permaculture

["Emily A. Noble" <guinep@theriver.com>]

Title: FW: Solar change

While we're slightly off the subject of living green matter........here is a:
Great excuse to write to your congress-persons!!
HERE COMES THE SUN
The U.S. government could launch a solar power revolution with just a few years of investment in photovoltaic technology, argues Denis Hayes in Grist. The government propelled the computer industry into the big time through a similar process, purchasing large quantities of integrated circuits during their early, expensive days and driving their price down. The cost of solar cells has dropped dramatically over the last few decades but is still about three times too high to compete with heavily subsidized fossil fuels. If the government announced that it would make a big buy-down of solar cells, the solar industry could move from small-scale to mass production and the price of the technology would fall significantly. Such an investment would create numerous jobs and open up a large global market for cutting-edge American technology, writes Hayes, chair of Earth Day Network and president of the Bullitt Foundation.
read it in Grist Magazine: Books Unbound, Denis Hayes, 05.08.00
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books050800.stm