Just had a great conversation with Steve Patton of Bay Solar Power Design tonight. He was quite glad to tell me about the penetration of solar power in the Pacifica community. I recall many cloudy days in Pacifica. Now, if that sort of cloudy city can make a fair go of solar power installations, there's no reason why other locales cannot do even better.

San Francisco definitely got solarized by Vote Solar.

Steve shared with me a ballpark calculator for installing solar power in your home.

1. kWh day x 200 = Wattage of System Production

2. Wattage x $6.50 = Cost of Solar Power Installation

Examples:

Using 10 kWh/day would require 2 kW (2,000 watts) production x $6.50 = $13,000

And 40 kWh/day would be a 8 kW system, or $56,000.

Remember, call for discounts! Also look for energy efficiency savings around the home to cut down usage. Read your PG&E bill carefully.

The payback on most solar systems is rapidly dropping below 10 years now, and if the cost of energy goes up with rising oil and gas prices, then the savings should happen far sooner.

Mother Earth News ran an article on how to calculate your ROI once you get a price quote on a system. They even posted a solar power ROI calculator as an Excel spreadsheet.

The issue with solar power is that people have to see it as a long-term investment. In a world where the average savings is far down and many people are worrying about short-term money management, one might think to put it off. Yet it is an investment in one's home, and in the world.

20/20 by 2020 is a political movement.

The revolution starts now.

The goal is simple.

Let's convert to more renewable energy sources so that by the year 2020, 20% of the world's energy demands are met by wind power, and 20% by solar power.

The eventual goal is to get as close as possible to 100% renewable energy by 2100. Admittedly a specious goal, because of the debate over "100%" and "renewable." There will be other forms of energy in the mix of requirements necessary to support our ecological and economic demands. Energy is always lost in power utility; you cannot truly renew energy without some admission of loss or entropy in the system any more than you can believe in a perpetual motion machine. There are also likely times when renewable power systems are inappropriate. Renewable energy is not "free," and such systems, no matter how "green" they seem, do have environmental impact. We need to be sober-minded and admit the costs and limitations of these means of power production, even while touting and championing their success. It is simply truthful to admit that these systems have less impact on the world in terms of consummable fuel utility for the production of power than other comparable energy systems.

If we cannot get to 20/20 by 2020, we should get as close as possible.

If we can achieve some significant measure towards this goal, the world will be in a significantly better state, ecologically and economically.

If we cannot do this for the whole world, then let's set this as a goal for each nation.

If we cannot do this for a whole nation, then let us set this as a goal for our region, our state, our county, our municipality, home or business.

If we work well together, we will make progress, friends, and fortunes developing this new power utility sector.

If we work towards this as a strategic goal as a species, eager for well-being and survival, then we will succeed.

If we build it, it will hum.

20/20 is not a government-funded project. Nor is it funded by a power company. It was simply an emergent meme whose time had come. An idea that I came up with thinking about the present revolution in the energy sector. Who am I? I'm Peter Corless. A contientious and concerned citizen of the world.

Moving to 20/20 by 2020 would be one of the world's great macroengineering projects, in line with the Great Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China. Yet it would be a project with a much clearer Return on Investment (ROI) for the investors and inhabitants of the world.

If you personally are a backer of other energy technologies, whether petrochemical, nuclear, hydroelectric or tidal, geothermal or biomass, you know that the answer is "yes!" Like Captain Kirk on the Enterprise, the captains of Spaceship Earth are saying, "Scotty, we need more power!" We cannot leave aside a single joule, watt, and certainly we cannot ignore the source of more quads (quadrillions of BTUs) necessary to sustain our growing world population.

As a final note, I'd like to dedicate this project to Thomas Dolby (Thomas Robertson), who, back on the Golden Age of Wireless, wrote the project's unofficial theme song Wind Power. (Thomas, if you come across this, please let me know if you would bless the notion, and we'll make it official.)

Onwards to our future!

-Peter Corless.