Here's to the day when 'green' is no longer revolutionary (Maine)

[jpak]

http://www.sunjournal.com/news/columns-analysis/2011/10/23/heres-day-when-green-no-longer-revolutionary/1105035

Local businessman Jim Wellehan, a self-described “environmental geek,” should be applauded for spending $189,000 to sheath the roof of his Auburn shoe store in photovoltaic (electricity generating) solar panels, a project completed this month.

Environmental enthusiasm aside, however, Wellehan‘s bottom-line motives for undertaking this project suggest the kind of public policies and economic incentives that are needed to make the “green revolution” a success. They include a Rural Development Authority grant for 25 percent of the project’s costs, a $2,000 grant from Energy Maine, a 30 percent federal tax credit and 1 percent financing on $35,000.

Wellehan crunched the numbers and figured out his solar setup, with an estimated lifespan of 25 to 35 years, would pay for itself after the first seven or eight years through annual energy operational savings and generate free electricity thereafter.

“Hot, Flat and Crowded” by Thomas L. Friedman (published in 2008), perhaps the best popular book yet written on the critical importance of restructuring America’s energy system, offers a global context for understanding local business decisions like Wellehan’s.

<more>