A Tesla Roadster gets a boost from a SolarCity charging station in SalinasPhoto courtesy SolarCityYou can't get more California greenin' than this.

Peter Rive can charge up his Tesla Roadster electric sports car in his San Francisco garage with carbon-free electricity supplied by a solar array on his roof. Then, if he's in the mood for a road trip, he can drive to Los Angeles, stopping at a solar-powered charging station along the way to top off the battery.

The free charging stations on the "solar highway" -- aka the 101 -- were recently installed by SolarCity, the Silicon Valley rooftop solar company Rive founded with his brother Lyndon. (The electric-blue Roadster sitting in his garage was made by his cousin Elon Musk's startup, Tesla Motors.)

So what's a solar company doing installing highway charging stations for six-figure sports cars driven by people with seven-figure salaries?

In part, it's a result of SolarCity's connection to Tesla and grants the electric carmaker received from the state of California to demo charging stations. It makes for great PR, of course, but the bigger picture here is how the emerging electric vehicle industry will drive (sorry) the adoption of residential and commercial photovoltaic systems.

"It's our feeling that if we really want to make a difference, we have to start changing our infrastructure," says Lyndon Rive, SolarCity's chief executive. "Combine EV with PV, and we can really lead a clean lifestyle." (Jargon watch: That's "EV" for electric vehicles, and "PV" for photovoltaic solar energy.)

It's also good for business.

SolarCity earlier this month completed the acquisition of SolSource Energy, a Los Angeles company that installs electric car charging stations in homes and at businesses. So far, SolarCity has installed about 100 charging stations for Tesla customers but expects those numbers to skyrocket once automakers start introducing electric cars to the mass market over the next few years.

"That business does have potential for humongous growth," says Rive. "We've only deployed about 65,000 solar systems in the U.S., but you're talking about hundreds of thousands of electric cars over the next five years."

And once you have an EV in your garage, it makes more economic sense to put PV on the roof to supply the electricity. When you're getting free fuel from the sun for your car, you accelerate return on investment for the solar array. And, of course, you'll need a bigger solar system, which means bigger profits for installers like SolarCity.

"If you sell 50,000 cars and get 50 percent adoption rate for PV, it's very significant," notes Rive. "A lot of customers who have just bought an EV decide to get a solar system as well or vice a versa."

And when employees start arriving at work expecting to plug in before they log on, companies will have another compelling reason to go solar.

As electric cars go mass market in places like California, PG&E, Southern California Edison and other utilities will likely ramp up efforts to install distributed solar systems to ease the load on the electricity grid and avoid having to build fossil fuel power plants to meet peak demand.

That evolving solar ecosystem can be seen at Peter Rive's home on a steep San Francisco street with a view of the downtown skyline. On the roof sits a three-kilowatt solar panel array. Although Rive, Solarcity's chief operating officer, just recently took delivery of his Tesla Roadster, he planned for the car's electricity consumption when he installed solar panels and upgraded his home's electrical system a year and a half ago. (Something you, Grist readers, should consider if you are contemplating going solar and may buy an electric car one day.)

"This is the equivalent load of an air conditioner," says Rive, nodding at his new toy.

The fast-charge station is a square box attached to the wall by the garage. Installation, adds London Rive, "runs between $2,000 and $6,000," depending on whether an electric system upgrade is needed. The system can charge a depleted battery in about three-and-a-half hours.

"It's sort of like your cell phone -- you use it during the day and plug it in at night and forget about it," says Rive, taking the heavy-duty cord with a nozzle-like attachment and plugging it into the Roadster's charge port.

The solar system's control panel shows that the rooftop panels are generating more electricity at the moment than the house is consuming. "I generate enough solar during the day to offset my commute," Rive says.

Whether Tesla owners will abandon their private jets or flying first class in favor of driving their Roadsters up and down the California coast is another matter. But the way SolarCity has designed its charging station network points to the future convergence between the roof and the road.

Four of the five fast-charging stations the company built are located at branches of Rabobank, a Dutch-owned bank with 91 branches in California, many of them located along the 101 corridor. The single solar-powered charging station -- there are plans to solarize three others -- draws its electricity from a 30-kilowatt array previously installed by SolarCity at the bank's Santa Maria branch on the central coast.

The charging stations currently are only compatible with Tesla's vehicles, but will eventually add a port to charge other electric cars. (Better Place, Coulomb Technologies and Ecotality are among other startups with plans to electrify the interstate.)

"You don't want solar to be a stand-alone unit," says Lyndon Rive. "By the time you stop to use this corridor, it's been feeding electricity to the grid all day long. But when you plug in your car, it will use less than those panels produced during the day."

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Alexander unveiled his nuclear plan in July.One of the few Congressional Republicans who talks about the need to address climate change, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, made an interesting argument against wind and solar energy this week. He’s concerned about the amount of land required to produce energy from wind and solar, writing in the Wall Street Journal, “I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment.”

He draws on a recent study by Nature Conservancy scientists who detail how much land is required to produce energy from different sources, an issue they dub “energy sprawl.” Alexander focuses on a small part of their findings—that wind and solar plants require a good deal more physical space than nuclear plants:

It’s a disingenuous argument, because the problem with nuclear power has never been land use. (See Radioactive Waste Disposal, Cost, and Security for more on the very difficult nuclear question.) I’m not arguing here that Alexander’s dead wrong in his long-standing love for nuclear energy, just that this is a thin argument for nuclear.

Oh, and Alexander says he won't support a cap-and-trade climate bill unless it includes his personal wish for 100 new nuke plants.

Bonus second point: If you’re an environmentalist who cares about endangered species and wild places, you shouldn’t be concerned about wind farms or solar plants. You should worry about biofuels.

At least, I’m having a hard time avoiding that conclusion after looking at a key graphic from the energy sprawl report:

Courtesy PLoS ONE

The chart measures the land required per unit (terawatt-hour) of electricity from different sources. Note that the top five sources are all for biofuels, derived from different crops. Note how much less land wind, solar voltaic and solar thermal energy require in comparison.

I won’t rehash the economic and ecological problems with biofuels here, but this should cool off the notion that wind and solar won’t fly for land-use reasons. Of course some places are more sensitive than others, but if there’s room for mountaintop removal coal mining, we have room for wind and solar plants.

There’s a certain man-bites-dog appeal in stories about environmentalists who oppose clean energy projects because they disrupt wild places and endangered species. Take the conflict over solar panels and transmission lines in the Mojave Desert. Or the quarrel over the Cape Wind project at Nantucket Sound. Or the fight over wind turbines in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

These conflicts are intriguing, sure. But the sprawl study, which appeared in PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science, suggests that biofuels such as ethanol pose a far greater threat to open lands.

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Solar Roadways

A while back I mentioned Solar Roadways, a clean-energy idea that appears kind of kooky, at least on the surface. (See what I did there?) The notion is to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels.

The Solar Road Panels would contain not just solar panels but LED lighting (to enable real-time communication with drivers), heating units (to prevent icing), high-voltage power transmission lines, and even electric-vehicle recharging stations. It's transportation, power, and grid infrastructure in the same place.

At the limit, if all paved surfaces in the U.S. were replaced with 15% efficiency solar panels, the resulting distributed power network could provide three times the electricity the nation consumes, with zero carbon emissions and no additional power grid infrastructure. (Yes, I'm aware manufacturing, installing, and maintaining it would generate emissions, as with any infrastructure project.)

So crazy it just might work? Apparently the Dept. of Transportation thinks so: Solar Roadways has received a $100,000 contract from DOT to build a prototype:

The Solar Roadways will collect solar energy to power businesses and homes via structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon, to be placed in parking lots and roadways in lieu of petroleum-based asphalt surfaces.

The Solar Road Panels will contain embedded LEDs which "paint" the road lines from beneath to provide safer nighttime driving, as well as to give up to the minute instructions (via the road) to drivers (i.e. "detour ahead"). The road will be able to sense wildlife on the road and can warn drivers to "slow down". There will also be embedded heating elements in the surface to prevent snow and ice buildup, providing for safer winter driving. This feature packed system will become an intelligent highway that will double as a secure, intelligent, decentralized, self-healing power grid which will enable a gradual weaning from fossil fuels.

... Fully electric vehicles will be able to recharge along the roadway and in parking lots, finally making electric cars practical for long trips.

It is estimated that is will take roughly five billion (a stimulus package in itself) 12' by 12' Solar Road Panels to cover the asphalt surfaces in the U.S. alone, allowing us to produce three times more power than we've ever used as a nation - almost enough to power the entire world.

There are some cost estimates on the site. They argue that roadways could be solarized for roughly the same net cost we'd pay for power plants, grid infrastructure, and asphalt.

As usual with large-scale, visionary ideas like this, it's difficult to agree on a cost-benefit analysis. The costs are mostly quantifiable -- multiply cost of panel by 5 billion, etc. -- but the benefits are not. Many are speculative or unpredictable, many are avoided costs. What are the benefits of not building coal plants and grid infrastructure? Not paying for accidents from ice and wildlife? Not having centralized, brittle power infrastructure?

New infrastructure does not merely replace old infrastructure; it provides a platform for new kinds of innovation. Who knows what would grow out of massively distributed power, a national smart grid, or an electrified vehicle fleet? What would it mean to have an overabundance of clean electricity?

Decisions about projects of such scope can't be made with a mathematical formula. There are irreducible elements of aspiration and faith, values and ethics, fear and desire -- just as there were in America's decisions to wage war, guarantee health care for seniors and the poor, go to the moon, or extend broadband internet access. Conservatives and Blue Dogs tell us we can't afford it, presuming a shared understanding of what it's worth.

Think not just about solar roadways, but more generally about the goal of clean, abundant energy, economic renewal, and a livable climate. What's that worth? And why do the Blue Dogs get to decide?

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The next time someone tells you solar is too expensive, send them here (PDF).

It's a contract PG&E signed for a 230 MW solar photovoltaic project, delivering 592 GWh/year. That’s a lot. But the best part? Look at the chart on the bottom of page 3. It won't tell you the price exactly, but it’s below 13 cents/kWh—which is the proxy price for a combined cycle gas turbine.

Solar cheaper than the fossil fuel alternative.

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Not many people I know think space solar is a low-cost, scalable solution.

Certainly it is worth pursuing any genuine low-carbon baseload power source if it can be practical and scalable — and affordable, which I would put at $0.15 a kilowatt hour or less for.  The problem with space solar is that, like hydrogen fuel-cell cars, there is little chance it could be affordable until it is massively scaled up — and no guarantee that it would be practical and affordable even then.  That’s one reason major utilities have been unwilling to take the risk on it.

Until now.

Apparently at least one serious utility that has invested in “wind, geothermal, biomass, wave and tidal, and at least a half dozen types of solar thermal and photovoltaic power” is looking in to it.  Jonathan Marshall, Chief, External Communications, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., sends me a link to his posting on NEXT100.com, “a blog supported by PG&E that explores the intersection of the clean energy business and the environment”:

PG&E is seeking approval from state regulators for a power purchase agreement with Solaren Corp., a Southern California company that has contracted to deliver 200 megawatts of clean, renewable power over a 15 year period.

Solaren says it plans to generate the power using solar panels in earth orbit, then convert it to radio frequency energy for transmission to a receiving station in Fresno County. From there, the energy will be converted to electricity and fed into PG&E’s power grid. (See interview with Solaren CEO Gary Spirnak.)

Why would anyone choose so challenging a locale to generate electricity? For one, the solar energy available in space is eight-to-ten times greater than on earth. There’s no atmospheric or cloud interference, no loss of sun at night, and no seasons. That means space solar can be a baseload resource, not an intermittent source of power.  In addition, real estate in space is still free (if hard to reach). Solaren needs to acquire land only for an energy receiving station. It can locate the station near existing transmission lines, greatly reducing delays that face some renewable power projects sited far from existing facilities.

Yeah, well good luck PG&E!

Wikipedia has a good entry on SBSP here.  Scale and cost are probably the biggest problems.  You probably need more than a factor of 10 more drop in launch costs.  The space community has been promising such a drop was just around the corner for decades, now.

It seems all but inconceivable that you could get the cost to drop that sharply without economies of scale and a learning curve driven by a massive number of regular launches.  But who is going to pay for all those incredibly expensive space-based solar systems before the cost drops?

This is a classic chicken and egg problem, compounded by the fact that there is no guarantee you will actually get the cost drops even with large-scale deployment, so all of your money is at grave risk.

The risk is even greater because land-based solar baseload (or load following or dispatchable solar) — aka Concentrated solar thermal power — is practical and scalable now, and certain to be much cheaper.  And land-based PV is poised to drop in cost sharply, and will ultimately have access to tremendous land-based storage through plug-in hybrid and electric cars.

Then we have the life-cycle emissions issue.  It takes a massive amount of rocket fuel to put stuff in orbit.

Solaren CEO Gary Spirnak glosses over this entire issue in his interview with Marshall on the web (here):

Q: Is the renewable energy generated from this project completely carbon-free?

A: Yes. Solaren’s SSP energy conversion process is completely carbon-free.

Q: How will this project impact the environment?

A: The construction and operations of Solaren’s SSP plant will have minimal impacts to the environment.  The construction of the SSP ground receive station will have no more environmental impact than the construction of a similarly sized terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant.  Space launch vehicles will place the SSP satellites into their proper orbit. These space launch vehicles primarily use natural fuels (H2, O2) and have an emissions profile similar to a fuel cell. When in operation, the Solaren SSP plant has a zero carbon, mercury or sulfur footprint.  In addition, the high efficiency conversion of RF energy to electricity at the SSP Ground Receive Station does not require water for thermal cooling or power generation, unlike other sources of baseload power (nuclear, coal, hydro).

Uhh, not quite.  The solar energy is carbon free (other then the manufacturing of the cells which is typically recovered in one or two years of operation).

But I’d hardly call H2 — hydrogen– a “natural fuel.”  Today, NASA gets its hydrogen from natural gas in a process that generates large amounts of carbon dioxide.  And then it uses a huge amount more energy to get the hydrogen into the Space Shuttle.   As I discuss in my book, The Hype about Hydrogen:

At atmospheric pressure, hydrogen becomes a liquid only at the ultra-frigid temperature of -253 °C (-423 °F or 20 K), just a few degrees above absolute zero. It can be stored only in a super-insulated tank, known as cryogenic storage.

NASA uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel for the space shuttle, along with liquid oxygen. Some 100 tons or nearly 400,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen are stored in the shuttle’s giant external tank.  To fuel each shuttle launch, 50 tanker trucks drive several hundred miles from New Orleans to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We have a great deal of experience shipping liquid hydrogen: Since 1965, NASA has trucked more than 100,000 tons of liquid hydrogen to Kennedy and Cape Canaveral….

The process of liquefying hydrogen requires expensive equipment and is very energy-intensive. Refrigeration processes have inherent efficiency limitations, and hydrogen liquefaction requires multiple stages of compression and cooling. Some 40% of the energy of the hydrogen is required to liquefy it for storage….

A major challenge facing liquefied hydrogen is evaporation. Hydrogen stored as a liquid can boil off and escape from the tank over time. NASA faces this in the extreme: The agency loses almost 100,000 pounds of hydrogen each time it fuels up the shuttle, requiring NASA to truck in far more hydrogen than the 227,000 pounds needed by the main tank.…

From a global warming perspective, even with large, centralized liquefaction units, the electricity consumed would be quite high. According to Raymond Drnevich of Praxair, a leading supplier of liquefied hydrogen in North America, the typical power consumption is 12.5 to 15 kWh per kg of hydrogen liquefied.  Since that electricity would come from the U.S. electric grid, liquefying 1 kg of hydrogen would by itself release some 17.5 to 21 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for the foreseeable future. Burning one gallon of gasoline, which has roughly the same energy content as 1 kg of hydrogen, releases about the same amount–20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So even allowing for the greater efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, if liquefaction is a major part of the hydrogen infrastructure, it would be exceedingly difficult for hydrogen-fueled vehicles to have a net greenhouse gas benefit until the electric grid is far greener than today (that is, has far lower carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt-hour).

Yes, you could make the hydrogen from renewable sources — and liquefy it with renewable sources.  But there is no prospect that can be done for anything less than an exorbitant cost, which would drive up the price of each launch enormously.

PG&E concludes

From PG&E’s perspective, as a supporter of new renewable energy technology, this project is a first-of-a-kind step worth taking. If Solaren succeeds, the world of clean energy will never be the same.

I don’t think space-based solar should be considered among the plausible climate solutions until and unless someone publishes

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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An architect's rendering of Babcock Ranch, the solar-powered city planned east of Fort Myers.Kitson and PartnersFlorida developer and former NFL lineman Syd Kitson sent out a coy press release Wednesday promising the biggest news in the history of press releases, to be revealed Thursday. And in truth … it’s sort of a big deal.

The housing collapse be damned, Kitson & Partners announces it will build a planned city near Fort Meyers with 19,500 homes, offices, retail shops, and light industry. Its electricity will come from the world’s largest solar voltaic power plant, a $300 million, 75-megawatt plant to be built on-site by Florida Power & Light. That’s nearly twice as large as the current largest plant in Germany, says Time magazine.

The planned city—Babcock Ranch—will include a smart grid to let residents monitor and adjust their energy consumptions. More than half of its 17,000 acres will be permanently protected as greenways and open space, according to the Miami Herald.

I’ve been hearing something went wrong with the economy lately, plus maybe something about the housing market. Does Kitson know about this?

"Some people think I got hit in the head a few too many times," he told Time. "But I still believe deeply in Florida. And the time has come for something completely different."

Reports the Herald: “Kitson said all of the plans are contingent on the real-estate economy recovering, but he believes the green aspects of the project will entice many who will bypass traditional developments now in foreclosure.”

Construction for the solar plant could begin later this year, depending on approvals. Groundbreaking for the city center could begin next year.

"Solar is just the first step," Kitson told reporters yesterday, according to Greenwire. "Babcock Ranch will be a true living laboratory of the new-energy economy ... where innovative companies can design, build and use the renewable and efficient technologies that customers across the country and around the globe will need."

Much more back at the ranch, er, the ranch’s glitzy website. And it’s worth comparing to Abu Dhabi’s self-contained Masdar City.

The green, green roofs proposed for Babcock Ranch.Kitson and PartnersThe Herald has more backstory:

The Sierra Club’s Florida chapter fought Kitson earlier plans, but was won over by the current incarnation. “We were thrilled,” Florida staff director Frank Jackalone told the Herald.  “It provides a model for the country -- a high benchmark for others to try to reach.''

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Washington state’s Initiative 937, the renewable energy bill voters approved in 2006, looks to be safe from meddling state legislators. From Josh Feit at Publicola:

Lawmakers have been considering loosening restrictions in the measure, which was meant to ramp up wind and solar energy production in the state. Feit suggests the original plan is safe for now.

Some background on the bill from Publicola:

A March 24 AP story recounts some of the legislative tussle. It also dips into the debate over old renewables (hydropower) versus new renewables, an interesting question in the dam-dependent Northwest.

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A year or so ago, I spoke at a solar conference in France -- a country that produces 78 percent of its electricity with nukes. A couple of folks told me that the government's interest in solar stemmed from the fact that during the previous summer's heat wave, river levels dropped to the point that they didn't have enough water to cool the reactors. The country actually had to shut off generation exactly at peak demand. Big problem. Thus, solar photovoltaics, which not only generate most during these peak events, but also ... use no water.

A Wall Street Journal blog flags the water/power problem, but concludes, in that special WSJ way, that this is bad news for efforts to fight climate change:

Note that PV uses no water. Concentrating solar thermal technologies do, but some have the potential for dry cooling, which adds about a penny per kWh, but greatly reduces water usage.

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Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) appears to like deserts so much that she wants them to stretch from Oklahoma to California and cover one third the planet.

The AP reported Friday, "Feinstein seeks [to] block solar power from desert land":

I am sympathetic to "conservationists," but mostly to those who are trying to conserve what matters most, a livable climate. The solar resource is the only one capable of sustaining the nation's and world's population, even if we all become far, far more efficient (see " The Solution").

The good news is that concentrated solar thermal power (CSP aka solar baseload aka "The technology that will save humanity") is such an efficient converter of the sun's energy that we could generate half the country's power with a 65 mile by 65 mile square grid in the southwest. The "bad" news is that the obvious place to put much of California's CSP is the Mojave Desert:

Deserts are certainly fragile, inhospitable eco-systems -- a key reason that nobody should want them spreading over one third the planet or the entire U.S. Southwest for 1,000 years (see "Intro to global warming impacts"). Certainly, Californian, Nobelist, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu gets this (see Chu: "Wake up," America, "we're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California").

So California can't be saved without significant development in the desert, as Governor Schwarzenegger and the Interior Department seem to understand, at least.

I have little doubt that the solar resource can be tapped in a way that can preserve the tortoise, but I have no doubt whatsoever that failing to take advantage of the massive solar resource in the California desert -- and in deserts around the country and around the planet -- will wipe out a large fraction of the species on this planet.

The article hints at a compromise:

If Feinstein's office believes that, then perhaps this should have been handled behind the scenes, taking some time to work with a friendly new administration -- rather than by dropping this bombshell letter all over the media.

And, of course, this letter gave global warming deniers and their enablers a chance to rejoice at the seeming hypocrisy of some environmentalists. The uber-conservative readers of the "Power Line News Forum" are all over this like white on rice GOP voters (see here). My favorite poster there has a signature line that sums up the entire civilization-destroying, Ponzi-scheme-boosting conservative ideology:

Seriously. But I digress.

Today, the country is not even serious about global warming, and I don't meet even 2 people in 100 who "get" global warming -- the holocaust that is coming on our current emissions path and the staggering amount of clean energy that must be deployed to avert that. This allows people the "luxury" of balancing seemingly competing interests.

Over the next decade or so, I do think the country and the world will get serious -- and global warming will rise to a truly first-tier issue for most. By 2030, "When the global Ponzi scheme collapses," though, the country and the world will be desperate -- and global warming mitigation (and "adaptation") will dwarf all other issues. Then things like Feinstein's letter will be a thing of the distant past, and humanity will rightfully start ignoring many if not most other concerns.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said something that caught my ear: San Francisco is going to adopt Berkeley's innovative financing program to fund not only rooftop solar (as Berkeley does) but other distributed generation and energy efficiency projects.

That is excellent stuff. Hopefully SF can pull it off successfully and influence other cities to follow suit.

UPDATE: Newsom says SF's program will expand Berkeley's "exponentially." Instead of a couple million, $20-$30 million will be available. A huge list of energy generation and efficiency projects, everything from geothermal to boiler replacement. Says the program will kick off April 5.

UPDATE2: Correction to the above: the program does not kick off April 5. Banks will have final proposals in to the city on April 1, and the city will have a better idea of the scope of the program by April 5. The program itself will start, presumably, shortly thereafter. Here's the press release.

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I'm staying with a friend in San Francisco who just recently (in the midst of doing a massive renovation of his 1870s row house) put up a solar PV system on his roof. Two systems, actually, one to power his unit and one to power the downstairs unit.

After all the city, state, and federal subsidies and tax breaks, the total for the two systems together came to under $2,000. They provide more than 100 percent of the electricity for both units. They've already paid themselves off, and now, for as long as he lives here, he and his downstairs renters have free (and guilt-free) electricity. PG&E won't yet allow him to sell the electricity surplus back into the grid, so actually he has a surplus of clean electricity lying around. He feels like he should leave the lights on!

As I stood on the roof checking out the system, I noticed that there were at least five or six other systems on surrounding rooftops. He said they'd all gone up in the last year.

How will it change people's lives when they begin taking it for granted that they produce and manage their own power? I gotta say, just sitting here blogging with clean electricity feels a little ... different.

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Los Angeles citizens voted on a citywide solar energy plan on March 3, but the very narrow results didn't become official until yesterday: It lost (by about 1 percent).

That doesn't mean the city's electric utility won't proceed with rapidly expanding its solar voltaic energy portfolio -- it still has the authority to do so. Nor does it mean citizens don't want solar investment. The lead opponents of "Measure B" said they want to see more solar panels in the city, just not through this plan that gave the utility's employees a monopoly on the installation work.

The defeat does mean a financial setback for reelected Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who spent $145,000 of his campaign cash to support the measure.

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After growing 19 percent in 2006 and 62 percent in 2007, world solar photovoltaic (PV) market installations exploded by 110 percent last year to a staggering 5.95 GW, according to Solarbuzz's Annual Report, Marketbuzz 2009:

And who is the leading producer of PV cells?

Yes, the United States created the solar cell industry and literally launched it into space 50 years ago. And, yes, solar PV is going to be one of the largest job-creating industries of the century, projected to grow "from a $20 billion industry in 2007 to $74 billion by 2017."

And, yes, today America has precisely zero of the top 10 PV plants (down from one last year), with our market share having plummeted in the past decade, as the figure below makes all too painfully clear:

But don't get all friggin' sentimental on me. Think of the few billion dollars U.S. taxpayers saved because:

The fundamental tenets of conservative ideology say that if countries like China and Taiwan and Spain make most of the PV cells, it must be because they have an inherent "comparative" advantage over us. You gotta start reading your Ricardo, people.

Any card-carrying conservative knows that if other countries manage to get millions of their workers' hands dirty actually making stuff, it's only because they are better at it. We're still the brainiacs who invent the technologies first and then wisely save a few pennies of the taxpayer dollars not promoting American technologies into billion-dollar American industries. We've still got all those Internet-related jobs, and it's not like the government had anything to do with that.

So please, all you progressives and enviros out there, stop your whining. The plan is unfolding as it should, indeed as it must. Do not argue with the invisible hand. People will think you're crazy.

Sure those thin films look cool. They seem like something that could generate a lot of jobs for a high-tech, high wage economy.

More seriously, it will be interesting to see whether significant incentives and real requirements for renewable energy at a national level can restore some semblance of U.S. leadership.

Although growth is sure to slow this year, it does seem like PV is make it a real race with the other solar energy, Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload.

Hat tip SET Energy.

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