Affordable solar is reaching around the world:
A Tibetan woman uses a solar water heater to boil water.

By Rachel Oliver
For CNN

CNN -- It has been said before that environmental-friendliness is a luxury few can really afford.

For the three billion people living on less than $2 a day, the idea of finding enough money to install solar power in their homes would seem a fanciful one, particularly when around two billion people lack access to electricity in the first place.

But there are those that now say that solar power is no longer be a pipe dream for people in the poorest parts of the world.

One of those people is Nicole Kuepper. Kuepper has just won a top science award in her native Australia for an eco-invention specifically designed to benefit those living in the developing world.

She has managed to find a way to manufacture solar cells with the help of an inkjet printer, some nail varnish remover-like substance and a pizza oven.

The result is a solar product called iJET which Kuepper says should slash the costs of making solar panels in half by taking expensive clean-room style production facilities and high labor costs out of the equation.

"I was interested in ways to simplify the process," the University of New South Wales PhD student and lecturer explains. "We figured if we made the manufacturing [process] easier to understand, it could work in developing countries."

And getting locals interested in solar won't be a difficult sell, she believes.

"In a lot of these rural environments, people are spending a lot of their money on energy anyway. So in developing countries, it is actually a lot more cost competitive. Photovoltaics (PV) are already directly competing with what they are spending money on," says Kuepper.

Jeremy Leggett founder of UK solar energy provider, Solar Century says any new ideas are welcome, but is confident the course to cheap solar power has been charted anyway.

"There is a revolution under way with existing technology, which includes crystalline silicon and thin film, so anything else, any technological breakthroughs are going to be massive icing on the cake," says Leggett.

"And in the developing world, what other choice is there? Many households in the developing world can afford it now because it is cheaper than what it is competing with, particularly kerosene. Really poor people will save money with solar."

Community efforts and micro-finance lead the way

Solar solutions for the poor won't necessarily come from any kind of overhaul of the national grid but from their own efforts, Leggett believes.

"In the developing world the grid doesn't even work and it is massively expensive to extend the grid. And the challenge is also getting distribution in place."

Getting people installing solar themselves on a house by house and community by community basis is the way forward, he suggests.

His charity Solar Aid has been doing that in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia recently to convert local inhabitants' kerosene lanterns into light-emitting diode (LED) solar ones. He calls it "the easiest sell in the world".

"You can take an existing kerosene lantern and for a very short payback you can buy a solar panel, a couple of batteries and LED's and convert the lamp," he says.

"People are quite capable of doing this stuff."

People might be capable, but the question of money will always remain. According to Solar Aid's web site, the components needed for a solar lantern cost around $7 while the final product sells for around $12.

For Leggett, however, the answer to pervading money issues in the poorest parts of the world is straightforward enough: micro-finance.

"I think the most important thing is the widespread availability of micro-credit," argues Leggett reasoning: "The default rates for micro loans are really, really low."

Kuepper may be hoping a micro-loan will allow some of the poorest people to take advantage of her invention once it is available in the marketplace.

But she hopes it will be easily accessible to the poorest people anyway. Her idea is not just to bring solar provision to developing world households, but to take the industry there too.

If local entrepreneurs were able to make solar cells themselves for their own local markets then jobs would be created locally. The cost savings associated with local manufacturing would get passed down to the consumer.

"Manufacturing is definitely not commonplace in the least developed countries, like Laos, for example," she says. "That would be my endgame."

For now, Kuepper's work means figuring out ways to make iJET even cheaper. And for her that means tackling one major issue: how to use less silicon.

"About 50 percent of the cost of a solar module comes from silicon itself so clearly we need to use less," she says.

Gerry Meyer lives inside of the Invenergy Windfarm in Wisconsin's Fond du Lac County. He sent us these photos and a note about what the wind farm has done to the night sky where he and his family have lived for nearly 37 years.

He tells us the photos can't capture what these industrial scale machines look like at night because these are still photos and the blinking lights are flashing on moving machines. The environment this creates is often compared to an airport.  Add the jet engine sound of the turbines at night and you’ll understand what hundreds of Wisconsin families are now being forced to live with. 

If industrial wind farms had much of an impact on the reduction of green house gases then perhaps there would be a trade off. But because wind farms must always rely on fossil fuel burning power plants to function, and because they are less than 30% efficient at best, they have earned the nickname of "The SUV of renewable energy." Our own National Academy of Sciences reported in May of this year, that wind farms have a negligible effect on the reduction of green house gases. European studies have come to the same conclusion. Wind developers could care less. They will profit no matter what. Huge government tax incentives will see to that. And just where do those tax dollars come from?

Wind developers don't care about the problems of turbine noise and never mention what the sky will look like once the 400 foot turbines are up. They don't mention the flashing lights. They don't mention that the kids in this part of Fond du Lac county won't ever know a peaceful night sky again.

What do the wind developers mention?
Money. How much money will it take to buy your peaceful evenings?
How much is your night sky worth?
How much are your restful nights worth?
How much will the developers have to pay people in your community to give these things up for the rest of of your lives?

Gerry Meyer writes:
“When I look out I see most of the 86 turbines it is really sad.
The camera lens just doesn’t pick up what the eye can see.
I probably have mentioned we see not only our blinking lights at night but those from the wind farm in Johnsburg which are 18 miles away, and now they are putting up another 40+ turbines in the Eden area which is about 8 miles from us.
We can also see the turbines at Johnsburg and also ours when going south on hwy 41 from Oshkosh.
We can see them from south of here when we come from Milwaukee.
We have a friend in the Eden wind farm that bought 30 acres about 15 years ago, dug a nice pond and even got an old wind mill working and built a beautiful house. Now there are turbines on the front side across the road and on the back side of the house . They are considering selling. They have put so much work into this place and now this has happened."

WIND DEVELOPERS TAKE A VICTORY LAP AROUND ANOTHER BROKEN COMMUNITY:

At what point does an offer of money become bribery?

Today's post is from a slide show that accompanies the New York Times article about the opportunities for corruption wind developers bring to struggling rural communities. Sadly, this is a story being told all across the nation.

Here in Rock County we are happy to have the kind of town board members and P&Z members we do. Without their honesty and openness we could be at the mercy of the kind of wind developers who have been roaming our area, ones who don't mind tearing apart a community in order to make buck. Developers who say 1000 feet from our doors is a fine place to put a 40 story tall machine with known noise issues and other problems. Developers who complain about the ordinances like the one adopted in the town of Magnolia with a 2640 foot setback from residences. They say it will ruin the profitability of their project, even though this ordinance still allows willing landowners to sign a waiver that lets them have a turbine 1000 feet from their homes. And it allows willing neighbors to do the same. What it doesn't allow is for someone to force any resident to live with a 400 foot tall machine 1000 feet from their house if they don't want it there.

The developers want the right to use this force on our communities.
Only our local board members can protect us. Only our local board members can remember that the money the developers are offering our townships comes out of our own pockets in the form of huge tax subsidies the wind farm developers rely on. Huge tax subsidies which make it profitable for a company to put a wind farm in a place with a low wind resource. A place with a high population. A place like our own Rock County, Wisconsin. 

With the tax subsidies and carbon credits these wind farms will still be profitable for the developers even if they don't produce much electricity at all.

And where does that all that tax money come from?

And did we mention that the wind farm proposed for Rock County will be owned by a company in Spain?

What's that smell? Something is rotten in the way of wind development in this country.

To read an article about wind development and corruption click here.

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

A wind turbine in a cornfield dwarfs a truck near Malone.

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Photo: Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

Here in Rock County, we love our town board members and P&Z board members.

They are open, honest and hard-working people who give a lot of time to preserving the health, safety and welfare of the people in their communities. We're glad we have the people we do on our town boards, because when Wind Developers come calling, they often try the back door first, using tactics that invite corruption.

" If the farmer's non participation is a result of a physical consideration (low-lying land, setback problems, etc.) developers ought to consider compensating these individuals in some fashion, especially if there are in a position to influence the outcome of the permitting process.  "

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

"Experience suggests it's easier to situate large clusters of wind turbines in western Wisconsin than in eastern Wisconsin. Even though the wind resource is more energetic along the Niagara Escarpment in the eastern half of the state, siting turbines is a more delicate process there due to smaller farm sizes and higher population densities. Furthermore, in western Wisconsin, local governments tend to be more receptive to farming constituency priorities than in the east, owing in large part to agricultures importance to the western Wisconsin economy.

There is also a higher proportion of farmers serving on local and county boards in that part of the state.

Developers would be well-advised to consider the trade offs between costs of a simpler permitting process in lower wind resource regions, and the expense of development in a higher wind area with a more difficult, time-consuming and expensive permitting process."

USE APPROPRIATE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

"When the research for this report was first started we assumed the best development strategy is to be as open as possible,  This included holding multiple informational meetings, reaching out to people and sharing as much data as possible. Today our conclusion is very different.

....Current wisdom suggests that developers need to identify willing land owners and discuss permitting concerns with local government officials before making a public announcement."

We've heard about Rock County township officials who were approached by wind developers before plans to build a wind farm in our area were openly discussed. And we're glad to say that these board members didn't like this any better than we do. Any by we, I mean those of us who live in the very community that would be affected. We are thankful for the openness and honesty of our local elected officials.

But given the ways that wind developers work,  it's no wonder that stories like the following are beginning to be told around the country:

In rural New York, windmills can bring whiff of corruption

Everywhere that Janet and Ken Tacy looked, the wind companies had been there first.
 
Dozens of people in their small town had already signed lease options that would allow wind towers on their properties. Two Burke Town Board members had signed private leases even as they negotiated with the companies to establish a zoning law to permit the towers. A third board member, the Tacys said, bragged about the commissions he would earn by selling concrete to build tower bases. And, the Tacys said, when they showed up at a Town Board meeting to complain, they were told to get lost.
 
"There were a couple of times when they told us to just shut up," recalled Mr. Tacy, sitting in his kitchen on a recent evening.
 
Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.
 
"It really is renewable energy gone wrong," said the Franklin County district attorney, Derek P. Champagne, who began a criminal inquiry into the Burke Town Board last spring and was quickly inundated with complaints from all over the state about the wind companies. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo agreed this year to take over the investigation.
 
"It's a modern-day gold rush," Mr. Champagne said.
 
Mr. Cuomo is investigating whether wind companies improperly influenced local officials to get permission to build wind towers, as well as whether different companies colluded to divide up territory and avoid bidding against one another for the same land.
 
The industry appears to be shying away from trying to erect the wind farms in more affluent areas downstate, even where the wind is plentiful, like Long Island.
 
But in small towns near the Canadian border, families and friendships have been riven by feuds over the lease options, which can be worth tens of thousands of dollars a year in towns where the median household income may hover around $30,000. Rumors circulate about neighbors who can suddenly afford new tractors or trucks. Opponents of the wind towers even say they have received threats; one local activist said that on two occasions, she had found her windshield bashed in.
 
"My sisters and brothers won't even talk to me anymore," said Mr. Tacy, who with his wife has become active in recent years in a network of people who oppose the wind companies. "They tear communities apart." Opponents of the farms say their scenic views are being marred by the hundreds of wind towers already in place, some of which stand nearly 400 feet tall. They also complain of the irritating hum of spinning turbines and what they say are wasteful public subsidies to wind companies.
 
But corruption is a major concern. In at least 12 counties, Mr. Champagne said, evidence has surfaced about possible conflicts of interest or improper influence.
 
In Prattsburgh, N.Y., a Finger Lakes community, the town supervisor cast the deciding vote allowing private land to be condemned to make way for a wind farm there, even after acknowledging that he had accepted real estate commissions on at least one land deal involving the farm's developer.
 
A town official in Bellmont, near Burke, took a job with a wind company after helping shepherd through a zoning law to permit and regulate the towers, according to local residents. And in Brandon, N.Y., nearby, the town supervisor told Mr. Champagne that after a meeting during which he proposed a moratorium on wind towers, he had been invited to pick up a gift from the back seat of a wind company representative's car.
 
When the supervisor, Michael R. Lawrence, looked inside, according to his complaint to Mr. Champagne, he saw two company polo shirts and a leather pouch that he suspected contained cash.
 
When Mr. Lawrence asked whether the pouch was part of the gift, the representative replied, "That's up to you," according to the complaint.
 
Last month, Mr. Cuomo subpoenaed two wind companies, Noble Environmental Power, based in Connecticut, and First Wind, based in Massachusetts, seeking a broad range of documents. Both companies say they are cooperating with the attorney general.
 
"We have no comment on specifics, but we want to be clear: Noble supports open and transparent development of wind projects in accordance with the highest ethical standards," said Walt Howard, Noble's chief executive.
 
The industry's interest in New York's North Country is driven by several factors. The area is mostly rural, with thousands of acres of farmland near existing energy transmission lines. Moreover, under a program begun in 2004, the state is entering into contracts to buy renewable energy credits, effectively subsidizing wind power until it can compete against power produced more cheaply from coal or natural gas.
 
Nine large-scale wind farms housing 451 towers, each with a turbine, are in operation in New York, with at least 840 more towers slated for construction, according to state officials. And in June, Iberdrola S.A., which is based in Spain and is one of the world's largest energy producers, announced its proposal to invest $2 billion to build hundreds more towers here.
 
Every day in the North Country during the warm months, trucks pulling giant flatbed trailers rumble down the highways, carrying tower sections and turbine blades. Some residents see the trucks not as a disturbance, but as an omen of jobs, money and cleaner air.
 
"I feel as a mother, as a grandmother, that the country needs it - not just here," said Susan Gerow, a Burke resident who has signed easements with Noble worth about $3,000 a year. Like others who have signed deals with the companies, Ms. Gerow and her family will also earn a portion of the revenue from the windmills if they are ever built.
 
The North Country is a chronically distressed region, and farming is increasingly a profitless enterprise here. The General Motors plant in Massena, for years a reliable source of good jobs, is closing in mid-2009. One of the few bright spots in the local economy in recent decades has been the construction of state prisons, of which there are now five in Franklin County alone.
 
"You're talking about a poor farming community out here," said Brent A. Trombly, a former town supervisor of Ellenburg, which approved a law to allow and establish regulations for the wind towers in 2003. "Our only natural resources are stone and wind."
 
For some farmers, he said, the wind leases were their last chance to hold onto land that had been in the family for generations. Supporters also say that the wind towers bring in badly needed tax revenue.
 
"We see this industry coming, we see the payments coming in," said William K. Wood, a former Burke Town Board member who also signed a lease option. The school board of Chateaugay, he pointed out, received $332,800 this year from Noble for payments in lieu of taxes, money that the district used to lower school taxes, upgrade its computers and provide a prekindergarten class for the first time.
 
The local debates over wind power are driven in a part by a vacuum at the state level. There is no state law governing where wind turbines can be built or how big they can be. That leaves it up to town officials, working part time and on advice from outside lawyers, some of whom may have conflicts of their own.
 
Two Franklin County towns, Brandon and Malone, have passed laws banning the wind turbines. But the issue remains unresolved in Burke, population 1,451, where two Town Board members recused themselves from the issue this year because they had leases with wind companies, leaving the board deadlocked.
 
At a meeting last month at Burke's Town Hall, opponents and supporters sat on opposite sides of the aisle, arms crossed. The mood, as it has often been at such meetings, was quietly bitter.
 
"I'd like to hear what people think," said Darrel Bushey, the town supervisor and a wind-tower opponent.
 
"We've listened to the people for two years," responded Timothy Crippen, who sits on the town's zoning board, which favors permitting the turbines. "It's time to make a move."
 
Some hands shot into the air from the audience, but were ignored.
 
"There is no decision you are going to make that is going to make everyone happy," said Craig Dumas, another zoning board member, almost pleading for action.
 
But the meeting soon broke up, still with no decision made.
 
"This is a problem for these communities," Mr. Dumas said as the room emptied. "There's a lot of emotion on both sides."
 

 NOTE FROM THE BPRC RESEARCH NERD: Click the video below to watch what people in Wisconsin's own Fond du Lac county are being forced to live with. Wind developers want 1000 foot setbacks from our homes. Five townships have passed ordinances in the last 9 months that give residents a much safer setback of 2640 feet. Developers don't like it, it cuts into their profits. But they won't have to live next to the turbines. Here's a video clip made by someone who does.