Monday, July 30, 2012

Plug-in Hybrids: An Electric Step in the Right Direction

If you’re anything like us, you may also feel the end of the world is just around one very hot corner.  Seeing America’s infrastructure snap under rising temperatures is terrifying.  

Tailpipe emissions account for one-fifth of worldwide carbon emissions.    Ideally, we would combat this by pouring funding into public transit, and single passenger car trips would become a rarity. 

Instead, we’re clinging to life as usual.  How do we have our automobile cake, and eat it too? 

Plug-in hybrids. 

Consumer habits have shown that most Americans fear the fully electric vehicle.  Unfortunately, the climate can’t wait for us to adjust to the idea of going to a charging station rather than a gas station. 

Luckily for future generations, drivers are willing to compromise.  Sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles are up 381% in just the first half of this year.  We won’t completely give up petroleum, but we are dieting. 

This new breed of hybrid can travel 20 miles before switching to gasoline.  And, the cost to charge at night is equal to a mere 75 cents per gallon of gasoline.

Plug-in hybrids are a great alternative to traditional EVs.  They ease consumers into the ways of electric vehicles, while allowing drivers their gas tank security blanket.

Call Solar Forward to learn about powering your plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle with the sun.   

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Demand German Solar Prices

In the golden state, solar is booming with over one gigawatt of rooftop solar installed.  Still, many of us Californians are frustrated with solar – frustrated there is not more of it.

We shouldn’t stop at frustration.  We should be outraged.

Greedy utility companies, and complacent politicians are depriving Californians of clean and affordable energy. 

Powering much more our state with solar is absolutely doable.  That is, if the major energy players put the full weight of their agencies behind it. 

A slew of articles in recent weeks featured this graphic comparing equal sized solar systems in Germany and the U.S.

Why in Europe, where most goods cost twice as much as in the U.S., are solar systems half the price? 

The answer is Red Tape.  Mountains of it.

Paperwork, fees, delays, changes in policy…  These are the problems that mire American solar, making it twice as costly as German sun power.

Demand for solar will increase as prices drop (really).  Residents, alongside the solar industry, must demand the roadblocks holding back renewable energy be removed. 

Insist on German-priced solar in the U.S.  Support Vote Solar and Citizens Climate Lobby


Solar Forward
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