Big business of the high tech variety is giving the boost California needs to beat its target of 33% renewable energy by 2020.
Projects by Microsoft Corp. and other companies are showing an appetite for wind and solar power that will continue even if the federal government doesn’t extend tax credits that expire at the end of the year, said Jerry Bloom, chairman of Winston & Strawn LLP’s energy, project development and finance practice group.
“People are saying we don’t care there is a 33 percent cap in California; we need more,” Bloom said at the Platts California Power and Gas Conference in San Francisco. The state is requiring that solar, wind and other renewable sources make up 33 percent of the electricity supply by 2020.
A new California law allowing owners of rooftop solar to receive retail rates for excess power they sell to their local utilities will drive behind-the-meter solar projects, said Bryan Miller, vice president of public policy and power markets at Sunrun Inc., a rooftop solar developer.
“It’s the Bill Gateses, the Yahoos and the Googles and Apple that just bought a solar facility to operate themselves,” Bloom said. “They give us the ability to push regulators and to get roadblocks out of the way.”
Of course it is the Bill Gateses, the Googles, the Apples and the Yahoos that want to control the economy of the future.
ReplyDeleteYou need not apply. But you must be subservient.
You're missing the point, Anon. It is the high-tech sector, lending its weight to the alternative energy initiative, that is providing the essential critical mass to make this viable for everyone. Do you think it would be preferable if they weren't behind this? Would you rather they obstructed the alternative energy initiative?
ReplyDeleteRegardless, I'd trust Bill Gates over any oil exec.
ReplyDelete"You're missing the point, Anon. It is the high-tech sector, lending its weight to the alternative energy initiative,"
ReplyDeleteI'm missing the point? You make me laugh, Mound. I know you're a big corporate Microsoft fan, but there is a segment of humanity that believes that the path of suffocating corporatism is not the best path for humanity to follow.
I guess we'll just have to walk down our separate paths. And may the most aware person win ;)
Really, I do hope the most aware person does win. We all should.
How about that...big monied people getting the road blocks out of the way....hooray for them.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't trust Bill Gates over anybody. I know too much about the man's history.
ReplyDeleteBut our time grows short and the revolution is being rather stubborn about not arriving. If we're to get renewable energy before we get apocalypse, the existing system is going to have to embrace it. So this is good news.
I'm quite serious that I think at current rates of getting cheaper, the main renewable energy forms are going to be definitively cheaper than all the conventional alternatives fairly soon. Tipping points are being reached. Coal, natural gas as used to generate electricity (and nuclear) could be on the way out surprisingly soon, just from the forces of the existing quasi-market economy.
That still doesn't deal with transportation, but it's certainly a step.