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Solar LA Program
$2,160,000,000.00 - 31243 jobs - Energy Program
28% voted critical - 72% voted not critical - 3480 votes cast
Yes
No
Wiki Description
Edit the Wiki Description (editing policy)
[edit] General Description
The Solar LA Program is an initiative to move a portion of LA's power needs to renewable energy sources. State programs like this often look for partial funding from Federal sources. It is therefore likely that the funds requested through the MainStreet Economic Recovery Report are not expected to cover the full cost of the program.
"The Solar LA plan covers three primary components: first one is the programs to boost residential and commercial customer solar systems; second one will be the LADWP-owned solar projects in Los Angeles; and the third one will be the large-scale solar projects owned by the LADWP outside of the LA basin.
If this plan is completed by 2020 then LA will generate a tenth of Los Angeles’ power through solar energy by 2020. LADWP will put in 400 MW of roof-top solar systems on city-owned properties by 2014. It will also obtain 500 MW of utility-scale solar power from projects developed under agreement by third-party solar developers."
[edit] Points For
- Leverages federal assets such as United States Post Office buildings to generate long-term revenues from clean photo-voltaic solar electricity production
- Reduces America's dependency on oil both domestic and foreign
- Creates jobs
- Create jobs in a renewable energy sector
- Helps reduce or delay California's need to build more power plants
- Reduces consumer energy costs over the long term
- Reduces commercial energy costs over the long term
- Reduces or delays the need for construction of transmission and distribution lines
[edit] Points Against
LA has more needed areas to invest this money. The marginalized communities are everyday getting worse and the politicians are looking to put in solar panels. They should take the money and provide low interest loans to the home owners to fix up their homes in the L.A. area with a maximum limit and also with a maximum home value limit. This will promote jobs and better homes in this areas that otherwise are seen as trouble zones along with the jobs that solar installations and manufacturing in LA can provide. LA should create the proper incentives for solar that make countries like Germany to become the world solar leader. LA has on average 5.5 hours of sunlight per day to Germany's less than 3.
Follow the money to see where we are buying these solar panels...is it out of our country? Most of the money is in the capital cost of building the panels. Solar is second only to wind for the lowest reliable energy source. Panels degrade over time (though at 30+ years still generate electricity) and require washing to maintain their efficiencies.