San Diego Solar Industry: Sunny Days, All the Time

SAN DIEGO, CA – Speaking of solar energy, as we were in our last post before flying here, it’s easy to see why locals call this Sun Diego.  There are no clouds – anywhere! (OK, it rained last week, but that was then.) After 35 years in Hawaii, we’re still surprised by the sunrise-to-sunset cloudless days found in cities around the Golden State, including Sacramento.

So it was almost expected that the local public radio station would air a special report on the solar energy industry this morning for our benefit. (The above photo is from the station's website and shows Stone Brewing Company in Escondido.) Despite the poor economy, the industry appears to be in super robust mode, with an estimated 1100 solar installers/contractors in San Diego County. Then again, the population (2.9 million in 2006) is well beyond the combined population of Hawaii’s four counties (1.3 million).

Bay Area Goes Electric

Up the coast, Mayor Gavin Newsom is crowing about San Francisco’s leadership position in “transforming the Bay Area into the Electric Vehicle Capital of the United States.” His column on Huffington Post notes Better Place’s plan to invest $1 billion in a plug-in network there, similar to the company’s intentions in Hawaii. C’mon, Hawaii: let's show San Francisco how it’s done by becoming the Electric Vehicle Capital of the World!

More from Pat Takahashi

We’ll close by once again calling attention to Pat Takahashi’s daily blog, Simple Solutions for Planet Earth and Humanity. His post yesterday was typical Pat – a mixture of dreaming (his word) and depressing (also his word.) An example:

"Make no mistake about it, though, this recession is leaning in the direction of depression, and those trillion dollar rescue packages dwarf past government expenditures. Yes, World War II did cost something on the order of $2.5 trillion, but how many realize that the total of the Manhattan Project, Marshall Plan and Apollo Project, in 2009 dollars, is only about a quarter trillion dollars? The Bush and Obama rescue packages alone amount to five times more than what it took to build the atomic bomb to end the war, save Europe and send Men to the Moon."

We recommend Pat’s blog for his experience-based observations on our energy predicament.