Reply #48: That's the problem with ideology

[kristopher]

Your entire post (excepting one sentence I've addressed below) is irrelevant to the point at hand. Instead of looking objectively at the benefits and costs of available solutions you resort to an inane rant centered on beliefs you have about the nature of government. Those beliefs may or may not be generally true, however they say absolutely nothing about the effectiveness of any given solution. What we do know is that the past 28 years has seen the right employ that framework over valid analysis and in the process they have screwed the pooch in every single policy area they've attacked.

Producing electricity with photovoltaics (PV) emits no pollution, produces no greenhouse gases,
and uses no finite fossil fuel resources. These are great environmental benefits, but just as we say
that it takes money to make money, it also takes energy to save energy. This concept is captured by
the term “energy payback,” or how long a PV system must operate to recover the energy—and
associated generation of pollution and CO2—that went into making the system in the first place.
Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems boil down to 4, 3, 2, and 1 years: 4 years for
systems using current multicrystalline-silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film modules,
2 years for future multicrystalline modules, and 1 year for future thin-film modules. With energy
paybacks of 1–4 years and assumed life expectancies of 30 years, 87% to 97% of the energy that
PV systems generate will be free of pollution, greenhouse gases, and depletion of resources. Let’s
take a look at how the 4-3-2-1 paybacks were estimated for current and future PV systems. - NREL Report No. NREL/FS-520-24619