This article also ran on AOL Energy.

Robert Bryce penned another one of his usual contrarian energy pieces earlier this week. In an Op Ed for the New York Times, titled ‘The Gas Is Greener’, he made some poorly formulated arguments in favor of natural gas and nuclear while throwing mud at wind and solar power. It must be desperate times indeed in the conventional power business when wind and solar earn such spleen.

Mr. Bryce’s first argument is that the land use associated with wind and solar power is ‘profligate’ and untenably wasteful. He works through some simple math in an attempt to horrify readers with the possibility that such power sources might need 129 square miles of area to supply California’s renewable energy needs. Let’s do some simple math of our own to put his numbers in perspective. California has an area of 163,707 square miles. Mr. Bryce’s ‘big number’ amounts to just 0.08% (eight one-hundredths of a percent) of California’s total area. I think most Californians would agree that seems like a reasonable use of land for the payoff of clean, sustainable power in perpetuity.

In what can only be characterized as an odd canard, Mr. Bryce then attempts to shoot down wind power on the basis of its overuse of steel. Using some simple math again as a smokescreen, he makes the point that, on a per-megawatt basis, wind turbines use 4 times the amount of steel of a natural gas turbine. I’m not sure exactly what his point is. Yes, steel is somewhat energy- and transportation-intensive and thus contributes to wind’s embedded carbon footprint. However, his analysis ignores the obvious and critical point that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Burning natural gas to create electricity is ultimately far more carbon-intensive than the footprint associated with wind’s steel usage.

Innuendo is the favorite rhetorical tool of mudslingers and Mr. Bryce is clearly a champion. Suggesting the green community is ‘deeply divided’ around these issues is reminiscent of the claim that ‘scientists disagree’ about the causes of climate change. By casting the disagreement as a profound philosophical quandary, Mr. Bryce hopes to cast doubt on the thesis of green power itself. (“See,” he says. “Even they can’t agree on the answer so it must all be untrue!”)

There are two fallacies here. First, the green community is not ‘deeply divided.’ Rather I would say that the green community is working through the issue of how to balance the global threat of climate change with the preservation of local land resources. This is a classic public goods issue that requires some careful thought but will ultimately be resolved (remember after all we’re talking about less than 1/10^th of one percent of our land). Second, even if we were to imagine the green community ‘deeply divided’ on this issue, it is doubtful any of them would rush to embrace Mr. Bryce’s thesis that the only answer is natural gas and nuclear!

This insight by itself reveals this argument as nothing more than rhetorical flourish, empty of any real meaning or insight that might lead us to an answer. The answer on this issue will come from the current debate happening in the green community and through the permitting process by which we are deciding how to balance the use of land and our need for cleaner sources of energy.

How natural gas and nuclear energy provide a preferable answer for Mr. Bryce is beyond me. While I support an ‘all of the above’ energy policy, I would never put all our eggs in those two baskets. We have a tremendous new discovery of shale gas in this country that may last us anywhere from 40 to 100 years at current consumption. Supporting our future energy needs exclusively on this resource would only hasten its depletion, leaving us dependent once again on foreign imports. Talk about kicking the can down the road and forcing our children to deal with problems we can deal with today.

The truth is that all energy sources have costs and risks. Population growth and society’s advancement along an ever increasing technological path requires a response. We need more sources of energy and we need to be ever more efficient in our use of energy. We need to choose a path that balances our need for power, our desire to reduce carbon pollution, our need for energy independence, and to minimize the impact on our local air, land, and water supplies.

We’re at an incredibly important turning point in the history of renewables. Solar and wind are on the cusp of true competitive parity with conventional energy (within 3-5 years). They are clearly a BIG part of the answer to our future energy needs. Perhaps the reason we’re seeing more and more allergic reactions like Mr. Bryce’s from the conventional power side of the industry to renewables is that they’re finally posing a long-term threat to the dominance of the status quo. In that sense, articles like Mr. Bryce’s are a welcome and very good sign.

This article also ran on National Geographic’s The Great Energy Challenge blog curated by Planet Forward.

For the past two months, solar industry analysts have been glued to an Italian soap opera as the government repeatedly flip-flopped on its Feed-In Tariff (FiT) policy, a controversial tool that European governments have used to promote the rapid adoption of renewable energy through direct incentives. Conflicting reports made it very difficult to determine what was happening in Italy. The details are still not entirely clear, but the outcome will involve new limits and has significantly disrupted the solar market and prices. The response to such extreme uncertainty has been that Italian solar module orders and project construction have ground to a complete halt. The only solace for manufacturers watching this unfold was the comfort that came from knowing Germany, the country that pioneered the use of the FiT and in the process became the world’s leading solar market, was on solid ground.

Late last month, however, German Chancellor Angela Merkel provided the next plot twist in the unfolding drama. After a week that involved discussions with the chiefs of Germany’s four major electricity companies, on May 13 she made some surprising remarks that may mean Germany’s FiT is up for adjustment next. This is how Bloomberg reported it:

‘Germany’s subsidies for solar power may be too high, Chancellor Angela Merkel said. While solar receives half of the German government’s aid for alternative energy, it accounts for only 2 percent of the 17 percent of electricity generated from renewable sources, Merkel told a conference of her Christian Democratic Union party in Berlin today. “We do have to think about whether we can keep this up,” she said.’’

A major change to German and Italian FiTs could radically reshape global demand for solar modules and hasten the transition to competitive markets. Despite the challenges this presents for manufacturers, I would argue this is exactly what the renewable energy market needs if it wants to truly become mainstream.

There’s a good reason this news is getting so much attention. Germany and Italy together made up 64% of global solar demand last year.

There’s a direct connection between the price Europe sets for its incentives and the price of solar modules worldwide. Over the past couple of years, reductions in European FiTs have resulted in a steep reduction in the price of solar modules. An interesting result is that as module prices have dropped, demand has begun to emerge in non-European parts of the world (e.g. the US). Demand is emerging because module prices have reached a point where electricity generated by a solar PV plant is become very competitive with other mainstream renewables (e.g. wind), the first step in the path to price parity.

This dynamic represents the first step in the evolution of the global market towards competitively driven demand for renewables versus fossil fuels – in other words, a more sustainable world. Utilities who need to procure renewables for regulatory compliance are snapping up solar at a rapid pace. The next evolutionary milestone will come several years from now as solar becomes competitive in ALL markets with conventional electricity generation.

While analysts may wring their hands about near term disruptions in European solar markets and the impact on individual solar stocks, I think hidden in this crisis are the seeds of a promising future. The solar industry, and the renewable energy industry as a whole, need to make the transition from dependence on FiTs to a new future that relies more on competitive markets. FiT disruptions may be painful in the short run, but the best thing for emergence of a mature renewable energy industry is continued rapid price declines and the transition to truly competitive power markets.