Possible way to combat our carbon footprint?

Question

It seems to me that i have been reading alot about global warming. Energy crisis', etc. I was wondering if it would be logical for the governement to fund some sort of Solar Panel agency or something. Where they would put Solar Panels on houses. To help reduce the Power consumption from power plants. I know that if you have a green enough house or life style. With solar panels. you can pump energy back into the power grid and make your electric meter run backwards.

Would this be a plausable idea or no?

Answer 1

The government has been doing the opposite for half a century. Congress and big business is making sure that we are dependent on oil. Every alternative energy invention has been de-funded and shelved since Truman. Do you think it was an accident?

Nice idea, not novel, maybe altruistic, but you are absolutely correct, except for the corrupt government.

Answer 2

Excellent idea.  Too bad the government has the pig fund...whoops ! I mean the Pork Fund

The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment

“Bridge to Nowhere,” the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/...

I have lost complete faith in the system and the men and women we vote for.   They are so overwhelmed with their self and their capabilities they have  lost sight of their 'Real Job'

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.



How the Government Works

Once upon a time the government had a scrap yard in the middle

of a desert.  Congress said,"  Someone may steal it at night."

So they created a night watchman position and hired a person

at $18,000.00 a year for the job.

    Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job

without instruction?"  So they created a planning department

and hired two people --  one person to write the instructions

for $22,000.00 and one person to do time studies

for an additional $22,000.00 per year.

Then congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is

doing the tasks correctly?"  So they created a

quality control department and hired two people.

One was to do the studies for $31,000.00

and one to write the reports for an additional $31,000,00 per year.

Then Congress said,  "How are these people going to get paid?"

So they created the following positions:

a time keeper for a $35,000.00 annual salary

and a payroll officer for an additional $35,000.00

Then they created an administrative section and hired

three more people -- an  Administrative Officer at $155,000.00

per year, an Assistant Administrative Officer at $125,000.00

and a Legal Secretary at $100,000.00 per year.          

Then Congress said, "We have had this operating for one year

with a budget cost of $574,000.00

and we are $18,000.00 over budget.

We must cut back costs."

********SO THEY LAID OFF THE NIGHT WATCHMAN********

How did I become this negative?  This is one time that I know the answer.

Maybe "we the people" need to write the rules and inform the political power it's 'OUR' country and we are taking it back.  

and if you don't like it quit less your 'RETIREMENT' check.

Answer 3

In Calif. we do fund a portion of solar PV installation. The rebates are set up by the electric company the house or business uses. I am in the process of getting approx. a 4kwhr system I am getting a $10K rebate from my electric company and a $2K federal tax credit. It cut the cost of my system in half.

The area that I live in is suffering more drought, so our city water supplier is offering a $1 per square foot rebate to replace lawns with drought tolerent plants.

Answer 4

well first decide if you really want to reduce your carbon footpint, because your reason would be the fuel for your passion to save the planet. there are carbon footprint calculators in the internet you can compute your own,. walk, conserve water, energy, recycle, be a frugal citizen, maximize little resources, reduce shopping, et.c

Answer 5

It's a good idea but I have heard of a better idea where the energy from the ocean waves are used for light energy power. This seems more plausible because ocean waves are active 24/7.

Answer 6

The only way this is going to happen if the govt. places a carbon usage tax on everything we buy and use. That will reduce "carbon footprints" and at the same time put everyone in the poor house.

Answer 7

We do not need government involvement. We have a company NanoSolar that is waiting for a lot of investment to build a factory 15 times its present capacity to do just what you propose, but at a much lower cost.

What is needed is private investors to put together a company to license their technology and build that 15 times bigger plant.  

Right now NanoSolar is committed to sell all their production capacity to Germany, and that looks to be a long term proposition. It would really accomplish little to buy them off to sell it to the USA. The need is to get a much larger capacity, and sell to everyone.

Government involvement might sound like a very good idea in Cuba or China, but I think we can do it better with private investment here, if we would just stop waiting for government to do it.

But democracy, wonderful as it might be, is not about doing the best thing, it is about what people insist they want done, and only if they are prepared to turf out those that do not do it.

When we decide to wait for government to do what we could have done ourselves, we set ouselves up for a long frustrating delay.

We can all agree that  if government did not spend dollar x to do what dollar x is doing now, we could do something different, perhaps better.

But when you have a war machine going and your proposal is to starve that war effort while leaving the war effort going on, there will be many people who will vehemently oppose what you propose. If instead you proposed to raise a tax to pay for this, you would get as vehement an opposition. The only way to fund this proposal if government pays for it, is to issue bonds. Those are not seen as tax, and do not starve the troops, do not produce unemployment in the military industries.

You and I know that bonds are a form of deferred taxation. But look at how well G.W. Bush has paid for a war entirely on bonds.

Stop waiting for government if you want things done. Do it yourself.