Solar Energy: Why We Consumers Have to Drive it Ourselves

When you stop and think about the readily available power given to us each day by the sun, why aren't we making use of it?

Yes, there are a few relatively minor problems that need more Research and Development technology applied but with a bit of determined and concentrated effort and with more funding, our scientists can fix these problems pretty easily. All we need is a bit of 'political' will and market driven incentives to do so.

Once someone proves a way to implement this new technology in a way that will make money for company shareholders, I believe this alternative energy source will be quickly implemented. Alternatively, we could threaten our political representatives with removal at the next elections unless strong, concrete plans were put in place to install solar energy use for all domestic users.

Bold plans but if there was money to be made with the new technology you can bet we would start to see some real action. If we could only stop the lobbyists from accessing our politicians and subverting their will to fix this energy dilemma for all of us, we would all be better off.

As things stand at this point in time, it's not really in the big power corporation's interests to put too much effort into finding or developing an alternate power source, is it? I mean it's a bit like asking the fox to guard the hen house.

That is why I believe consumers who are fed up with being used and abused by these big power companies and is tired of seeing garbage emissions polluting our world; have to drive this new technology ourselves.

There is no reason why each domestic installation can't provide enough electricity for their domestic use and only access a 'back-up' supply when needed. Not every household will need to access the power grid because many consumers live alone and the solar power generated from their own roofs will more than fill their needs. Any excess power generated and unused from these domestic installations will need to be fed back into a sub-station so why do we need to have to fork out funds for clean coal technology?

Personally, I would prefer to see the funding put into developing better storage capacity for generated solar power than funding a stock exchange resource stock and their shareholders.

As a consumer of electricity, I think we all have to speak as one voice together and make a concerted effort to convince our political representatives that there are more votes with us 'little people' than there is from a big power corporation. We need to drive solar energy development by market demand rather than tax funded R&D monies to people with vested interests in seeing that solar energy is a long time in coming.