A Possibility, Not a Novelty

Carter urges solar power

With a touch of pressagentry worthy of Disneyland, Jimmy Carter climbed to the roof of the West Wing of the White House one sunny morning last week to dedicate a $28,000 solar heating system. At the same time, he announced a solar energy program for the U.S. It sets a goal of meeting 20% of the nation's energy needs from all forms of solar energy by the year 2000.* Said Carter: "No foreign cartel can set the price of sun power, no one can embargo it."

Carter has long been a fan of solar energy. His inauguration stand was partly heated by the sun's rays, and on Sun Day last year he called for a "dawning of the second solar age." The Administration's new program is by no means the large-scale and probably wasteful crash effort advocated by solar enthusiasts at the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency. But it does call for $646 million to be spent on research in fiscal 1980. The program would be funded in part by revenues from the windfall tax on oil company profits from price deregulation. Said Energy Secretary James Schlesinger: "The program is designed to establish a habit of mind that looks at solar as a possibility and not as a novelty." Added White House Domestic Affairs Adviser Stuart Eizenstat: "Solar is a here-and-now technology."

Two main elements of Carter's plan:

P: A solar "bank" to subsidize and lower the interest charged by commercial institutions for loans to buy solar equipment. The Administration forecasts that the bank, which will have initial funding of $100 million, will result in more than 100,000 new solar units each year.

P: New, or higher, solar tax credits. New homes built with passive solar systems will get a 20% credit. Multifamily and commercial buildings will get a credit of $20 for every million B.T.U.s saved per year above the Government's energy performance standard.

"The programs are far more modest than we expected," said Denis Hayes, director of the Solar Lobby. Other solar lobbyists criticized the plan because funding is tied to the windfall profits tax, which has not been passed by Congress.

However valid the criticisms, the program does signal a switch in Government solar funding away from expensive and Utopian projects to simpler projects in individual homes, where oil consumption can be cut immediately.

That White House installation may not be the best of models, though. It will be used mainly to heat water for the staff mess kitchen and will save an estimated $1,000 worth of fuel annually.

That means it won't pay off its cost for nearly 30 years, not counting interest or inflation.

* "The Government uses an astonishingly broad definition of solar energy. It includes passive thermal systems, like the one on the White House roof that uses 32 glass panels to heat water, photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight to electricity, and also wind power, hydroelectric dams and the burning of wood.

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