Green Power and Green Jobs

The big selling point on ANYTHING GREEN is always savings. You will save money and you will save planet earth.

Example 1: Take solar panels for your home. The claim is that you'll save 50% on your electric bill. Let's do the math to see if that assumption is true. The average home's electric bill is approximately $100 per month. A solar panel installation on a single family home runs about $30,000 to $40,000.

A 50 % savings on $100 per month is $50 per month or $600 savings each year. That will take you 58 years to break even! But wait. There's bad news. The average life of a solar panel is 20-30 years. So you will have to buy replacement solar panels on the half-way point of breaking even! What a deal!

Example 2: What about electric cars? Same sales pitch for Green Energy. Expensive, but in the long-run savings will be huge. Forget that they have a limited range and there is no way to charge if you run out. But you will save so much money on gasoline. OH REALLY? You won't make-back the extra money you spent unless there is a major break-through in battery technology. The pay-back time for electric vehicles is about 15 years. For the Chevy Volt, the payback time is 19 years. Imagine owning and using the same car for 19 years! How many 15 – 19 year old cars do you see on the road today?

Example 3: What about hybrids? If 1/3 of all new car sales were hybrids, our savings would be 200,000 barrels of oil per day or 1% of the nation's current oil demand. That's not even worth considering. Humm… not too tempting.

So forget that it takes forever to get pay-back. Remember, you'll always feel good about going green because you are saving the planet (even though you paid top dollar to go Green).

Green Jobs
Do you really think that the United States can make solar panels cheaper than China or some other third world country in this global economy? You're dreaming. Will there be a new discovery in batteries soon? Unlikely. Scientists have been working on batteries for years. NADA! There will be Green Jobs, but they won't be here! So do what you have to do. Just be realistic if you decide to go Green. But don't be fooled when the government tells you that this is the solution.