Report, Solar Panels will not Replace Coal, Stimulus Throwing Money Away

Hit & Run > 110 Years to Pay for Those Denver Solar Panels? - Reason Magazine

President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill after touring the solar panel installation on the roof of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Since the bill is loaded up with green energy goodies, the president's handlers no doubt thought that the tour made a great photo opportunity. The implied message is that instead of "a chicken in every pot," we'll get "a solar panel on every roof" with the stimulus plan.

But as nice as those panels look, just how practical are they? Well, the Denver Business Journal looked into the project last summer and found that the 465 panel 100-kilowatt installation cost $720,000 and will produce about 130,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. According to the Journal, electricity from the solar array will replace between 2 and 12 per cent of the museum's electricity demand. In fact, an internal museum report says the solar panels will supply only 1 to 2 percent of the museum's electricity need.

110 Years to Pay for Those Denver Solar Panels.

Do you know most solar panels have an expected life-span of 20 to 25 years. So why before signing the $787 billion stimulus package into law on February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden toured an array of solar panels on top of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Because this is what the government, you and I, are paying for.

Obama said "We expect you, the American people, to hold us accountable for the results," he said, citing www.recovery.gov, a website that will track the stimulus spending and allow citizens to comment and question the allocations.

According to the Denver Post's article on the event, “The sun generates enough energy on the museum rooftop to power about 30 homes.” However, that claim cannot be verified at this time, and in fact, seems to be belied by the scant information provided by the museum and other sources. Laura Holtman, Public Relations Manager for the Museum said in an email, “Because the array generates less than 5 percent of the Museum's power, [the purchased energy] is not a particularly large bill.”

Specifically, the Institute asked for:

1 ) Two years worth of electric bills prior to the installation of the solar array,
2 ) All electric bills following the completion of the installation.

The Museum denied those requests.

Blake Jones, chief executive of Namaste Solar, whose company installed 18 rows of panels, said he called other CEOs of solar companies to evaluate what they found in the stimulus bill. "The consensus is that this bill will immediately benefit companies like ours," he said.

The president used the state as a stage to talk about job creation and civic investment. He said the stimulus bill could create 60,000 jobs here and 400,000 jobs nationwide.

Now we know why the stimulus is not working. We are investing in businesses that does not product an effective product. We are investing in solar panels that will never replace coal. If it works show us the facts. let us see the electrical bills before the panels and after the panels. Al Gore panels are not working. He is using more energy. Please President Obama stop wasting our money.

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