10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act

10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act

Though 90% of Americans agree that we should be employing solar energy to combat our climate and energy crises, the U.S. government has been slow to embrace and develop legislation that addresses those concerns.  In a bill titled "10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act" and introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Feb. 4, 2010, Americans in all 50 states would be eligible for rebates for the installation of solar electric and solar thermal systems.  

The bill known as the 10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act adopted its name from California Solar Initiative's "Million Solar Roofs" program and is modeled after the incentive programs in California and New Jersey- number 1 and 2 in solar energy, respectively.  It would provide for up to half the cost of any new photovoltaic or solar thermal system.

The 10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot W ater Act will produce 30,000 new megawatts of electricity in the next 10 years.  This amount of energy is equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants.  However, it is extremely more cost-effective.  The program is estimated to cost anywhere between $2-3 billion per year.

The average power plant produces about 1,000 megawatts for the $10 billion spent to build it.  Sanders' 10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act aims to produce 30x the energy of a nuclear power plant for only $30 billion.  It would take $300 billion to produce that much energy from nuclear sources.

Distributed energy is much more efficient than energy produced from coal, oil, and nuclear.  Yet, it hasn't benefited from the same amount of funding as the other more traditional methods.

Proponents of the 10 Mil lion Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act include Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ),  Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Arlen Specter (D-PA).

by Rich Hessler
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