Renewable Energy Faces an “Institutional Bias”

Patrick OLeary of Futura Solar writes:

Renewable energy faces an institutional bias. Upfront costs mean upfront tax payments. No stream of bills to pay means no stream of tax revenues to collect.

Also consider the impact of solar on peaking power electric rates. Without that spike of money, Electric Utilities go back to being sleepy industries, sans the corporate bonuses.

You make some excellent points here. The “institutional bias” is exactly what makes this so tough; outside of the health and safety of all living things now and in the future, there is little incentive to make a shift in our energy policy. (I know that sounds sarcastic, but I don’t mean it that way.)

Creating that incentive means making some extremely high-level changes in the way we buy and sell energy. And the big boys don’t want to see that (or any other) change, thus making this a bit difficult.  Fortunately, it’s worth the struggle.  

Btw, the ideas on your website look cool. Keep up the good work.