the Mail.

A tip of the hat to your "Energy Crunch" issue (September 2001). The articles on our present energy situation, including a realistic appraisal of alternate power sources, and an assessment of how citizens and government should address the problem, are excellent and should be required reading for uninformed or biased policy makers--as well as those media "experts" too lazy or opinionated to uncover easily accessible facts. As a retired professional geologist, I was about to write on energy, but you've said it all.

 
Glenn Waterman 
Bainbridge Island, Washington 

Your fantastic September issue gave me a refreshing new insight into our current energy situation. I am in the solar energy business myself, but I am a realist and understand our need to continue exploring and drilling for oil. I keep reading in the local Los Angeles press that home solar systems pay off in five to six years. If this were true I would be swamped with business, but this is not happening.

The field of solar energy has excited me since childhood and now supplies my income. I have installed solar panels on rooftops in Los Angeles for 20 years. If our energy policies continue without a clear vision for the future, we will increase our dependency on foreign sources of fossil fuels, and our environment will suffer irrevocable harm. Solar power can indeed increase the diversity of our power sources, and add stability to our fossil-fuel energy structure, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But the solar-energy market needs to mature naturally, over time, without subsidies, if the technology is to become a cost-effective and viable energy solution for the future. Research and development to produce a more efficient solar panel would be more useful than promoting solar energy with government-ordered rebates.

Our experience with the solar rebates in the mid 1980s was clear. When half the cost of solar power systems was subsidized, unethical players entered the field. Sales were easy and substandard installations commonplace. Eventually the market crashed when funds were no longer available.

Ultimately, however, solar can help save our environment and preserve our self-reliance.