Solar panel bill legislates stupidity

Gov. Nikki Haley shows support for sensible energy production.
The assault from federal energy regulators make it more expensive 
makes energy more expensive for all of us. Payers blame the utility 
company. But bad policy drives costs up. (Gov. Office Photo)

Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday signed a bill loosening restrictions on solar energy.

The State newspaper has accused South Carolina as being one of the least friendly states in the country for solar power.

But no one really is against sun power. We love the idea of God giving us warmth for free. But we are against ignorance and stupidity. Solar panels as a dependable energy sources are far from free.

Solar panels for a home cost about $30,000 and last for about 10 years.

So when you install them, you are already $3,000 in the hole, per year, for 10 years.

Aside from that, homes using solar panels are not sufficiently powered in periods of cloudy skies. So the power company still has to run service to your home as a back up.

While the utility has to invest in the expense of connecting the home, its revenues are diminished by the overly expensive solar panels. And the power company may even have to buy back energy the solar panels collects, in the rare occasion that excess is produced.

The solar-panel maker Solyndra received a $536 million from the Obama Administration in the form of a U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee. The company raked in another $200 million from private investors. In August 2011, Solyndra went bankrupt. A month later the FBI raided the facility and began an investigation. Aside from Solyndra billions of taxpayers' money has been dumped into “Green” energy experiments by the Obama Administration. The results have been a disaster.

The same people who made promises about job creation and grandiose success of Solyndra are shutting down the very profitable, clean and efficient use of coal. They refuse the Keystone Pipeline, too.

Environmental activists are seen as extreme, unreasonable and politically close-minded. They are adamant that man made Global Warming is real, even though the evidence and science refute their claims and theories.

Greenies vote for Democrats, or even more radical candidates on the left.

Haley, in June, defended South Carolinians against ridiculous federal carbon rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to address climate change. She has been at her best resisting and rejecting foolish and dangerous legislation pushed by the Obama Administration.

Let's hope Haley's lip service to solar power is stops here. And let's also hope it was merely a reasonable concession from the legislature to allow poor money managers the freedom to lose their cash.

But before solar leasing can occur, the state' Public Service Commission has to determine how much power companies will credit solar panel homeowners and businesses for producing excess energy, if there is any.

The PSC has a tendency to tick off consumers. Let's hope they stay true to the trend and any energy welfare is minimal. And solar panel experimenters are as frustrated with the power company as the rest of us.

If you know the left, the ultimate goal is to get the government to fund their ideology, regardless of merit. Let's hope Solyndra is a lesson that is guiding the state's government when deciding the value of solar energy.