Of a Universal Solar Belt Solution - Sustainable Change That Energizes (Almost) Everyone…

By Laura Mauney

I currently live in Los Angeles, one of the most populated urban communities in the world, and a potential source of massive rooftop solar real estate.

Yet, rarely do I see solar installed on the roof of any given home, business, school or other public facility.

Purely, simply, obviously, and easier to implement than we think, sun-belt households, whom I’ll call solar-belt households, should be using photovoltaics to generate and sell power to local utilities across the nation.

Local utilities, for their part, should be proactively soliciting residents in their communities for solar real estate for this very purpose; no, not "requiring by law" solar panels on every home, but contracting with local households to use rooftops to generate solar power - and - whether by direct or subcontracted, services, providing solar equipment, installation, wiring and maintenance at no charge, or perhaps in exchange for a nominal monthly fee to the owner, say $20 per month per household.

Beyond the profound patriotic aspect of a solar-belt solution, this particular answer to our nation's energy problems would engender benefits far beyond nearly-free sun-power for said households:

1. The complicated process of identifying and approving precious wilderness land for solar farms would be eliminated.
2. Our energy grid would be less dependent on centralized installation sites for power generation. Rather, generation would be spread far and wide across the very regions being served. If one segment of this massive solar community has a cloudy day, or suffers a disaster of some sort, other segments could easily pick up the slack (as long as the regional grids remain connected).
3. Sustained power loss at individual homes during disasters in the solar-belt would be virtually eliminated because each homeowner would be dependent on his/her own power generator.
4. Rollout of electric cars could be sped up, and become more realistic from an energy-usage perspective, since households would be in a position to generate their own electric power for their own electric vehicles.
5. Most significantly, even though a solar-belt solution might not provide enough energy to serve all energy needs 24/7/365, especially during rainy periods and harsh northern winters, a solar-belt solution would remove a significant portion of the energy burden from the volatile, polluting power resources: oil, coal, nuclear, gas, not only slowing down our gluttonous over-use of such resources, but giving the related industries and dependents the breathing room they need to facilitate a smooth transition to other, more sustainable energy production.

In my view, solar rollout should be treated the same as plumbing and electricity rollout, road paving, mass transit and phone line rollout were treated in the 20th century, as something close to being a natural right for all the people.

The solution is fairly simple:

• Continue to provide incentives for new solar businesses, and to educate new installers and engineers.
• Aggressively educate and inform the public about the tax incentives, long term benefits and ease of access to solar installation, similar to the way the public was educated about seat belts back in the day.
• Continue to tear down in communities nationwide public policies and municipal codes that have inhibited solar rollout in the past.

The USA can definitely afford a solar-belt solution, and it can be easily pulled off, if the same level of energy and ingenuity is applied as the amount elected officials put into election year campaigning, or strategizing a war, or developing any given piece of legislation.

If event producers can pull off a Superbowl and scientists can send us to the moon, then surely there is enough talent and organizational sensibility on hand to implement a solar-belt solution.

The beauty of the end-game would be (beyond a lot of new jobs and manufacturing opportunities in the short term): once done, a solar-belt solution will be done, ideally for as long as the sun shines in the sky.

Originally published March 21, 2011.

Laura's Theory of Forcing the Eco-Game, a Bit

LaurasTheory offers a few new tips to help reduce our over-use of petro-plastics at a fairly low cost:

1) My most recent favorite discovery: if a food storage scenario REQUIRES a bag instead of a bowl, pan or box, wrap the food in an unused (thus obviously still clean), bio-degradeable doggie bag. When you use the food, you can then repurpose the bag to the needs of doggie cleanup :). Biodegradeable doggie bags are commonly available at most pet stores, and online at reasonable cost.

2) Most moms already know that much money can be saved by packing children's lunches in re-usable food storage containers. This practice also is more eco-friendly (and cheaper) for food storage in general. Instead of buying box after box, year after year, of plastic bags for food storage, invest in a set of re-usable containers for primary use.

Though plastic is better for child-use for safety reasons, glass is the most preferable for home-use, since it doesn't absorb mold and only requires petro-plastics for the lids (and one day that will change, too).

3) Instead of using those small, plastic trash-basket liners, or re-using plastic grocery bags for the same, line the bottom of non-kitchen trash-baskets with a paper towel, made of post-consumer content (recycled paper, in other words), or simply with a newspaper or magazine page, if you still take newspapers and magazines.

Some of the above may seem expensive upfront when compared to disposable petro-plastic products you can buy everywhere, but they are a bargain when you consider long term re-usability, and the impact of over-use of disposable plastic products on all our gasoline prices.

Though electric cars are entering the marketplace, AT LAST, many years are going to pass before the transition off gasoline is complete.

The snail's pace of manufacturing and distribution of plant based (rather than petroleum based) household products into the general marketplace is very frustrating, and the ridiculous prices attached to some of the products, especially trash bags, (which should be 100% biodegrable by now) is, frankly, angering.

LaurasTheory's view is that the game can be forced by we the people, so to speak, by simply engaging in methodologies that limit our use of plastics, thus creating an impact on the market.

This strategy will, at the very least, help boost the renewable resources sector of the economy, while hopefully, at the same time, take us one step further towards ending the destructive practices that the past three decades of extremely anti-environment (thus anti-life) economic practices have wrought.

We may as well do what we can to discourage the petro industry from mis-using the little bit of petroleum left in the world while we wait for bio-plastics and sustainable vehicles to reach mass-market levels of production.

- by Laura M Mauney