TreehuggerTV: Grid Alternatives

TreeHuggerTV climbs to the roof to see how Grid Alternatives is helping to bring solar energy to low income communities. Powerful solar arrays bring huge financial savings to new home owners in need, as a single community shows the promise of a cleaner future.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• solar
• energy
• power
• green
• Treehugger
• renewable
• sustainable
• sun
• habitat
• humanity

[feelytouchy67]

It may appear to be "affordable" and "efficient" until you calculate the 1) subsidies used to keep it solvent (which come from us, the taxpayers) and which have been doled out for decades, 2) you factor in the damage to our health and that of the natural world's from the subtle pollutants (like mercury), and the more physical ones, such as coal-slurry disasters such as the one that just happened in Tennessee, which has destroyed homes and polluted the groundwater.

[Stratslayer]

No. Sorry kid.

[Stratslayer]

They "love" people enough to give them AFFORDABLE and EFFICIENT energy. Maybe they truly DO love people more than enviro whackos?

[figuringoutlife]

It would be great to do this...but everyone doesn't have the money up frount to pay for 30 years of electricity....the cost of the panels...

[vhbeazel]

I agree that solar thermal/electric is the way to go; how about solar refrigeration? Check our our new discussion called Oil2Wind and Solar Habitats on changeDOTorg...

[ddallass]

A 15 year return on capital makes it unattractive compared with grid electricity. Either the technology costs need to diminish, or conventional electricity production needs to rise substantially to make solar common. It is the basic economics of the project that continue to stand in the way.

[Alligator81]

I was watching a Modern Marvels episode recently on renewable energy and they said that an average size home with a solar cell-laced roof could provide the bulk of the electricity for the home. (If not several times the amount; can't recall which one.) In Israel it's actually a law or at least part of the building code for homes to use solar water heaters.

[OrganicDrew]

Solar is the most inefficent forms of renewable energy, however It does have some practical applications, the best way we can use the sun is for heating applications which make up more than 3/4ths our entire energy bill. Look into solar vacuum tubes. And passive solar ,heating. There is no reason we can't take advantage all that light coming down to heat the house directly regulated by shades :)

[feelytouchy67]

I like the video.But we enviro folks are being attacked as "disliking people" & being "anti-progress." Mining companies still pass on the costs of cleanup to the public, just like utilities & oil companies--but, unlike us, they "love people."

[rossmurray]

Make it the law.. NOW!