To distill it into an oversimplification: if a man wanted to generate electricity from frog farts he could make it happen but he wouldn't expect any investors. The sun however is not a pie in the sky. Are the people of this globe going to figure out how to cheaply suck energy out of the sun and is Tennessee going to profit from it? Of course. (Would a Republican Governor in 2010 be the quickest way to impede this inevitable new profit stream?)

Let's walk through the table of contents of Solar Powering Your Community: A Guide for Local Governments, U.S. Department of Energy | July 2009 and check off what we've done and haven't done. Actually it might be fun to put that in a separate google document or something that lets you comment line by line, but the whole table of contents would take up a rude amount of space here so I'll look for some highlights and try to keep it brief:

1.1 Create a Solar Advisory Committee or Task Force: Executive Order 54

1.4 Conduct an Installation baseline survey: done (city) and in the works (region)

1.7 Ask for some ARRA money while it's going around. Check.

2.0 Accelerating Demand through Policies and Incentives

Although the private sector has developed innovative business models to reduce the up-front cost of solar, such as power purchase agreements and leasing arrangements, these models generally still require state or local incentives to make the economics work. As with all suggested activities described in this guide, you should tailor your efforts to meet local needs and objectives.

A laundry list of STIs, PTIs and FITs follows; I like this one: "Organize a customer aggregation program and learn how neighborhoods are pulling together to purchase solar energy systems in bulk."

3.0 Updating and Enforcing Local Rules and Regulations: "some of the most critical barriers to widespread adoption of solar energy can be removed only by local governments." Do we have any local lawyers in the room?

4.0 Engaging your utility: TVA has standards that aren't uniformly implemented by distributors it says here, and I'm having a hard time finding information newer than that.

5.1 Recruit the Solar Industry: A billion dollar factory here and there, and we're going to have to go to 5.3 to Develop Local Workforce Training and Education Programs: see pages 14-17 here.

6.2 Install Demonstration Projects with an Educational Component such as one of the largest solar farms in the Southeast from the Tennessee Solar Institute.

7.0 Leading by Example with Installations on Government Properties: Sure, even where it rains a lot, snows a lot, gets drunk a lot, gets booed a lot, or even Knoxville.

Now we can skim through the 472 pages of the National Solar Radiation Database 1991–2005 Update: User’s Manual and figure out 9's map, but it might be easier if someone plugged some numbers into IMBY who wants to tell us the potential of their backyard for solar or several models of wind turbines. It asks for the following specifics after you enter your address, and I don't have any guestimations to put in these boxes to see what I could put on top of my home at 666 Jessamine St, Knoxville, TN:
Size (kW):
Derating:
Tilt angle (°):
Azimuth angle (°):
Data year

The In My Backyard (IMBY) tool from the National Renewable Energy Lab estimates how much electricity you can produce through solar and wind power in your own backyard.

Thanks, especially for the link to my ancestral homeland -- your mountains are next.

"pent-up private sector capital" U.S Chamber of Commerce

Akio Toyoda doesn't want to sell Howie Long a lawnmower.

If Stephen Chu says he sees no solution for reduced emissions from airplanes, why is Qatar converting all jets to natural gas by 2012?

GOP Launches Strategy to Trip Up Health Bill

Correction: Oct. 19, 2009
The article incorrectly stated that the health care reform bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee would lower the cost curve of the U.S. health care system. According to Finance Committee testimony by Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf, while the Finance bill is projected to lower the federal deficit by $81 billion over the first 10 years, it remains unclear whether the bill would reduce health care expenditures during that time frame.

"Republicans were hoping that Democratic divisions would do to Obama’s health care agenda what the GOP can’t, but they no longer expect moderate Democrats to stand in the way of passage — even one that includes a public insurance option."

tort reform, ha.

"No one is claiming responsibility for a hoax press release claiming that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had changed its position on climate change legislation."

energy policy briefing

What OPM isn’t doing to contain health rates

"The Sustainable Growth Rate was established in 1997 in an attempt to keep payments from spiraling out of control, but each year Congress overturns the cuts."

memo to federal prosecutors, re: efficient and rational use of resources

Feds Offer 38,484 Budget Cuts: contest update

“He’s not demanding that it’s (public option) in there, he thinks it’s the best possible choice,”

“We prefer the approach — particularly in this climate — where the actual people who are on the front lines, running businesses, trying to create jobs, come and advise us on policy” Valerie Jarrett

Ladies,