Tom Schueneman's Climate Chronicles

The Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a measure on Tuesday night to fund a program providing loans to property owners for the installation of rooftop solar-power systems. The program is the first of its kind in the nation, which creates a new sustainable energy tax district (pdf) within the city.

Property owners who opt into the program will be given loans for solar systems and pay no up front costs. At an average cost $22,000 apiece (after a $6,108 rebate from the state-run California Solar Initiative), the systems will be paid for over a 20-year term. Homeowners pay off the loan as part of the property tax bill. The cost of the loan will run around $180 per month at an annual rate of 6.75%.

The innovative idea behind this city-run financial mechanism is that homeowners would pay for solar energy via an opt-in property tax increase that would be offset by annual savings on their electric bills.

It's called SB 375, a law which passed the California senate after winning passage in the assembly. It awaits Governor Schwarzenegger signature, and its a trailblazing measure designed to address both urban sprawl and the global warming emissions it produces.

The legislation's architect, Darrell Steinberg, says the bill reflects the triumph of months of intense negotiations among a diverse and typcially antagonistic collection of interests - as Steinburg dubs it, "the coalition of the impossible": environmental groups, builders, local and state governments, and affordable housing advocates.

"We choose to go...not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
-John Kennedy in his bid for an American moon landing before the end of 1969

With Al Gore's soaring speech last month calling for an America powered with electricity from 100% renewable sources, a stirring vision comes to mind of a Can Do America, an America that looks at the seemingly impossible and says "why not?"

But as David McClellan wrote the other day in SolveClimate, We need a plan. If why not, then how?

In his post, David laid out in clear, nuts n' bolts terms the daunting task we face transforming America's energy economy. By contrast, the moon-shot of the sixties was easy. A few (thousand) rocket scientists, seven dare-devil pilots with the "right stuff" to ride those rockets, and some smart guys with slide rules to point the rockets in the right direction. Before you know it you're on the moon.

Not to make light of that incredible achievement of 40 years ago, but Gore's call to "repower America" requires not just the best and the brightest, but all Americans, to make it happen.

We'll first need to find a way to break through intractable political grid-lock (starting with a long-term extension of the renewable energy tax credit by Congress) and create a policy framework that addresses in minute detail the technical and economic aspects of Gore's Grand Vision.

Has anyone even proposed creating such a plan?

Take a deep breath.

"So goes San Francisco, so goes California and so goes the nation"

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