The Energy to Make A Better World

By Justin Bradley, NLC-SF Board Member and 2012 Institute Fellow

A few months ago, I learned I work in an imaginary world.  In the eyes of some of the folks vying for the chance to manage our country and make important decisions about the direction of our nation’s energy policy the booming solar industry is the stuff of the imagination.

In actuality, we’re working hard with profitable business models that give normal Americans the ability to choose where they get their energy.  We’re creating the groundbreaking, innovative ideas that our political system should be celebrating and working hard to promote.

Let me try to help clear the air on a few common misconceptions:

1. Yes, we’re serious.  Yes, Solar works (even in cloudy places).  Considering all of brilliant American innovations over the past 100+ years, why is it so hard to believe we might be able to come up with a better way to power our lives than burning stuff?
    
   
2. No, Solyndra has nothing to do with the success of the rest of the solar industry.  To borrow the words of the amazing Danny Kennedy, equating the failure of Solyndra to the end of solar as an energy option is the equivalent of calling the failure of the Netscape web browser the end of the internet.
    
3. Solar makes money.  Plenty of it.  Solar is not the birkenstock-wearing hippy fad some would have you think it is.  In addition to money, we create jobs.  Lots of them.  As is true with the resources themselves, jobs created by the fossil fuel industry are finite and fleeting.
    
4. We’re not dependent on the government, energy production is.  We’re competing in an unfair market where all of the major players and massively profitable companies are heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars.  And we’re still competing!!
    

This is not a democratic/republican debate, it’s a debate about whether we’re more serious about preserving the basic tenants of a healthy free-market system or the tax-payer funded hand-outs to the most profitable corporations in the history of the planet.  If you care about fostering an environment that promotes innovation and strong businesses that solve actual problems, solar should be at the top of your list of solutions.  Those who push against innovation, especially innovation as critical as democratizing and cleaning up energy, are pushing against the very things that make this country unique and powerful; our ability to solve big problems creatively.

So think about it.  Read Danny Kennedy’s amazing new book, Rooftop Revolution.  Use this technology as a means to creatively solve other problems (School District Budget Cuts, Bankrupt Cities, Defense Spending Efficiency).  Maybe even go solar yourself or invest in community solar!

Let’s revisit this “imaginary” economy idea.  We have an abundant resource and an efficient way to harness it.  We have an innovative technology invented right here in the United States.  We have an anxiously awaiting workforce.  The only thing imaginary in this case, as in many, is the necessary proactive political leadership.  Those fighting and down-playing the incredible innovations happening in the American solar industry right now will undoubtedly fall on the wrong side of history.