Pagc 8 RAIN April 1978 CAN THE SUN BE ALL THINGS TO ALL CALIFORNIANS? Jobs from the Sun: Employment Development in the California Solar Industry, 120 pp., Feb. 1978, $5.00 from: California Public Policy Center (Attn: Solar Jobs) 304 S. Broadway, #224 Los Angeles, CA 90013 SolarCal: A Proposal for a Public Solar Energy Authority, 5 pp. reprint, Congressional Record, Nov. 15, 1977, free from: California Public Policy Center (address same as above) Can the un be all things to all people, providing renewable energy, jobs and economic development in a decentralized, socially equjtable and environmentally benign fashion? In California, this hefty question is quickly losing its rhet rical quality and becoming a matter of real political significance, as the stale edges closer to the actual possibility of "solarizing" itself by 1990. At stake is the opporrunity to begin easing the California economy away from the use of inflationary, jobeliminating, non-renewable energy sources for space and water heating, inducing the first step towards a new era of more appropriate development. This is ue has been brought to a head by the SolarCal propo ai, initiated by the Campaign for Economic Democracy and developed in the past year by the California Public Policy Center. olarCal, if passed by the state'~ legislature, would e tablish a public corporation with $500 million in funds to provide the economic framework for the development of a statewide solar industry, lending front monies to legitimate solar entrepreneurs, and to householders wishing to convert to solar heating. l If SolarCal were to pa s with all its provisions intact, it could forge a bond between the public and private sectors in which large capital pools aggregated at the state level flow out ro the localities for solar conversion, with the potential for a broad-based, decentralized economic impact providing jobs und rencwabk energy. In addition, it is the specifics of the proposal that would make this new stare authority an integrative, reform·oriented public body. These include: • the representation of diverse interest groups on its board, ex luding the employees of energy monopolies and utilities_ • the direction of its home loans to low and middle clas eon umers • a preference for California-based solar firms meeting Strict criteria concerning size, unionization, affirmative action, hiring the unemployed and independence from large corporations. While it is certain that California's large utilities and sup pliers of natural gas and their corporate allies are not pleased with this prospect, a balance of the state's diverse group and interests could find the logic behind SolarCal compelling enough to abandon more shady utility energy bargains and make haste for the sunny side of the treet. More substantive evidence in favor of the SolarCal propo aI was recently provided by the California Public Policy Center with the release of itS new study jobs from the Sun, a detailed analy i~ attempting to assess the real potential for the development of solar energy in the state between now and 1990, and specifically to calculate the number of jobs that would be generated in meeting this potential, as well as the overall impact on the Calif mia e nomy. Already, JFTS reports, the conventional cost-effectiveness of solar space and water heating is competitive with electric resistance heating, as well as with new supplies of natural gas. With escalating c sts locked into such non-renewable sources, and the declining costs of solar likely to continue, this aJvantage will become pronounced in the next decade. Bur beyond conventional comparisons, there are the additional socio-economic advantages of the solar option, as measurable ill its non-inflationary economic stimulation, environmental enhancement and the creation of new jobs. j FTS found that a solar industry meeting feasible California space and watcr heating needs 2 between 1981 and 1990 could generate over 376,000 jobs per year for the length of the decade, wiTh 36 percent directly related to solar employment and 64 percent to indirect/induced employment. Of the direct solar jobs, 21 percent would be in manufacturing and 57 percent in in tallation, which are two areas of greatest structural weakness in the state's economy.3 Compared to highly explosive liquified natural gas (LNG), one of the few real, albeit dangerous. options for space and water heating in California, a new solar industry is expected to produce 62 times as many jobs for the equivalent amount of heat energy due to it labor-intcnsity.4 In addition, these jobs would require lower kills level and would be dispersed acro s the state. The solar option would also displace hetween 26 and 35 percent of the natural gas currently used in the rate. [n toto, such a development would boost California's personal income by $4.2 billion and its Gross State Product by $5.1 billion per annum, while saving $1.9 billion in taxes and avoiding $1.02 billion in exported capital per annum. j obs from tbe Sun is a well-executed piece of advocacy research treating an unquestionably desirable alternative as end·goal, and then subjecting it to a rigorous statistical
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz