U.S. Consumers Demand More Solar
Today is the summer solstice, the day the sun shines in the northern hemisphere for the longest period of time all year. In recognition of this day and the ongoing debate concerning energy reform legislation, Applied Materials, the world’s leading supplier of solar panel manufacturing equipment, conducted its second annual survey to gauge the public’s current knowledge and opinion of solar energy usage in the U.S.
Survey Results
According to the survey, Americans are strongly supportive of integrating renewable energy sources into the country’s overall energy mix:
- Consistent with last year’s results, two-thirds of Americans strongly agree that solar energy needs to have a greater role in the country’s energy output.
- More Americans are willing to invest in renewable energy (67% versus 53%); 49% would be willing to pay $5 or more per month if their utility company increased its use of renewable energy, compared to 35% in 2009.
- Three-quarters of respondents felt it was very important that the current U.S. energy bill address increasing renewable energy (75%) and decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil (73%).
For the complete survey results and key findings open the PDF attached at the bottom of this post.
Twitterstorms
To continue the dialogue around solar energy, all this week, Applied Materials will be hosting a series of “Twitterstorms,” online conversations with different experts on the various aspects of solar including, comprehensive climate & energy legislation, utility scale solar, the solar industry in China and the benefits of solar installations, to name a few. We hope you will be able to participate and join in on the conversation — check out each day’s topic and expert.
Leading Supplier
Applied Materials is the world's leading supplier of equipment to manufacture semiconductors, flat panel displays and solar panels. Using its 40-years of engineering innovation it has driven down the cost of transistors by a factor of 20 million and enabled ultra-large TV screens to become more affordable.
The Company’s solar strategy is to bring significant change to the industry by enabling lower cost-per-watt solutions for solar cell manufacturing—with the goal of making solar a more meaningful contributor to the global energy supply.
Since entering the solar market in 2006 Applied has established itself as the world’s largest supplier of solar PV manufacturing equipment and has received several prestigious innovation awards for solar technology including the Platts Global Energy and Wall Street Journal Technology Awards. Visit the Applied Materials web site for more information on our technology and products that help reduce the need to burn fossil fuels and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Bookmark/search this post with:
Keywords:
ABOUT THE BLOG
Popular Posts
January 29, 2010
September 16, 2009
September 2, 2009
September 3, 2009
February 24, 2010
to receive subscriptions
to manage your subscriptions
JOIN US †
Join us on Facebook,Twitter and YouTube
Comments
Re: Mark H
Mark H,
Efficiency and optimum angles are only part of the story. With enough panels (space), current efficiency is plenty efficient to offset coal and oil.
And this is getting too cliche, but in terms of amount of sunlight in the Midwest, Germany has far less sun hours than the Midwest and doing just fine producing abundant clean energy with both solar PV and solar thermal (hot water).
And of course, solar doesn't blow up or spill, nor does it push dangerous pollutants into the air. Many other benefits to.
U.S. Consumers Demand More Solar
Excuse me but who did you survey, the employees or the family members that work in the solar industry? Solar is better suited to satellites where they be manipulated to be in the sun 100% of the time.
The solar panels are only as much as 35% efficient when photon activity is at optimum. They just don't work when the sun is too high which is all winter here in the midwest.
The price for kilowatt hour is just too great.
No one in there right mind would want solar unless they lived in a desert.
U.S. Consumers Demand More Solar
It is always better to study the recent advances made in Solar before commenting like this. When you see what is happening in this field all over the world you will understand the truth. If necessary please follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/Gnanal to know more about solar.
Post new comment