Ohio gives away $3.5 million for technology that works half the time

Stupid Government Tricks, Part 4

The State of Ohio just announced it will give away $3.5 million in grants to put solar water heaters and wind turbines in homes. The program is evidence that Gov. Strickland has not yet exhausted worthy targets for budget cuts.

Your state government really, really likes such green technology, and is bothered that more of us don’t buy it.

To create a market where none exists, the state is taking your money and investing it for you in making other peoples’ homes “green.” Your money is being given to these other people on a “first come, first served basis” according to Sherry Hubbard, Chief of something called the Ohio Energy Office.

Why aren’t people buying, say, solar water heaters? Ms. Hubbard knows the answer.

"For most of the time, it's sufficient to heat water," she told the Columbus Dispatch. "You would perhaps have a backup heater for the very coldest of days."

That is, for Cleveland, all the days in November through April, according to the manufacturer of one such system. That is, in Ohio’s largest city, they won’t work for half the year -- which isn't stopping the dysfunctional Cleveland city government from installing them in firehouses there.

So, you have to have two hot water heaters -- a solar one and a regular old backup one -- and the solar variety is expensive. A web search suggests prices between $2,500 and $5,600 -- meaning it could take more than a decade to recover the cost through energy savings, even if it worked all year around.

Assuming the technology is indeed workable, a market for it will emerge when energy prices rise to the point where it makes economic sense. When gas was $4 a gallon this summer, sales of the Toyota Prius hybrid went through the roof. Gasoline later fell by half, and so did Prius sales, according to Business Week.

The lesson is that when alternative energy makes economic sense, people will buy it. As energy prices rise, people will eventually buy it for the same reason people buy energy-efficient furnaces – it saves them money.

I like green. I just don't like green at any cost.

The next time Gov. Strickland talks about the Deficit That Swallowed Ohio, remember the $3.5 million in grants – and ask yourself, how many more programs and offices are lurking in state government that we could, or even should, do without.

(NON-MATH PEOPLE IGNORE THIS PART: A gas water heater costs about $700 to buy and install, and costs around $400 per year to operate. Assuming no energy costs to run the solar heater -- and you do have to pump the water up to the roof -- deduct the capital costs of the heater and installation, then divide the remainder by the annual operating costs to obtain the number of years to save enough to pay for the solar heater. Like this:

$5,600 - $700= $4,900
$4,900/400=12.25 years)