Harry Thomason - Solar Energy
(Page 12 of 13)
November/December 1979
By Richard Freudenberger
PLOWBOY: What do you mean by "solar welfare"?
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THOMASON: Simply giving the taxpayers' money away to finance experiments with all manner of unnecessarily fancy solar hardware. Pouring money down a rathole, so to speak . . . that's what the government has done, and I've been speaking out against this practice for years. Our tax dollars should not be used to subsidize such gold-plated contraptions to the hilt. If the government's going to subsidize the solar products industry at all, it should give an equal amount of aid to all comers-a sensible amount-and let the designers use their ingenuity to apply those funds in a practical way.
PLOWBOY: And if the costs exceed the funding?
THOMASON: Let the builders and designers pay for it! That's a sure way to keep a check on the extravagance that's rife in the solar industry today. Sure, let 'em spend $20,000 on a system if they want to . . . but the guy who's smart enough to build a setup for $5,000 will come out ahead. For example, it's not unusual for HUD and the Department of Energy to allocate $15,000 to be put into one system, since this figure has been assumed to equal the "incremental" expense over and above that of a conventional installation costing perhaps $5,000. Now that means, in simple terms, that HUD or DOE will spend $15,000 on one guy and one system . . . which in many cases doesn't work anyway. Had the agencies, on the other hand, taken the same amount and distributed it to people building $5,000 solar units, we'd have as many
"I've coined thephrase "Negative Payback Period" . . . because with the Solaris solar system there is no payback period!"
as three systems operating and as many as three families saving three times as much oil . . . and a lot less money going overseas for foreign petroleum supplies.
PLOWBOY: Plus, you'd have that many more people "advertising" the fact that low-cost solar heating is available, and that this energy alternative does work.
THOMASON: Exactly. The real shame is, though, that we're not just talking about $15,000. Since 1974, the government has put untold millions of dollars into various solar projects. If they'd taken that money and given, say, $2,000 to each person who wanted to build a solar house . . . there'd be more than half a million solarheated homes in existence today.
PLOWBOY: But hasn't the government spent money on your own projects?
THOMASON: They've spent perhaps a quarter of a million dollars testing our equipment, not building it. I've never received-nor have I asked for-one red cent from our government for my solar research or development. My feeling is this: If a product is worth selling, why should it need help? If it can fly, it'll fly on its own.
PLOWBOY: More and more people seem to be wondering just why the government spends so much money and gets back so little for it. Having been in the civil service yourself, maybe you can shed some light on that question.
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