Well not a "wall" exactly -- more like a Tea Party "speed-bump." More on that in a minute, first the good news about solar-wind "Grid Parity" and its inevitablepossible consequences, from a "venture" article hot off the business presses this morning.
The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy
by Vivek Wadhwa, venturebeat.com -- September 21, 2014 4:00 AM
[...]
Futurist Ray Kurzweil notes that solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years, as costs have been dropping. He says solar energy is only six doublings, or less than 14 years, away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs. Energy usage will keep increasing, so this is a moving target. But, by Kurzweil’s estimates, inexpensive renewable sources will provide more energy than the world needs in less than 20 years. Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth.In places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the Southwest U.S., residential-scale solar production has already reached “grid parity” with average residential electricity prices. In other words, it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies. The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years alone and will fall much further as the technologies to create them improve and scale of production increases. By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world. Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil fuel-based alternatives do.
[...] This has profound implications.
First, there will be disruption of the entire fossil-fuel industry, starting with utility companies, which will face declining demand and then bankruptcy. Several of them see the writing on the wall. The smart ones are embracing solar and wind power. Others are lobbying to stop the progress of solar power -- at all costs.
[...]
Some utility owners (and suppliers) see the 'solar writing' on the wall -- the shrinking of their monopoly-like profits -- and they don't like it one bit.
Enter the usual suspects ...
Koch brothers, big utilities attack solar, green energy policies
by Evan Halper, latimes.com -- April 19, 2014
[...]
The Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and some of the nation's largest power companies have backed efforts in recent months to roll back state policies that favor green energy. The conservative luminaries have pushed campaigns in Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona, with the battle rapidly spreading to other states.Alarmed environmentalists and their allies in the solar industry have fought back, battling the other side to a draw so far. Both sides say the fight is growing more intense as new states, including Ohio, South Carolina and Washington, enter the fray.
At the nub of the dispute are two policies found in dozens of states. One requires utilities to get a certain share of power from renewable sources. The other, known as net metering, guarantees homeowners or businesses with solar panels on their roofs the right to sell any excess electricity back into the power grid at attractive rates.
[...]
It seems those cat-seat power-brokers would rather keep their cash-cow all to themselves.
Enter ALEC ... they know how to push state legislature's buttons -- their Xerox copying, "boiler-plate" fowarding, NEW Legislation-issuing buttons ...