Great discussions! Liquidate, I don't think anyone has ever suggested we are going to operate everything 100% on solar in this Country. 10% is reasonable to expect as a supplemental energy source according to alternative energy supporters.
Where your retort falls apart is thinking that someone would consider installing & maintaining 3/4 of a million square feet of solar panel for one facility in order to fulfill 100% of their energy needs, that approach to this discussion is unsupportable at best.
And this is where most lay people fall short in their thought process when they approach solar, or any alternative energy source.
Let's follow the pioneers thinking on this subject matter;
My background in strategic development research has brought me in touch with some of the "hippie pioneers" of alternative energy. They can be pretty far out there in their thought process, but they are the ones that helped bring this technology to where it is today so who am I to argue? One in particular lives 100% off the grid and incorporates rain water collection, LED/CFL light technology, water cooling, thermal mass storage, wind, solar, wood heat & cooking and a host of other alternative methods to support his off the grid lifestyle. Radical, but knowledgeably someone who understand this industry & it's direction far better than I.
I've ran some of these scenarios past them for their thoughts. Their take is to be competitive in a world of increasing energy costs, incorporating any form of alternative energy source, wind, solar, wood waste, water, nuclear, ect, ect, that would decrease a facilities energy use would allow them to have a competitive advantage over facilities that had not incorporated any form of alternative energy.
Their comments were that solar has never been the total answer to the equation but just one of a long list of potential answers. They also talked about conventional issues such as air infiltration, window placement, insulation, construction materials, building placement and on & on......
They did inform me the long-term thought is that solar energy production holds some of the most promise of advancement through technology to increase its current output over other forms such as wind or water and that they felt solar had the least amount of maintenance issues over a 30+ year life span.
They had told me there is less hope of advancement in generation output for wind & water unless the basics of speed to output factors can be manipulated further than current models.
Saving 10% can most certainly be the difference between business sustainability and failure. And that is at current energy costs, which I wouldn't bet against raising.
This Country has graduated from wood to coal to oil to natural gas & nuclear as each previous energy source became more costly or scare. Alternative will become the common just as our current forms of energy did. And costs will decrease as that happens.
You may not be old enough to fathom this, but there was a time not far removed from our own when gas lighting in our city homes & streets was the preferred source of lighting as electric was considered "alternative", "expensive", "unsafe" and not trusted!
Whether we like it, embrace it, or even understand it, energy sources currently considered "alternative" will have to be incorporated on some level in our future business models in order for our businesses to remain competitive, or even sustainable.
I think this may open your mind up better to AEGY's business model.
BTW LiqudateNow, my "hippie guru's" live a somewhat reclusive lifestyle and I was somewhat surprised to learn one of their greatest hopes for future alternative energy were small portable home based nuclear reactors that would provide a families energy needs for two or three generations in many different living environments, which would in effect make their current uses of wind, solar & such obsolete. Like they seem to enjoy telling me "put that in your pipe & smoke it"!
Like I said they think way above my head!!
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