We could live with all the opinions in the world if it was not for the fact that governance is based on the application of force and coercion.
If you want renewable energy of whatever form, buy it. If you want to lessen your CO2 footprint by super-insulating your home, driving a Prius and growing your own food, go for it.
Dont ask for subsidies, nor the banning of any older technology (all the european countries racing to impose deadlines on the sale and use of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles). Nor taxation and the re-distribution of wealth. That kind of nonsense is just going to lead to war. If something really has merit, it will sell. Otherwise it is clearly no good. I bought 6x 275W solar panels, charge controller, transfer switch and a bunch of accessories for $2537. 1650W for $2500 is not bad in my opinion. I put together a 24V lead acid battery for just over $1000. I plan to double the size of the solar array when I reach the life of the battery system at which time I will do a new 48V battery system. When taken as a % of the investment in a new home, this stuff is peanuts. A set of tires for my backhoe will cost near as much. Of course I did not get raped by some government licensed solar installer either, nor did I pay a consultant to design the system. Maybe some people need this service, but I suspect that a great many do not and don't need or want either the federal, state or local government to mandate the existence of any of these positions. When your installer, consultant and building inspectors jobs exist primarily because of tyrannical government, don't expect any of them to be focussed on what is best for you.
If you are involved in the automotive industry and are aware of the shenanigans in new car design to try to meet the fleet economy standards imposed by the EPA, you will likely never want to buy a new car again, or at least not until we have had a couple of rounds of clean sheet designs instead of grafting hybrid motors, batteries, electronics and cooling packages into places on vehicles that were never intended for such stuff and which is going to cause an immense customer backlash when this stuff has to be repaired, serviced and other "real life stuff", especially those of us living up north in the salt belt. My second vehicle is an F250 and I had such a time trying to get the steel wheels off the hubs and the brake rotors off after 2 years of salt that I could write a book about it. The engineers at work recently heard a speaker from Chrysler/Jeep talk about powertrain electrification and since the fuel economy plan involves engine downsizing (which we have already seen) and then partial hybrid powertrain on virtually all models, a lot of us looked at each other and said that we had better find a used late model car so that the next used car we buy is not one of these frankensteins...
