The solar industry takes hold and growing.

The solar industry takes hold and growing.

Solar is the “Fastest Growing Industry in America” and Made Record Cost Reductions in 2010

By Climate Guest Blogger on Sep 16, 2011 at 5:44 pm

Stephen Lacey: The U.S. solar industry grew 102% last year and is on track to grow another 100% this year. What other industry doubled its growth during one of the worst economic periods in our history?
The GOP has been using the Solyndra debacle to talk about “pet alternative energy.” This nonsense ignores the incredible growth and cost reductions taking place in the solar industry. Since 2008, average PV prices have fallen 80%. And with innovative approaches to installation, the total installed cost of installations have fallen substantially as well.
A recent report found that America actually had a $1.9 billion trade surplus of solar products to the rest of the world in 2010. And that same report, put together by GTM Research, found that 73% of the economic value of a solar installation stays in the U.S. Rather than let the conversation be hijacked by the pro-pollution gang, we need to use the Solyndra story to continue talking about the domestic value of solar.
A recent report released by the Lawrence Berkeley Lab again illustrates the continued progress in the American solar market.
Reporting for Clean Technica, Andrew Burger gives us an overview of that report, and others.
The average cost of installing residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the US dropped a record 17% in 2010 and it continues to drop in 2011, an additional 11% through June, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s “Tracking the Sun IV”report.
Slowly but surely, the US market for solar PV power is growing and developing. Actually not so slowly. The US solar power market continued to grow at a record-breaking 66% pace in 2011′s first half. Domestic solar manufacturing rose 31%, while 1.1 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar power is under construction, according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) “US Solar Market Insight.”
Green jobs are growing as well. Some 93,500 Americans worked in the US solar industry in 2010, and more than half of the country’s solar companies are planning to expand hiring in 2011, according to The Solar Foundation’s “The National Solar Jobs Census.”

“The solar power industry is the fastest growing industry in America. We are delivering strong economic returns and good jobs at increasingly competitive prices, as this National Lab report shows. This report is further proof of what Americans from across the country already know: smart solar policy creates jobs and economic growth for communities hit hard by the recession,” said Rhone Resch, SEIA president and CEO.

The drastically lower cost of solar PV modules has been a big, but not the sole, factor in spurring growth. Costs outside of modules, which make up a significant percentage of overall costs, have been dropping as well, the report authors note.
Government support and public-private collaboration have been key to the success. The cost of labor for installation, overhead, balance of systems and other non-module costs decreased 18% year-to-year in 2010. While module costs are driven by global supply and demand, non-module costs are “most readily impacted by state and federal policies that accelerate deployment and remove market barriers,” they write.
“The impressive cost reductions highlighted in this report did not happen by accident. It took business innovation and market-building policies at all levels of government to achieve the necessary economies of scale,” commented Adam Browning, executive director of the grassroots Vote Solar Initiative.

“There has never been a better time for customers or utilities to harness the sun for power. It’s time to double down on our nation’s investment in this job-creating, homegrown energy resource.”

US solar power incentives are also delivering greater returns for investors, while government and industry incentives are falling, the researchers found. The average size of direct cash incentives from states and utilities, as well as dollar-per-watt value of the federal tax incentive “have both steadily decreased since their peak,” according to the Berkeley National Lab’s report.
Additional cost reductions in solar PV costs over the near-term are likely to be realized, given that current initiatives and support are sustained, the report authors conclude.
Germany has built the world’s leading solar market and industry, both on the supply and demand side. At $6.9/Watt, average installed solar PV systems costs in the US is significantly higher than in Germany, where the average cost to install a residential or commercial solar PV system was $4.2/W. Germany’s cumulative grid-connected solar PV capacity far surpasses that in the US — 17,000MW vs. 2,100MW.

Job applications on line. The personal recruiters are diminished but still exists for executives.

no more tax forms sent to homes

no more tax forms sent to homes, a year later  tax forms sent to public libraries and post offices. Now none of that and may be for some selected libraries in urban areas.

Forests saved: No more federal tax forms in the mail

Jan 28, 2011 

Don’t expect to see a tax package from the IRS in your mailbox this filing season. The agency recently announced that it will no longer mail annual tax forms, including Publication 17, its hefty instruction booklet.
The IRS cited cost considerations for its decision as well as the growth in electronic filing, which eliminates the need for a paper form. In the last tax season, only 8 percent of filers had paper tax forms sent to them by mail. The rest either filed electronically, used a tax-preparation software program (which generates the forms), or had a tax preparer handle the job.
If you want to file a paper return this year, you can get the forms you need at local IRS offices, some libraries, and post offices. Or you can download them from the IRS website now.

http://news.consumerreports.org/money/2011/01/no-more-tax-forms-in-the-mail.html

No more stock prices tables in newspapers.

No more daily stock prices tables in newspapers. The internet and smart phones are used instead.

MARAAT NUMAN, Syria — Each morning, after saluting the Syrian flag and before the warplanes take off, soldiers at army bases across Syria are given political orientation.

During the lectures, conscripts and career officers alike are repeatedly told that opposition forces are fueled by sectarian hatred and want to tear the country apart. The message — of a war waged by Sunni Muslims against Syria's Alawite and Shiite minorities — is well understood.

To Syrian soldiers, "It has essentially become sectarian; the Sunnis fight out of fear and the Alawites fight out of conviction," said Muhammad Zinedden, a Sunni conscript who defected in February from the 17th Engineering Regiment in Raqqa province.

Sectarian politics have long played a role in the Syrian government and military. The highest ranks in both are dominated by those among the Alawite sect, to which embattled President Bashar Assad belongs. Now sectarianism may guarantee that fighting will continue even if Assad falls, setting the stage for a civil war fought between militias, much like what happened in neighboring Lebanon.

As soldiers flee the army in droves, defectors say they are being replaced by Alawite and Shiite volunteer militiamen, and sometimes women, who are strongly convinced by the government's sectarian warnings.

"The current army can't last more than a few months, but there are shabiha [militiamen] who are volunteering," Zinedden said. "And they are fighting better than the army and they will extend the life of the army. For them this is a jihad."

The Syrian army fell from 220,000 troops to about half that strength last fall because of defections and battlefield losses, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies' annual Military Balance assessment. Defections since then have further weakened the army.

The government can now depend on the loyalty of about 50,000 regular troops, including the mainly Alawite Special Forces, Republican Guard and elite 3rd and 4th divisions,according to the institute.

They are buttressed by the shabiha, who have violently cracked down on dissent since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011 and have been accused of committing some of the most brutal acts of the war. Also growing in strength are "popular committees," made up of minorities who have taken up arms to protect their districts from opposition fighters, according to a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The pro-Assad militias and the popular committees coordinate with and receive direct support from the Assad government, as well as Shiite Iran and the Lebanese-based Shiite militia group Hezbollah, according to the report "The Assad regime: from counterinsurgency to civil war."

Motivated by a fear of retribution from a mostly Sunni opposition, soldiers and militiamen have formed an ultra-nationalist and mostly Alawite force with the common goal of survival.

"Whether or not the regime falls, the country will split into rival cantons governed by militias," Joseph Holliday, author of the report, wrote in an email. "The scale of population displacement ... means that the country may have been heterogeneous in the past, but everyone has clustered around co-religious/sectarian groups over the past year."

Even within the military, divisions are becoming more pronounced. Air force Col. Yousef Al-Assad, a MIG-23 pilot who defected in autumn from the Dumair military airport in the suburbs of Damascus, flew no missions during the current conflict. As a Sunni, he was banned from going near the planes. Only pilots from certain minority sects were allowed to fly, he said.

"They would tell us clearly, 'You Sunnis are not trusted.'" he said. "And we were not included in many of the operations meetings."

In the past, distinguishing between sects was subtle, he said. Now it has become overt in an effort to sow hostility and distrust between Syrians, he said.

But the situation is not entirely black and white. Defectors tell of Sunnis willing to fight for the government and Alawites who want to defect but fear what fate might await them among an opposition that increasingly looks at all Alawites and Shiites as loyalist supporters.

Ali Muhammad Dibo, a Sunni from Qamishli, tried to defect in early March from the Hamidia military base, but was caught and imprisoned for more than a week. He and his fellow deserters got a second chance when the three Alawite officers guarding them defected themselves.

"Some Alawites are afraid of defecting because they know that if they leave they will be imprisoned and tried," he said. "They feel stuck. They are afraid of what sects might be outside the base and that there might be foreign fighters who will kill them."

His friend Qadeeb Al-Ban said, "The Alawite knows he's dead either way; he knows if he defects theFree Syrian Army will kill him, so he stays and fights."

The opposition says that to counteract defections, the government is forcing young men of military service age to join the army. These men are grabbed at checkpoints that dot government-controlled areas. State media have denied such allegations and insist the military is at its "highest levels of readiness and capability."

Most conscripts who have finished their required service term have yet to be discharged. Keeping them within the army bases prevents some of them from joining opposition forces, according to defectors.

Despite personnel losses, the military has remained strong. Defectors report that depleted government arsenals, mostly of old Soviet-era weapons, are replenished by shipments from Iran and Hezbollah. These allies are also said to be sending fighters.

Last month, the head of Hezbollah said his group would not allow Assad's government to be overthrown and acknowledged that some of its fighters had been killed in Syria.

"The Free Syrian Army shoots one bullet and the regime army shoots a thousand bullets; they don't care, there is plenty," defector Zinedden said.

Even in bases besieged by rebel fighters, the arsenals remain robust.

"There is no shortage of ammunition or weapons; it is like a military warehouse," said Ahmad Qadeeb Alban, a Sunni of Kurdish heritage who defected in March from the Syrian army's Hamidia base, which overlooks a strategic highway in Idlib province. "They have enough for another two years."