By Tim Hull ~

It’s early morning in the Dunbar Springs neighborhood and the anarchists next door are still asleep.  The power-hungry new sun is heating up the found-object metal artwork in the streets, and I’m standing by as Vincent Pawlowski mixes up a batch of Papercrete bricks.

The 50-something polymath, a retired biomedical engineer with a bushy beard and a full storehouse of creative energy, is up on a rickety platform in his backyard working a jury-rigged mixing drill through a barrel full of water, recycled paper products—junk mail, old Sierra Club calendars, even tossed-away books—and Portland cement.  The brew looks and smells like paper mache but when it’s formed into bricks and dried in the sun it makes strong building blocks that Pawlowski hopes to use to build a little dream home here on his corner lot.

Thin film solar panels promise to provide some of best alternative energy solutions to come forward these past few years--perhaps ultimately fulfilling the hope that solar advocates have long held for this evolving technology. Thin film overcomes some of the shortfalls of traditional photovoltaic cell technology although they introduce a couple of obstacles that are yet to be overcome.

Traditional solar technology consists of converting the suns energy into electricity using bulky flat panes with crystalline silicon solar cells.  The cost of production is relatively high (compared to traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas), the panels are bulky and the efficiency is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20% for most residential applications (though near 40% efficiency is possible if you have deep enough pockets).

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has recently put a moratorium on all new solar power projects on Federal land, citing the need for further environmental impact studies. According to the NY Times, "The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah."

This decision comes at a particularly tough time for the solar industry as public interest, and demand, for solar power are on the rise. Rather than encouraging the relatively nascent industry, this move may diminish some of the headway the industry has been making.  According to one solar industry person, Lee Wallach of Solel “the problem is that this is a very young industry, and the majority of us that are involved are young, struggling, hungry companies. This is a setback.”

The freeze is set to last two years and will allow time for the government to evaluate the environmental damage that may occur from solar power plants, electrical transmission lines, the necessary water usage impact and so forth.

This decision leaves the environmental community in a unique position as it pits different factions against each other.  Some conservation groups laud the move and welcome the studies as crucial to maintaining the habitat for many desert creatures while renewable energy interests are frustrated with the move to stall solar power.

Increasingly we find ourselves beset by problems that seem beyond our control; global warming, GM Foods, animal testing, the spread of factory farming, the arms trade and human rights abuses, to list but a few. Shoppers are often left feeling helpless, the typical response being theres nothing I can do.