Dave Foreman's approach to fast tracking solar energy and in the process shutting down the Co2 producing energy sources of coal, oil and gas....Solar up exisitng buildings and structures in urban areas..................no wildland or agricultural land solar or wind farms to be constructed!!!!!!!

Urban Solar Now!

Make Sun Power Where Folks Live

Leave Wild Deserts Alone

One. Sun Power Now!

       -- A Man-on-the-Moon-kind of campaign and commitment should begin now to fast-track sun energy output in cities and towns.  Such a campaign should meet these standards:

 1) make power where folks live so there is no need for long transmission; and 2) put solar power plants in already developed areas where there will be little or no harm to wild things.  Among the many ways to bring about this step are:
 3) Blanket all Parking Lots
        There are likely a million acres of parking lots in the US; most are paved, and many are in the sunniest shires of our land.  Every parking lot should be roofed with solar panels.  Since fees go up for parking in the shade, these panels would add to the worth of the parking lots.  The power could go to nearby office buildings, apartments, stores, restaurants, bars, schools, sports arenas, airports, light rail, car dealerships, workshops, and factories.  Moreover, as electric cars become more sought-after, plug-in meters can be put in each slot so each car can be recharged while parked.  By the way, this is done in Fairbanks, Alaska parking lots in the winter to keep engines thawed so cars will start when it is below zero, so the craft for these plug-in meters is already here.

4) Every Roof a Solar Panel!
        Every big-box store, factory, warehouse, school, apartment, hotel, bank, government office (the Pentagon!), and so forth should have their roofs blanketed with solar panels.  What energy not needed onsite would go into the grid.
5). Every Home a Power Plant!
        Right now, the upfront outlay for putting solar panels on one's home can be too much even though you will save money in the long run.  Therefore, power companies or local government should put in solar panels for willing homeowners free in exchange for an agreement to buy electricity at a fixed rate from the electric company or government co-op until the panels are paid off.  I'd do it yesterday.  An energy company in New Jersey is doing this now.  In the Southwest, this would work well.  The same should be done with rooftop sun-heated hot water heaters.
 

6). Passive Solar Heating for All!
        The more moving parts something has, the more tangled the set-up and the more likely it is for ghastly breakdowns (think Japan).  Space heating grabs a big slice of our overall energy budget.  We can deftly end much of this want for electricity, natural gas, coal, heating oil, or whatever.  As I wrote, Nancy and I have a passive solar house (see Campfire # 26).  I think it is a lovely home and the sun gathering helps that pretty look.  Thanks to a clerestory that lets in sunlight six months of the year (but not in the summer), we have awesomely low bills from the gas and electric companies in the winter.  We likely sock away $5,000 a year. Passive solar beats other ways to heat buildings owing to no moving cogs and wheels and no upkeep.  As I drive about Albuquerque, I wonder at all the houses and other buildings without passive solar.  Each could save thousands of dollars a year in energy bills.  Architects, engineers, and builders should take on the dare to go all out for passive solar building design.  Make it pretty, make it thrifty, and make it work in all kinds of building styles.  Energy companies and governments should come up with incentives or even regulations to get builders to build passive solar homes, offices, strip malls, warehouses, schools, and so on, and to get owners to retrofit to passive solar.  Sunrooms and greenhouses are among the straightforward ways to put the sun to work in already built buildings. 
7) Other Clever Deals
        I'm sure that there are other ways to make solar power near where it is wanted and on already built-up land.  What about movable rigs with solar panels that could span over highways and plug into each other?  Think of the acres of highways.  As solar panel craft gets better, there will be more and more ways to make power without needing to industrialize and scar public lands.
 

8) Cap the Grid
        If solar energy is only one more wellspring of energy, then we will have gained little.  Therefore, a bedrock step in any new energy policy is to cap the grid.  This means that all energy use in the United States is reckoned as of today.  It becomes the cap, beyond which we will not go.  Neither energy use nor production may ever go over this cap.  In a nutshell, it would work this way: As new "good" energy production, from sun or wind (in the right steads), comes on line, coal power plants or hydroelectric dams with the same BTUs will be shut down.  Freezing how much energy to be used or produced in the United States will shut down or take down dirty (coal) and ecologically harmful (hydropower dams) plants, and it will make consumers, power companies, and governments become earnest about energy conservation and lower use.  Capping the grid is for overall energy use, not per person energy use.  If the US keeps growing, overall energy use does not get to grow so as to keep the same per capita energy use.  So, if population grows, per capita energy use goes down.  The energy pie from capping the grid is just so big.  If more folks want a slice, the slices become smaller.--the toughset of the propositions and perhaps(unfortunately) not realistic in our growth/wall street driven economy--blogger Rick
 9) Moratorium on Leasing or Building Industrial Sun Energy Plants in Wildlands or Public Lands
        A halt should be called on today's steamroller to lease public lands for industrial sun plants or to let such set-ups be built on any wildlands, public or private, by withdrawing all go-ahead steps for needed permits to do such building.  This stoppage should go on until urban and suburban solar production is full.  If, at that time, we find that we still need more electricity from the sun (but without going over the cap), we can carefully rethink the moratorium.
10)  A Thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on All Sides of Solar Energy Development on Public Lands and Other Wildlands.
        This EIS should thoroughly weigh all sides of sun energy building on public lands and other wildlands, such as water need, landscalping, endangered and other at-risk wildlife, fragmentation of wild neighborhoods and wildways, cradle to grave greenhouse-gas making, loss of carbon sequestration in Nature, harm of power lines, worth of solar power for cutting the need for fossil fuels, alternatives, etc.  Thorough.  Moreover, any building of sun power plants in drylands that is brought up later must have full EISs done on each undertaking.
        Done right, these city and town sun-power steps would cost less than scalping and building on wildlands for clustered solar plants and their needed infrastructure and web of power lines.  These deals would be well liked by most folks if marketed well.  And, I think, if we were to do all this, there would be no need to throw away wild deserts for power company bankrolls.  Conservation, environmental, consumer, tribal, and greenhouse outfits should get behind the urban solar path instead of helping to find public land desert areas that can be trashed for solar energy production.
       
        Say YES to Urban Solar
        Say NO to Wild Desert Solar

      Dave Foreman
Bosque del Apache NWR