Arizona moves toward requiring more solar energy from utilities

[jpak]

PHOENIX -- Arizona utility regulators are moving toward requiring electricity providers to draw significantly more of their power supplies from sources seen as environmentally friendly.

"Arizona's strength is the sun. This rule is going to help us play to our strength," Commissioner Kris Mayes said Thursday during a meeting on rule changes expected to be formally proposed next month.

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Under the proposal, the new minimum would be 5 percent by 2015 and 15 percent by 2023, with at least 20 percent of the required power coming from solar.

<snip>

Under the plan, the current 35-cent surcharge for residential customers would rise to $2. Surcharges for nonresidential customers would be higher; the largest power users would see their surcharge increase from $39 to $220.

Members of the all-Republican commission acknowledged the change will cost consumers but say the mandate is in the public's long-term interest.

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[hatrack]

1. Wow! Wotta concept!

Let's increase use of solar energy in the middle of the frickin' SONORAN DESERT where the sun shines 320 days out of the year.

Unbelievable. I went to Greece four years ago, and there was scarcely a single roof without a solar collector. This came after visiting Phoenix five years ago, when I didn't see a single solar panel after four days of endless driving through beige stucco Hell Webb subdivisions.

Way to put on those thinking caps, Arizona utility regulators! :eyes:

[phantom power]

2. We have them, but we confine them to R+D ghettos.

Surrounded by barbed wire. No, really.

You do see solar hot water panels here and there. I can't recall ever seeing a PV array on a residential roof, and I've lived here 7 years.

[Massacure]

3. Link?

[jpak]

4. Ooops

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/06/03/business/news/19_27_096_2_05.txt

[NNadir]

5. What a victory! Tremendous! 15% renewable 2023! In Arizona!

Where it doesn't rain that much! Where there are few foggy days! Few clouds! And where there is very little solar power now, even after 3 decades of Greenpeace statements about what they are going to do.

Now let's do some (gasp) math. 80% of the electricity comes from fossil fuels (mostly coal) and nuclear. 80% - 15% = ? Am I wrong or is this number 65%? I'd love to hear from our Greenpeace mathematicians if they've starting understanding addition and subtraction. Again, 80 minus 15 is?

Hey let's do some (gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp) multiplication:

We have: "Under the proposal, the new minimum would be 5 percent by 2015 and 15 percent by 2023, with at least 20 percent of the required power coming from solar." 0.15*0.20 = ?

And the answer is 0.03 or 3%. So what does this mean? More fucking dams I guess.

But where is Greenpeace going to come up with that 65%? Hey Phantom Power, are there a lot of poor Hispanics in Arizona, like say 65%? Maybe we can shut their lights off! They shouldn't ever be home watching TV anyway. They should get extra work, you know, busing tables at receptions for Ralph Nader, shit like that. You know, if they're working three jobs trying to feed their kids, and they have no time to go to Greenpeace meetings, they should go fuck themselves.

Or maybe we should look at the pants down Greenpeace real alternative: Coal.

The effects of global climate change aren't going to start in 2023, by the way, when Greenpeace will have made 30 years of empty promises into 50 years of empty promises. (Thank god they can actually make something...) The effects of global climate change are happening now.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[hankthecrank]

7. Atomic Butt plugs

Atomic power
From the same industry where it was going to produce energy to cheap to measure. They are now going to have little devices that we can install. So we can have energy where we want it. How about that. They had every hand out that you get their little greedy hands on. It will be to cheap to even meter. Why isn't there one every block then. Atomic power just advertising means nothing. Some advertising is just like cancer just always there.

Its one thing to be advocate and another to be advertising. Or just wanting a flame war. I take Green Peace over advertiser any day. Just like swap gas just has to come out.

[NNadir]

9. Yes I know that solar energy is too cheap to meter.

That's why they need the Republicans to pass bills to mandate its use. Where it's sunny. When the sun is almost always shining. Where there are few fogs. Where there are huge swathes of land seldom covered by snow.

I'll bet this bill will shut the Palo Verde nuclear station, which generated 30.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity last year. This electricity was so expensive, that all Arizonans turned off all their lights, replaced all of their power requirements with PV solar cells which generated...how many billions of kilowatt hours of electricity last year?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/states/statesaz.html

"As part of its Solar Partners program, APS plans to have 3 Megawatts of solar capacity installed by the end of 2003. This station is the latest in a long line of APS and Scottsdale solar partnerships. Other APS installations in Scottsdale include a 41 kW system (currently being expanded to 80 kW) on top of the parking structure at the City of Scottsdale's service yard..."

http://www.solarbuzz.com/Qbuzz-samplecopy5.htm

Clearly this 3 megawatts, which represents 3/3733ths (or 0.08%) of the nuclear capacity puts the future of nuclear energy at severe risk in Arizona. All we have to do is kill the 99.92% of the nuclear customers and the problem has met a Greenpeace solar solution.

One of the weakest of the already very weak anti-environmental anti-nuclear arguments comes from the hypocrites who cite the 1950's syndic about the "too cheap to meter" argument as somehow making nuclear power unacceptable. Exactly where is there a form of energy other than nuclear energy that is too cheap to meter? Oh, I get it, negative stupidity can only be applied to nuclear power, waste, cost, etc. If we say "solar" instead of "nuclear" issues of waste and cost do not apply, because solar power is magic and the ordinary laws of physics and economics do not apply.

Fucking stupid Greenpeace twits. Talk about over promising and under delivering....

[hankthecrank]

10. Greenpeace still better

Atomic advertiser twits think they know better then any one else.

Tallk about promising and not delivering.

[thegreatwildebeest]

11. What have you done?

Fucking stupid Greenpeace twits. Talk about over promising and under delivering....

You know, I'm sick of you berating and insulting everyone who doesn't share your love of nuclear energy, and particuarly towards people and groups that have experience on the ground working on environmental issues. How much have you done as far as environmental organizing? Have you been arrested tree sitting, or for protesting? You always talk about the coal sitaution in the Appalachia, but I don't see you on the front line getting arrested like 16 others who did when they protested Massey energy. What, exactly, have you done to appoint yourself the supreme voice on environmental issues?

[Township75]

14. Not to get off subject...

but these lines:

"How much have you done as far as environmental organizing? Have you been arrested tree sitting, or for protesting? You always talk about the coal sitaution in the Appalachia, but I don't see you on the front line getting arrested like 16 others who did when they protested Massey energy. "

make me ask, what did they do? I get more disillusioned with the enviro movment each year, because it seems to become more about jobless college kids protesting for something to do, rather than about making a difference.

Why don't these people devote their time to make solar cells more efficient, or make wind power more efficient? Why not work on developing a way to store and transfer energy more efficiently, or developing cost effective and reliable materials from renewable resources?

The "berating and insulting" remarks of the poster sure take away from his message, but Greenpeace, IMHO, is a waste of anyone's time or money. We aren't going to fix environmental issues by protesting our way to a solution. At the very best, they bring attention to an issue, for about 20 seconds on a news clip, and then it is over. There are about 1000 other enviro organizations that can do that too.

If anyone cares about environmental issues, they are working in a lab somewhere to develop solutions to these problems...not out holding a sign or humping a tree. Unfortunately, this movement has become content with being irksome to industry rather than being productive for the environment.

I have read a few threads that seem to make jokes about the repub board taking action to move towards solar energy....why are people upset by this? Good for them! Apperently, renewable energy isn't so important when repubs are behind it...go figure.

The environmental movement has done more damage to itself than GWB could ever hope to do. Mabye if the mindset was shifted from finding something wrong all the time and protesting it, to developing solutions ( and maybe getting a degree that has some value, unlike environmental science, or poli sci, ect...) the movement well amount to something other than irrelevant drivel.

[thegreatwildebeest]

15. I suggest...

make me ask, what did they do? I get more disillusioned with the enviro movment each year, because it seems to become more about jobless college kids protesting for something to do, rather than about making a difference.

Actually, the Mountain Justice Summer project has helped delay and raise costs of developing certain coal fields, leading directly to some Northern fields being delayed for months or years. The Wild Creek timber sale in 1995 was delayed and eventually ended due to those supposed "jobless college students". A number of other timber sales have been delayed and or postponed due to a combination of legal work and direct action protest. You can say what you want denigrating those who are supposedly "protesting for something to do", but they've gotten results.

Moreover, the example I point out of Massey Energy was an example of local people (the people whose children go to school right below a sludge dam) standing up for their right ot be heard. This pokes a rather large whole in your "jobless college students" theory. Facts tend to be inconvenient like that.

Why don't these people devote their time to make solar cells more efficient, or make wind power more efficient? Why not work on developing a way to store and transfer energy more efficiently, or developing cost effective and reliable materials from renewable resources?

Not everyone is a scientist or a researcher. What are people who are not scientists supposed to do? Just sit on the sidelines? Also a number of ecologists and other people with science backgrounds have been involved with eco-protests over the years. This of course blows up your idea of such people being just unemployed college students.


If anyone cares about environmental issues, they are working in a lab somewhere to develop solutions to these problems...not out holding a sign or humping a tree. Unfortunately, this movement has become content with being irksome to industry rather than being productive for the environment.

While protest tactics can be ineffetive sometimes, if not done in conjunction with a positive alternative and legal/lobbying work, to suggest that only those who are working in labs "care" about the environment is ridiculous and absurd. Inventing a new solar cell is not going to stop the destruction of old growth forests. The raping of the earth will continue as long as it is significantly cheaper to do so. YOU might be willing to put your faith (and faith is exactly what it is) in men in lab coats (not unsimilar to priests) to invent some miracle technology. I don't (and considering most R&D in the energy sector goes towards inventing new ways to exploit fossil fuels and process them, I don't have much faith in a miracle solution ever coming about). Some of us would not like to see mountaintop removal continue, and don't feel like waiting years when the mountain ranges are all destroyed, to wait for a miracle to be handed down from on high.


I have read a few threads that seem to make jokes about the repub board taking action to move towards solar energy....why are people upset by this? Good for them! Apperently, renewable energy isn't so important when repubs are behind it...go figure.

Most Republican efforts at renewable energy are token efforts or plans that sound good in soundbites, but are not long term, or large scope plans. Criticism and better alternatives should be consistently offered to the attempts of Republicans to co-opt renewable energy to have an apperance of being eco-friendly while they take bribes from the energy corporations.

The environmental movement has done more damage to itself than GWB could ever hope to do. Mabye if the mindset was shifted from finding something wrong all the time and protesting it, to developing solutions ( and maybe getting a degree that has some value, unlike environmental science, or poli sci, ect...) the movement well amount to something other than irrelevant drivel.

I have my own problems with the environmental movement, but to suggest it is irrelevent drivel is misinformed at best, and just idiotic at worst. Your saying as much shows a lack of knowledge in the many issues and victories that have come out of the environmental movement. Have there been setbacks? Yes. Does this mean we should all lay down and give up? No.

Next time you decide to insult, in mildly less harsh terms, a whole group of people you evidently know little about, I suggest you do your research than just rely off the general perceptions of the environmental movement.

[phantom power]

13. I don't really know the "poor hispanic" ratio, except that it's plenty.

And there are lots of poor non-hispanic people, too.

Hey, I'm pretty wealthy, relatively speaking, and I can't afford to install PV for my house, either. Well, I could, but then I would have to forgo putting a new roof on my house. So, I'd have solar electricty, but my roof might start leaking. And I need my roof to be sturdy, in preparation for the coming onslaught of climate-chaos.

Maybe in a year or two.

If Jpak's figures are correct, New Jersey has much better subsidies for solar power than Arizona. How fucked up is that?

[rfkrfk]

12. a levy on the poor, but not business,, why am I not surprised? n/t