Gil Friend and David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

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MORRIS: Yes, but their cost could drop even more-and I'm talking about right now!—if the production of solar cells was mechanized and automated. They're still made by hand! Seventy percent of their production cost is for labor. If you made a car by hand it would probably cost twenty times as much as manufacturing it on an assembly line. Transistors were twenty times the price of vacuum tubes until the Defense Department decided they needed a good cheap transistor in large quantities.

Now, solar cells are about the size of razor blades with little aluminum threads running through them. They're much easier to make than transistors or integrated circuits. They lend themselves superbly to automation. However, in order for a manufacturer to automate his facilities, he needs a sufficient volume of orders. The best estimate now is that electricity from solar cells will be competitive with that from fossil-fueled generators within four to six years of the time that manufacturers begin to get large orders for the cells. And that estimate is based on current fossil fuel prices, which are sure to rise . . . thereby making solar energy even more competitive.

PLOWBOY: How does all this work out in dollars and cents?

MORRIS: Well, a system that would generate and store enough power to deliver one kilowatt continuously—which is what you need to power an average house—should be small enough to put on your home's roof and should cost between two and four thousand dollars, so if you're paying four cents per kilowatt hour for your electricity—which is the current national average—such a system can pay for itself in six to twelve years. After that, it's a free ride.

PLOWBOY: And what does a system like that cost now?

MORRIS: Eighty-five thousand dollars.

PLOWBOY: Wow! Can you do anything to bring the price down?

MORRIS: We're trying to convince the city government here in Washington to enter into a contractual agreement with a manufacturer of solar cells. The city would buy an increasing amount of the. units over a period of years and the manufacturer would guarantee a decreasing price. We'd like to get to the point where the city would sell an individual homeowner his power systems. The citizen could pay for it in monthly installments just like he now pays his electricity bill . . . except that, after a while, he or she would own his or her own source of electricity free and clear.

PLOWBOY: The big electric utility companies wouldn't be very happy about an arrangement like that.

MORRIS: That's what we're afraid of. And that's one of the reasons that solar energy isn't arriving as fast as it should in this country . . . it's a serious threat to the centralized energy corporations. They'd like to postpone solar-generated electricity until they can figure out some way to control its distribution. Government reports say that solar cells will be practical only when they can be built into systems large enough to be used by the existing utility companies. In other words—if the people now in command have their way—you'll still have to pay your monthly electric bill to a big utility company even after the electricity you use comes from solar-powered generators which would probably operate more efficiently if you owned them and had them installed right on your home's roof.

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