Wrenches,
A few weeks ago I found out
that New Mexico is putting on a fancy two-day symposium called the "New
Mexico Alternative Energy Symposium". It is sponsored by our major
private utility, EPRI, DOE, NREL, and other big corporate and governmental
players. The web site for this symposium is at http://www.sandia.gov/Renewable_Energy/PNM/pnmdex.htm
I called up the organizer and
ranted to him about this whole thing excluding the private sector (the wrenches)
and being more corporate and governmental types talking at each other and then
going back home after another expense-paid ineffectual conference.
What happened is that they
turned my rant into a meeting at my shop because they wanted more private sector
participation, and then put me on two panels. The first is "Barriers
to Alternative Energy Use", and the other, on the second day, is
"Options for Commercializing and Increasing Alternative Energy Use in New
Mexico". I have ten minutes allotted to speak each time.
I'm not particularly
convinced that there's serious consequence to this conference. I'm neither
convinced that what I will say will change anyone's perspective. But I'm
not afraid to speak out for us wrenches about what are the real barriers to more
acceptance of what we are trying to accomplish.
So I'm asking for your help
and input. What are the institutional, governmental, political, pro-big
oil, social, or whatever-you-see barriers that you see to more general
acceptance of renewables? Are they overly-restrictive net-metering
connection standards? Hidden subsidies to conventional fuels? Lack of tax
credits for the consumer? How about a Fannie Mae-level secondary mortgage
market that won't purchase mortgage paper without utility power, because they
believe that they couldn't unload an off-grid property if the owner
defaults? How about a real estate industry that calls anything with south
glass a "passive solar home" and tells upscale sellers with solar
thermal systems to remove them in order to make their properties "more
marketable" (as I heard last week from a man who was told just that)?
What institutional barriers directly affect us as wrenches, who deal primarily
with the public, rather than government agencies?
I'd like to have two or three
strong points, no more, that speak from our perspective. Please check out
the conference web site to catch its flavor; the conference is next week, and
I'd like to speak for as many of us as I can, in hard-hitting
terms.
Thank you for any
help.
Allan at Positive
Energy
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