47. While moving to a circular economy with 100% recycling rates is essential in the long run, it’s not a challenge for PV in particular; few PV panels have been recycled to date only because the vast majority are still in use.

There are a lot of bigger recycling challenges...

38. Ordinary people have no idea how much progress we’ve made. Tell people at parties that UK carbon emissions in 2023 were at their lowest level since 1879, for example. Most developed economies are now reducing carbon emissions without lowering quality of life.

25. To put it another way: when you tell an energy future model to optimise a power portfolio for clean power adequacy, it will give you more wind and less solar than when you tell it to optimise a least-cost electricity sector development.

19. In general this is a problem for solar: a distributed industry with low barriers to entry, and therefore few large firms, has little lobbying power. Industry associations work against this to advocate for the interests of renewables, against those of consolidated industries like fossil fuels.

14. Low power prices may be great for consumers but they are very bad if you're trying to build more clean power plants. Without demand-side flexibility measures, the energy transition will fail before fully pushing fossil fuel out of the mix. Which is what we must do.

💯tending is needed!
+ in my city, the democratic control setup at the start is insufficient. The utility sees the community as an obstacle. Structures aren’t in place to give citizens a decision-making role, and electeds rely on staff for info as if it were neutral. Hard to fight for change this way

“This analysis shows that relying on fossil fuels in a warming world is a path to disaster, not energy security. Countries face a choice: stick with fossil fuels and risk supply disruptions as rising seas flood ports and terminals, or transition to secure, sustainable domestic renewables.”

The recommendations in this link from your post are a great starting point, esp #2

2. Deeper Democratic Governance. Unite around increasing democratic governance and control.

I agree public power is worlds better than for-profit but am mindful that governance matters so much. My local muni pushes fossil power and fights customer solar. It’s entrenched utility & city staff and under-resourced city council pressured by those who blame rate increases on DG & renewables.

It sounds you’re thinking of saving costs by going diy and not tied into the grid. I’ve thought about that. I wonder if a big portable system that’s already packaged up would be easier than building diy. This idea but bigger:
www.cnet.com/home/energy-...
But maybe not what you’re thinking of?

I’ve always heard ground-mount is more expensive because it require more steel. Maybe it’s different for DIY? Especially if it uses alternative framing materials. But I’d be surprised, so I’m interested to see if you hear anything pointing in that direction.
www.energysage.com/solar/altern...

We need an emoji for “I unsubscribed and am hoping the good reporters will all resign and form a digital news co-op”

nonprofitquarterly.org/a-new-busine...

“Enough” means being on a path to net zero emissions by 2040. Anything less than that is not enough.