SOLAR TODAY - July/August 2008

PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE
Leadership:
The Time Is Right Now

By Brad Collins

The world faces a number of interrelated crises. Our climate is unstable, principally because we’re still polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Energy prices soar as petroleum supply tightens. The rising costs of fertilizer, and fuel for tractors and transport, drive up food prices. A global recession may be looming. These are challenges we all face — but let us also be clear that there’s one solution for them all.

The time for solar energy is right now.
The time for energy efficiency is right now.
The time for climate-sensitive green build-
ings is right now.
The time for green-collar jobs is right now.
The time for us to lead is right now!

As we do at each annual conference, in May during SOLAR 2008 in San Diego we were pleased to recognize the leadership role of a number of individuals. We recognized folks who have provided outstanding leadership in the past, and students who may do so in the future. We listened to stirring speech-es by today’s leaders. (See page 50.)

We often overlook the leadership role of governments and institutions. The San Diego conference offered us a chance to acknowledge California’s part in leading progress in the United States. California has the most aggressive renewable portfolio standard in the country — 20 percent by 2010. It has launched the California Solar Initiative, which will add 3,000 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity to new homes over the next 10 years. In October, California passed the Solar Water-Heating and Efficiency Act — a 10-year effort that is the nation’s largest program to subsidize residential and commercial solar water-heating systems. California’s Title 24 building code requires buildings to use substantially less energy than the U.S. average. California has moved to reduce carbon in buildings and transportation.

At ASES, we’ve had a duty to lead for 54 years. Here are some leadership jobs we’ve taken on in the first eight years of the 21st century:

In 2002, under the strong urging of ASES board member Gilbert Cohen, we led the effort to roll back zeroing-out of concentrating solar power in the Department of Ener-

gy (DoE) budget. ASES

met privately with Assistant Secretary David Garman both at the ASES conference and with his science staff in Washington. We petitioned them to look at the analysis and to support contin- ^Brad ^Collinsued research on CSP. In 2003 we chal-

lenged a “hydrogen roadmap” that proposed production of hydrogen from coal plants and nuclear reactors only. Under the effective guidance of Chair Mike Nicklas, ASES provided nine renewable energy methodologies to produce hydrogen. We included electrolysis driven by photovoltaics, wind and other clean electric sources, plus hydrogen-pro-ducing algae and biomass-fired pyrolysis. Two years later DoE sponsored a solar hydrogen meeting in Maryland — which I thoroughly enjoyed.

At SOLAR 2006 in Denver, we focused on the intersection of climate science and technologies for energy efficiency and renewable energy. The result was our landmark, award-winning study: Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.: Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. This report has been accessed nearly half a million times on the ASES website over the past year (see ases.org/climatechange).

Last year, at the closing luncheon of SOLAR 2007 in Cleveland, we introduced the green collar jobs study funded by ASES. Called Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century, this study provides the best data on the size and breadth of the RE/EE industry in the United States. We learned that in 2006 these industries represented 8. 5 million jobs and nearly $970 billion in annual revenue in the United States — greater than the combined sales of Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil and General Motors that year.

This study has been accessed as a free download on the ASES website more than 300,000 times since it was posted this past November (see ases.org), and it has been dis-

Progress depends on our ability to muster the political will to make the requisite investments and create the requisite jobs.

tributed throughout Congress. It has been highlighted numerous times in the national media — including in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Fortune Magazine — and it was mentioned twice in a Time Magazine cover story in April.

At SOLAR 2008, we focused on preparing a menu of options for policy makers to choose from to accomplish the great challenges before us. Armed with a report from James Hansen’s climate team at NASA, warning that we have just seven years to halt the rise of greenhouse gases and just another decade to begin reducing them, we are developing clear policy recommendations for the 111th Congress.

At the conference, speaker after speaker outlined the realistic contribution expected from existing renewable energy technologies toward mitigating atmospheric carbon. It’s now clear that, with existing photovoltaic, thermal solar, wind and ocean resources, the world can, in fact, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over a realistic time period, following the road map described in Tackling Climate Change.

Progress depends on our ability to muster the political will to make the requisite investments and create the requisite jobs.

Happily, we don’t need to know ahead of time every curve in the road ahead. All we really need to know is that the destination exists, and is within reach. E.L. Doctorow wrote “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see farther than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”