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

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FRIEND: They'll be using free sunlight instead of costly nuclear or fossil fuel, but you'll still pay for it the rest of your life. We're saying that that's not the way to do it . . . and that the city government ought to get involved in turning the solar-powered generation of electricity over to the homeowner.

PLOWBOY: Couldn't that involve some rather sticky legal problems?

MORRIS: Well, the legal disputes related to both solar cells and solar collectors involve not only building codes—whether or not you can put a collector on your roof—but they also include the issue of sun rights. Does every homeowner have the right to sunlight? . . . or can someone build a building or grow a tree next to you and shade your building?

PLOWBOY: Isn't that understood? Doesn't everyone have a right to sunlight?

MORRIS: Apparently not, curiously enough. In English common law, the peasant had sun rights, but a few years ago the owners of the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami Beach sued the Eden Roc—which was next door—because that hotel had built an addition which shaded the Fountainbleu's swimming pool. And the court which tried the case ruled that the Fountainbleu did not have legal rights to direct sunlight.

PLOWBOY: So we have only the right to the air immediately above our property?

MORRIS: Right. And that's all. And this could become a very sticky legal precedent when the use of solar energy becomes more common. That's especially true in cities, where the most profitable buildings are high-rises . . . which, of course, can shade whole neighborhoods.

PLOWBOY: I assume you're making it your business to clarify this issue.

MORRIS: We're trying to organize a solar energy center in cooperation with the extension service of Federal City College. The center will act as a clearinghouse for information and give technical assistance to people here in Washington. And we're looking at what other cities are doing.

The city of Santa Clara, California, for example, is beginning to set up a solar utility system—they already own their own electric utility—so it's already confronting these questions of sun rights in practice. We'll piggyback on Santa Clara's work . . . and on whatever is turned up by a number of other cities that aren't quite as advanced, but which are looking into the legal questions involved.

We're very excited, by the way, about the number of inquiries we've received on this subject . . . not only from city officials but from universities and vocational training schools. It's interesting that the administrators of these schools realize that—in many cases—they're training students in technologies which will become obsolete before the students graduate. The two current major courses in vocational training schools are about computer programming—where there's already a glut of graduates on the market—and internal combustion engines, when the automobile industry is in a heavy decline. We're trying to convince these schools to regear their curricula and begin to teach students how to produce, install, and service solar energy systems.

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