Understanding Future Uses of Roofspace and Defining An Early Path to Profitable Roof Estate Investing
February 18th, 2011
Courtesy of Inhabitat.com, a report on the Ten Million Solar Roof Initiative proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2010 which aims to put solar panels and water heaters on 10 million American roofs by 2020. As the article notes, the recently-announced SunShot program aims to drastically drive down the cost of solar energy which would cut the price of ten million solar roofs to just a fraction of the cost, making the initiative more attractive to budget-wary politicians:
The Ten Million Solar Roof Initiative proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2010 could get a much-needed push from Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu’s recent SunShot initiative. Sen. Sanders’ legislation aims to put solar panelssolar energy which would cut the price of ten million solar roofs to just a fraction of the cost, making the initiative more attractive to budget-wary politicians.
The Ten Million Solar Roof Initiative has been stalled in Congress since July of 2010 due to a huge lack of support, and senators had written it off until the SunShot initiative was announced. “These are two parallel but distinct programs. They could play together very well because — to the extent that the SunShot initiative is successful — it will lower the [financial] incentives that are required per project for the Ten Million Solar Roof Act,” Shayle Kann, managing director of solar research at GTM Research, told SolveClimate News.
The SunShot initiative was announced on February 4th, and it focuses on reducing the total installed cost of solar electricitypower sources. The 10 Million Solar Roof initiative has already been approved by the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “ to $1 per watt by 2020 — a 75% drop from today’s rates — which would make solar power cost competitive with conventional emission-laden I look forward to working with the Obama administration to incorporate elements of the new solar initiative into the Ten Million Solar Roofs Act to make the legislation even stronger,” Sanders said in a press release on February 4th, “we have an opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs and make America the world leader in solar energy.”
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Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy. Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation. He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”