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REPUBLICANS
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REPUBLICANS
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July 05, 2007 06:51 PM UTC
6 Comments
On the average, what would the consumer save in energy bills annually by installing a solar hot water heating system? And, perhaps this is a misunderstanding on my part, but would that savings off-set the cost of installing a solar hot water heating system in a home?
Not a pitch for anyone, but I believe “McStain Neighborhoods” is building solar powered homes in Colorado.
When I was a kid, solar was all the rage. Even then, you could buy solar-powered fan kits from Radio Shack and solar-powered calculators. I thought it was the wave of the future. People were installing these systems on their roofs all throughout New England and Colorado (the only two areas I had been to at that time).
Now, that future seems like it won’t get here until I’m gone. What gives?
McStain Neighborhoods, and other builders, are including solar domestic hot water heaters on their homes. And over their life times these systems definitely re-coup their costs…annually they save costumers around a few hundred bucks. What we really need is a stronger market, with efficient rebates to make the initial up-front costs not such a hurdle. A strong market would also attract more builders to construct these systems in the initial building processes.
I’m curious, what can be done at the federal level to support things like this. Are subsidies (or rebates) the only real option?
One, nothing can be done at the Federal level until we get someone in the President’s seat who isn’t opposed to the word “conservation” and all of its synonyms.
Two, there’s not much beyond rebates and subsidies that governments can do except to promote efficiency solutions like this one on the media. Solar thermal technology isn’t exactly high-tech compared to recent photo-voltaic advances; it’s unglamorous and under-emphasized, IMHO, but it’s well-understood technology that’s easy (relatively speaking) to install and has low maintenance requirements.
That is basically what I though…I just wondered if there were any other creative ideas floating around that Congress could implement. But selling the idea and putting money towards it seem to be all there is right now.