SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
solar power
Economic Self-Interest Will Draw Millions To Solar Energy
A good investment never did so much good. Eventually, more and more people will realize it.
Dec 15, 2025
Many Americans who don’t believe in global warming will opt to invest in solar energy simply because it will save them lots of money.
Unfortunately, not everyone can install solar panels on their roofs. People in apartments or renting will not have that opportunity, though some might cash in through community solar organizations or plug-in solar --- portable panels that can be placed on balconies or in yards.
Even some single-family homes may have roofs aimed the wrong direction or too shaded. But for those with suitable houses, solar panels are increasingly a no-brainer.
In 2019 we installed 32 panels on our home roof at a cost of about $18,000--- about $22,000 in 2025 dollars. However a 30% federal tax credit reduced our out of pocket cost to about $12,600.
Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” repeals the federal tax credit starting in January, but solar panels remain an excellent investment.
In seven years, our panels have generated more than 72,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity. This would have cost us more than $7,250 at the local price of ten cents per kilowatt-hour. Thus, in less than seven years our panels have saved us more than half of what we paid for them. And they should be good for 25 years, or more.
They have generated more than half of the electricity we have used in our all-electric household, including charging up the battery in our electric car, a Chevrolet Bolt EV. To indicate how much energy 72,500 kilowatt-hours represents, that would be enough to drive our electric car about 280,000 miles!
The cost of installing solar panels may come down further. The panels themselves are getting cheaper. And for various reasons, including local building regulations, installation costs in the U.S. are much higher than in some other countries. Many cities are exploring how to make local laws more receptive to solar.
Maximum benefit from solar panels will come if you pay cash for them rather than borrowing the money and paying interest on it. Assuming you have money that you might otherwise invest in a CD, bonds, or stocks, just compare what such investments would earn compared to what the solar panels would save you.
Assuming panels would cost you $20,000, investing that amount instead in a 3% CD would bring in $600 a year in taxable income, so maybe you would have $450 after taxes. In 7 years, after tax interest would come to $3150, less than half of what we have saved during that same period with our solar panels. Of course, with stocks and bonds you very likely have something left at the end of solar panels' lives.
Bond funds currently earn about the same 3% interest, and of course with stocks you never know what they will earn and also face the danger that they will suffer from a Wall Street crash.
And taking taxes into consideration, the money solar panels save you provides the equivalent of tax-free income, so a $7,250 saving over 7 years would leave as much in your pocket as $9600 in taxable income would have, assuming you are in a 25% marginal tax bracket.
Furthermore, remember that the price of electricity will undoubtedly go up. The savings from having solar panels will therefore also increase, making them an even better investment.
I don’t recommend borrowing to pay for solar panels. But if you are considering this, be sure to subtract the interest you would be paying on the loan from the benefits the panels will produce before you sign anything. It may not pencil out.
Check out your solar installer – most are reputable, but perhaps not all. The installer can tell you how well your local utility treats customers with solar panels, which can vary greatly.
And be ultra cautious about anybody offering to install solar panels for “free.” They will retain a property right in the panels until you pay them off, which could scare off buyers if you need to sell the property.
There truly is no free lunch! But solar panels can be the next best thing.
Keep ReadingShow Less
COP30 Was Another Failed Climate Summit, But the Path Away From Fossil Fuels Is Here
The path from COP30 requires fewer pledges and more enforceable governance. Countries already know what must be done. They must do it.
Nov 30, 2025
It appeared to be a grim déjà vu when the final gavel dropped in Belem, Brazil and the COP30 text once again avoided naming fossil fuels.
But this apparent diplomatic failure obscured something more consequential: after hours of fraught, last-minute negotiations, countries reaffirmed the “United Arab Emirates consensus” from COP28 — the only UN agreement to date to reference a fossil-fuel phaseout. And the pathway it implies is already taking shape. In April, Colombia and the Netherlands will convene governments in Santa Marta, Colombia for the first global summit dedicated explicitly to the transition away from fossil fuels.
Tripling Renewable Energy, Doubling Efficiency, and Cutting Methane
At COP28 in Dubai, governments committed to tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. Combined with deep cuts to fossil methane, these pledges form a powerful trio. According to the Climate Action Tracker, fully implementing them would reduce projected warming by about 0.9°C this century, from 2.6˚C to 1.7˚C — enough to determine whether Paris Agreement targets remains within reach. If delivered, they would do more to collapse fossil-fuel demand than any language missing from the COP30 outcome text.
The energy system is already shifting. In the last two years, China has driven an unprecedented solar surge — adding more capacity in 2024 alone than the rest of the world combined, now hosting roughly half of global installed solar power, and exporting ultra-cheap panels that are flooding markets globally. As solar prices plunge, renewables are undercutting coal and gas markets globally. Doubling energy efficiency, if it can be achieved, cuts demand at a scale equivalent to adding vast new clean-power capacity, but without the economic and environmental burden of new plants.
Deep cuts to fossil methane — the primary component of gas, and a climate pollutant roughly 80 times more powerful than CO₂ over 20 years — require producers to eliminate leakage, venting, and routine flaring. These measures raise compliance costs, increase saleable gas, and make new fossil expansion harder to justify. Taken together, these commitments amount to a key part of the de facto fossil-fuel phaseout pathway.
But voluntary pledges alone won’t get us there. The Global Methane Status Report 2025 finds that despite over 150 countries endorsing the Global Methane Pledge, methane emissions continue to rise.
And even when we look beyond voluntary pledges to the domestic laws, regulations, and policy measures that represent a plan of action — as reflected in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Methane Action Plans — the gap remains enormous. Fully implementing all NDCs would cut global methane emissions by only about 8 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. That is far short of the 30 percent Global Methane Pledge goal and well below the 45 percent cut UNEP associates with keeping 1.5°C within reach.
The EU Leads the Way on Methane Regulation
The missing ingredient is enforcement — and the most important development on that front is not the Global Methane Pledge but the EU Methane Regulation.
Adopted in 2024, the EU rules apply not only to methane emitted within Europe but also to imported fossil fuels. Because the EU is the world’s largest importer of oil and gas — and its suppliers account for roughly 30 percent of global oil and gas methane emissions — these rules may do more to cut global methane than any voluntary pledge ever could. For the first time, countries exporting gas and oil to Europe must meet strict leak-detection, monitoring, and venting and flaring requirements. Non-compliant fuels can effectively be shut out of the EU market.
This is regulatory gravity: when the world’s largest buyer sets a standard, producers must adapt or lose access.
Some already have. Companies like ConocoPhillips have set near-zero methane-intensity targets by 2030 and earned top-tier marks for emissions reporting — clear signals that they intend to compete under strict import regimes. Meanwhile, fossil-fuel trade groups are lobbying aggressively to weaken the EU rules, arguing they threaten U.S. LNG exports. Investors disagree: in October, asset managers representing over €4.5 trillion urged the EU not to dilute nor delay its methane law, highlighting methane as a material financial risk.
The deeper truth is that the EU methane rules are already going beyond the Global Methane Pledge and achieving reductions in fossil-methane emissions across borders, backed by market access and legal penalties rather than voluntary promises.
Science points in the same direction. The International Energy Agency concludes that methane from fossil-fuel operations could be cut by around 75 percent by 2030 using technologies available today. Combined with renewable and efficiency pledges, these reductions undermine the economic case for expanding fossil-fuel production. New LNG terminals, oil fields, and long-lived gas infrastructure would rapidly become uneconomic — stranded assets in the making.
Pledges Are Not a Plan
Methane is responsible for roughly a third to a half of today’s warming, and because it is short-lived, rapid reductions can deliver measurable cooling within a decade. Without binding limits on fossil methane, the world cannot meet its climate goals, no matter how fast renewable energy grows.
This is the real lesson of COP30: pledges are not a plan. Tripling renewables, doubling efficiency, and slashing methane can transform global energy systems — but only if they are backed by binding rules, border measures, and enforcement. The EU methane regulations represent the first serious attempt at such enforcement.
The next opportunity to broaden that effort will not come at COP31, but in April 2026, when Colombia and the Netherlands co-host the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta.
It will be the first global summit to center the production side of the climate crisis. And it exists because grassroots movements made it unavoidable: years of pressure from youth organizers, Indigenous land defenders, and frontline communities pushed governments and companies toward positions once dismissed as radical — including today’s mainstream demand for a fair, full fossil fuel phaseout. Santa Marta is happening not as a symbolic gesture, but because people insisted on real action.
If COP30 could not bring itself to state that fossil fuels must be phased out, Santa Marta can. And it can ground that commitment in the tools governments have already endorsed: accelerated renewables, deep efficiency gains, and enforceable methane standards — led, in practice, by the EU.
For the United States, the moment is defining. Federal methane rules are being dismantled. But U.S. states need not wait. Colorado, New Mexico, and California already have some of the strongest methane rules in the world. By aligning with Europe’s approach — and sending governors or senior officials to Santa Marta — they can help build a transatlantic coalition for binding methane limits and an orderly fossil-fuel phase-down.
The path from COP30 requires fewer pledges and more enforceable governance. Countries already know what must be done. The task now is to turn an implicit roadmap into a binding framework capable of delivering the cuts that matter most — starting with methane in the oil and gas sector.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Led by Sanders, Senate Democrats Demand Trump EPA Restore Solar Funding as Energy Prices Soar
"The EPA’s illegal termination of Solar for All has left states, communities, and businesses across the country in limbo, with critical projects stalled and vulnerable households facing higher energy costs."
Oct 16, 2025
Warning that the US Environmental Protection Agency's termination of the Solar for All program this year came at an especially inopportune time, with electricity bills soaring for families across the country, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday led 32 members of the Democratic caucus in demanding that the Trump administration restore the program.
The Solar for All initiative, which was spearheaded by Sanders (I-Vt.), was meant to create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs while allowing low-income households to benefit from renewable energy.
If EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin had not illegally pulled $7 billion that had already been appropriated by Congress, said the lawmakers, Solar for All would have lowered residential electricity bills by at least 20% for nearly 1 million homes and saved working families nearly $9 billion in electric costs.
"Solar for All strongly aligns with the bipartisan goals of facilitating American energy independence and strengthening grid reliability," wrote the senators, who also included Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "Your agency’s decision to terminate Solar for All is not only unlawful—given this funding was congressionally appropriated and fully obligated—but also ill-timed."
With electricity bills 6.2% higher than they were at this time last year, said the lawmakers, Solar for All could have saved American families $350 million annually.
It would also have been a step toward reducing fossil fuel emissions at a time when scientists have warned immediate, far-reaching action is needed to avoid the worst impacts of planetary heating and to protect the Earth from damage that has already reached a tipping point, in the case of coral reefs.
"EPA’s reckless decision to terminate Solar for All directly undermines efforts by Congress to reduce energy costs and improve grid resilience," said the senators. "It jeopardizes economic investments and inflicts severe job losses across the country while undermining the trust and financial certainty that communities, businesses, and local governments have placed in the federal government. Further, it disrupts workforce training initiatives, such as those in West Virginia, Alaska, and across the Midwest where solar career pathways and apprenticeship programs are already underway."
"The EPA’s illegal termination of Solar for All has left states, communities, and businesses across the country in limbo, with critical projects stalled and vulnerable households facing higher energy costs," they added.
"EPA’s reckless decision to terminate Solar for All directly undermines efforts by Congress to reduce energy costs and improve grid resilience."
The letter came as at least 23 states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for canceling funding for Solar for All.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told Courthouse News Service that the $156 million awarded to her state through the program would have led to energy savings for households and thousands of new jobs, while the 61 megawatts of clean energy generated from panels would have prevented at least 90,000 tons of CO2 emissions in Arizona annually.
“Families all over the country were counting on energy bill relief that disappeared overnight when the administration unlawfully terminated Solar for All,” Nick Torrey, an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center who is representing advocacy groups that also filed a lawsuit last week, told Courthouse News.
In their letter, the senators demanded that "the EPA immediately reinstate the Solar for All program, rectify the damage caused by this termination, and ensure grantees can proceed with the swift implementation of residential solar projects to slash utility bills and create many thousands of good jobs."
"In the meantime," they wrote, "we require a full accounting of how the EPA will repair the damage caused by this program’s disruptive termination."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular