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Scientific American's Solar Grand Plan
Maria Energia writes "Scientific American Magazine proposes a huge, far-reaching plan to get solar energy powering 69% of America's electricity needs by 2050. The costs and technology are ready, they say, but huge changes to our transmission system will be needed."
Tim O'Reilly. Does this guy Google search his own name? Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Random bit of filler text to let me say "Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly.". Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. O RLY? Tim O'Reilly. Tim O'Reilly. Just think if every Slashdot story had a comment mentioning Tim O'Reilly.
I hope the $420 billion in subsidies they mention factors in the cost of security forces needed to prevent millions of illegal immigrants from sneaking into the solar facility and hijacking all the gear.
I realize the parent is possibly just trolling, but I've got legit responses to it. I'll be back-and-forth between the solar solution for energy policy and immigration in this post, so it'll be at least partly on-topic.
Solar power installations shouldn't be any bigger targets than any other power generation. There are a number of ways more efficient than guards to deal with illegal immigration, anyway.
If the US spent more money on issuing visas to legal immigrants with background checks, we'd spend much less money on immigration issues deporting and law enforcement issues just trying to identify the people who want to come. Legal immigrants tend to pay taxes, which we're missing out on from many illegal ones.
Part of those taxes could help pay for this, and we could even power the lights in the immigration offices with solar. They'd be pretty efficient along our southern border with all the sunshine there.
If we had a legal guest worker program which collected taxes and didn't enforce the minimum wage or offer welfare or health benefits (which legal immigrants could have), has the people cleared by the US consulate near where they live and the consulate of their country near where they're going to work, and requires the household is self-supporting at legal work then lots of the "low paying jobs citizens don't want to do" would still get done but by people allowed to be here.
The apartments and houses they live in could be powered by solar, thus making it impact the US less that they're here.
Heck, with a big enough cheap and legal work force, we might even have the manpower to guard the border more effectively against the ones still trying to come across illegally. Plus, those who didn't apply for immigration (limited) or guest worker (unlimited as long as they can find and keep work) programs and tried to come across the border would have no excuse of just trying to make a legitimate living, because they'd have passed up the programs that would let them do that.
Those people willing to still break the law to get in once it's easy to get in legally would be the ones most likely to damage or steal your solar equipment.
We could also try to lift up the economies of Mexico, Guatemala, and the other countries that have a lot of emigration so that their people wouldn't want to leave so badly. Building factories or office complexes there powered by solar, where it makes lots of sense to use solar, would help their economies and the planet. That way people who don't like the illegal immigrants can have fewer of them in the US. It's win-win. And if they have their own solar power, why would they steal our equipment? So even fewer guards. It's easier to sell to people with money. It's also easier to sell to people when you have a presence in their country. Giving tax breaks to private US companies to build in Mexico and power things with solar there provides work for US and Mexican workers in Mexico, helps the economy of whatever cities the complexes are in, and gives the US a way to export more goods.
Solar power in the US and all over Central America is better for the planet than just in the US. It's also better for the economy. Heck, if we build the solar arrays in the US, we can even export the stuff initially to get the ball rolling.
There's no reason something like energy policy needs to be considered in a vacuum or in opposition to a group of people stealing the equipment. Smart policy is a good thing, and forcing the ongoing battle of rights for illegal immigrants vs. kicking illegal immigrants out to go on is about as silly as saying that we can't use solar at all because the coal miners need jobs. If we can combine two smart policies together, we can minimize our need for coal slowly and minimize our need to prosecute and deport people who want to contribute to society as well.
George W. should've put those billions we sunk into the war into this project instead. We could've gotten out of the Middle East, and we be much more secure politically and economically. Instead, we threw all of those billions down the toilet, with a less stable Middle East that likes us a lot less, and a rickety economy.