Let me start off with a few presumptions I had about solar energy prior to reading this article. I thought that harnessing solar energy for personal use is super expensive, and something reserved for only the wealthier citizens of New York. I had this idea because my affluent friend had solar panels in her home, which I thought was super cool and also unattainable. The second barrier listed on the second page aligned with this assumption, that the sticker shock of a solar thermal system is too real. This made me more interested to read the rest of the article and see if solar thermal systems are actually cost-efficient in the long run, as was stated in the introduction. The findings showed that the buildings that utilized these systems saved tens of thousands of dollars in the long run, which was really great to hear. This made me wish more people would look past the initial sticker shock and recognize the long-term savings they would incur if they were to go with these systems.
As for the part of the paper related to energy, initial statistics cited were scary. New Yorkers use a lot of energy, with most of it coming from the environmentally-harmful sources of fuel oil and natural gas. This reminded me of one of the old articles we read before, which mentioned that a large percentage of CO2 emissions come from buildings. But I think the number in this article that is specific to New York is much greater than the one cited for the general world in the article. As I read more of the article, the energy-related benefits were undeniable, with long-term savings of over 5 million pounds of CO2 in those 4 sites alone. This was very impressive, and showed that there’s so much untapped potential for solar energy in the New York City market.
Overall, this paper educated me on the benefits and feasibility of solar thermal systems in a New York City setting, and made me realize that they are not as impractical as I thought.
