the environment with knowable and doable resources. Among other giants wishing to be environmentally irresponsible is SMUD, but one of Prop 7’s star pitchman is David Freeman, the blunt-talking former head of SMUD.

“If we don’t get off of non-renewables in this decade, then global climate change will change this life as we know it. We are in a crisis,” Freeman said at last week’s hearing. “As a guy who has run utilities, I can tell you it’s important to keep their feet to the fire.”

David Freeman knows what he’s talking about. He isn’t some spotted owl lover who likes to camp out in trees. He’s a clear-headed businessman who has seen how things work from the inside. His words ring very prophetic, “As a guy who has run utilities, I can tell you it’s important to keep their feet to the fire.” Opponents of Prop 7 want to extinguish the fire and return to the “good ol’ days” when no one paid attention to the environment and renewables were simply ideas that old hippies played around with. This old hippy wants to turn up the heat on that fire and make sure that big business does what it’s supposed to do, become environmentally conscious and concerned.

One of the big problems with the initiative is that it squeezes out small providers (over 60% of CA’s current solar providers) at the expense of larger, not-yet-built facilities.