PowerSwitch

This unpredictability in the playing field is one of the major difficulties investors face when considering renewables. While in the US dirty fuels yearly are granted relatively steady and constant $550 billion in various subsidies and tax breaks, renewables are instead only occasionally given one-off grants.

The PV solar installation rebate program in California appeared to be a refreshingly stable subsidy that was allowing consumers, municipalities and corporations to install distributed rooftop solar in respectable quantities and a reasonable expectation of ROI. My favored solution is solar thermal or CSP (for concentrated solar power), using molten salt for energy storage.

Here's a little discussion of that potential:

http://2greenenergy.com/solar-thermal-leader/2534/

I'm not sure how much CSP that $550 billion would create, but it would pus us a whole lot closer to that goal of energy independence that every one of our presidents has touted as a goal since the days of Nixon and Carter.

Worldwide - as a species - we need to get wise and put our money where it matters. As observed by Matt Simmons, one of the world's leading experts on the yawning gap we'll shortly see between global oil demand and global oil production, "Innovation is the by-product of panic." Yet a much better time for that innovation would be before the panic removes so many options from the table by pricing beyond reach the energy needed to pursue them.

Craig Shields, Editor, http://www.2GreenEnergy.com, and author, Renewable Energy - Facts and Fantasies (2010)

Im abit worried that Matt Simmons seems to have gone insane recently regarding his comments on the BP spill