Monday, March 21, 2016

Fair Warning

One can only wonder if our Governor or Legislative leaders are paying attention to coming trends.  For example, the fact that major American investment banks and money men are refusing to finance any new coal fired power plants in America.  The New York  Times had a story on this today.  I would advise our hapless executive leaders in Santa Fe including the Public Regulation Commission to start thinking about the ramifications for New Mexico.  And yet the subsidies continue for this dying fossil fuel industry while solar energy tax credits are non existent in arguably the sunniest state in the nation.


Perhaps our leaders might take a hint from this new graphic from the Solar Energy Industry Association.  Does this ring some alarms on putting investment towards renewables rather than fossil fuels?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's interesting about the banks not funding coal plants. The Times attributes it to banks' seeing a bleak future for coal, which it says is being squeezed mainly by natural gas and tighter (i.e. clean air) regulations.

Ironically, regulatory costs, and the related thing of state governments allowing electric utilities to change (worsen) electricity buy back schemes for solar power -- as they did in New Mexico not long ago -- are the main impediments to the growth of solar, it says in an interesting report by the same outfit that made that chart, the Solar Energy Industry Association, that talks in great detail about costs associated with solar.

http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-market-insight-2015-q4

I went to that site looking for something that forecasts what will happen to the cost of solar as it becomes more widely used, i.e. more mass produced, but didn't see anything. That might not be want their members want to hear, but I'd think it would be beneficial in the long run if it deceased the general public's fears about solar. What we're all waiting for is to be able to pick up some solar collectors at Wal Mart. (My Home Depot up here at Coors and I-40 has them, by the way.) I'm sure those guys can figure it out. Reading that report, it reads like something you don't see in newspapers. A much higher level intellectually. Those are some smart people.

March 21, 2016

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