12 Cities Selected to Become New "Solar America Cities"
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04. 2.08
Image courtesy of Jimmy_Joe via flickr
Give credit where credit is due: the Bush administration DOE is moving forward with a plan to make available up to $2.4m to 12 so-called "Solar America Cities" (up to $200,000 for each) - cities that will receive funding and technical assistance to build a robust solar infrastructure. The 12 lucky winners include the California cities of San Jose, Santa Rosa and Sacramento; the Texas cities of Houston and San Antonio; the Minnesota cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul; Knoxville, Tennessee; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Denver, Colorado; Orlando, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington.
The projects that will be supported range from large-scale solar thermal plants to more individual applications, such as solar water heating and photovoltaic panels; in addition to the $2.4m, DOE will provide the equivalent of $3m in technical support to the 12 cities, sending in experts to help them integrate the technologies with their local zoning and energy planning regulations. This latest round of funding is the second in the program's history, with past recipients including some of the usual green suspects: Berkeley, San Francisco and Portland.
Yes, $200,000 probably seems like a penny in the bucket when you're talking about such large-scale projects (because it is), but it's still encouraging to see this administration slowly move towards supporting renewable energy. With (a lot of) luck, we'll see more such support over the coming months; one easy way for the administration to shift a lot more funding into this area would be to eliminate all those wasteful fossil fuel subsidies... right, who are we kidding?
Via ::Environmental News Service: 12 New Solar America Cities Earn $200,000 Grants (news website)
See also: ::Turning Big Box Stores into Solar Power Plants in California, ::42.8% Efficiency: A New Record for Solar Cells
... like a 2 cent tip...
does anyone know the current totals for federal tax breaks and other subsidies for the coal and oil industries?
With the Bush Administration this is probably as good as it gets. I would be happy that we got this even if they can do better. Hopefully this is just the first step.
Eric: Indeed. Remember, they just announced a plan, the funds are yet to be appropriated. With the economy tanking, this may just fade into the ether...
I applaud the thought, but with this administration believe it when the check clears.
$2.5 million plus the consulting $3million is just for the headline that they are supposedly doing something. Oil industry gets $18 Billion a year and counter productive ethonal sector something like $6 to $7 Billion (thanks for doubling of corn prices and the waste of significant amounts of water). Hopefully we will get our priorities better in line before it is too late (if we haven't already passed that point).
Glaringly absent are New Mexico and Arizona. Meanwhile, Seattle is one of the 12 cities.
This sounds like a setup to undermine the green movement by predisposing the project to falure and arming fossil-fuel advocates with arguments that green gov't subsidies end up being spent inefficiently.
Observe that this is less than 1% of what we spend per month in Iraq.
(I know this is off-topic, but the war in Iraq really was for oil. The war was planned from the first days of the administration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWkGhV3PsLo )
This is just another case of millions of Americans dollars being pissed away by the federal government. I don't see Wyoming, Arizona, Mississippi, etc. on this list but they were all forced to pay taxes for it. If they want to encourage these companies then give them tax breaks not a check and quit taking money out of my wallet.
I'm just happy Philly is on the list.
weird though, we were already getting a good amount of power from the wind farms in the poconos.
This is such B.S. cause if I'm not mistaken 200,000 dollars per city will power what? maybe 3 homes haha and they call them solar American cities. I've seen single homes, mind you they were large homes but still single properties with 200k dollar solar arrays. I think saying this is a small step is overstating it maybe 2.4 million per city would be "slowly moving towards supporting renewable energy", maybe.
I noticed Alabama wasn't one of the ones chosen. Oh yea, probably because our folks were trying to woo another foreign car company to build a factory in our fair state. But we make Mercedes and Hyundai SUV's for those still interested!
Check out the tax incentives from the state for renewable energy. Notta / Zilch / Nyet....
I look with envy at the states/localities that offer incentives that dramatically reduce the cost of renewable energy. Since we have no incentives, I'm still saving money to start building my own system someday.
Seattle?? Really?? I mean, I love Seattle, but I live in Phoenix, and I can tell you real quick which one should be using solar power and which should be finding other sources.
^ From what I understand, PV panels work well even under cloudy conditions. There aren't any climates it shouldn't work in. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Glad my city (San Jose) was chosen.
Darn, my finest City (San Diego) was not in the list, again even though we have lots of sunshine all year round. We should be in instead of Seattle that rains all the time. Oil companies should give up thier tax breaks and give at least half of them to renewables like solar. Just how our govt are shakles! So Sad!!!