Asleep in Seattle
Just wonderful -- you can
get a nice government subsidy for installing solar panels in Seattle.
While Seattle has some of the
lowest sunlight numbers in the USA.
From
Sound Politics:
Seattle ... A Solar America City!
KUOW reports on a government-funded non-profit which pays Seattle residents to install solar electric panels.
(Hint: Seattle has one of the lowest levels of sunshine of any major U.S. city)
The reporter spoke with Fiona Jackson, who spent $20,000 to install solar panels on her home (generating 1400 kwh of solar electricity this year). The marginal cost of electricity from Seattle City Light is $0.08/kwh, so assuming that last year had average sunshine and that the discount rate equals the electricity inflation rate, it would take Jackson about 178 years to recover her investment in solar equipment. Jackson admitted that "it wasn't a financial decison". She teaches business at Bellevue Community College, so I trust that she knows exactly how unfavorable the cost/benefit relationship really is.
Of course it's not merely a "financial decision". Those $20,000 represent consumption of environmental resources, and certainly a foregone opportunity to invest in other measures that could have much bigger environmental benefits. So it strikes me that, like many other schemes pitched by environmental fanatics, deploying solar power in Seattle is less about actually helping the environment as it is a kind of religious sacrifice ritual. I have no problem with anybody spending their own money on this sort of religious practice. But government subsidies for this? That seems to be a violation of the Establishment Clause.
Typical enviro feel-good stupidity. Do a disservice to the real environment while making your constituents 'feel good'.
Don't challenge them to any critical thinking, that might hurt their poor widdle brains though...
Posted by DaveH at October 3, 2008 3:44 PM