ABSTRACT
Renewable energy resources, such as energy from the sun, is here to stay, has become cost competitive and is a viable optional supplemental energy resource. As such, defining property rights in such energy resource is no less of importance than the historical defining of property rights regarding mineral energy resource assets such as oil and natural gas.
This paper provides a refresher and new look at sunshine property rights (right to light) and the airspace through which it travels – which historically has been confusing and erratic. While the paper is based much on United States jurisdictional particulars, many of the principles discussed are universally applicable.
A guiding principle put forward as a foundational Charter of such rights is to invoke the concept of:
ALL THINGS IN MODERATION AND DO NO HARM…
The paper:
- Restates what the solar potential is all about;
- How the unique property characteristics (its wave/particle duality) of solar energy influences sunshine property right definition as well as the logical application of the rule of capture;
- Summary of the history of solar property right advocacy (from ancient Rome/Greek days to the present and beyond);
- A new age for defining and valuing solar/airspace property rights;
- A suggested new age methodology for determining the foundation and resolution of solar property rights and its value and invoking the ALL THINGS IN MODERATION AND DO NO HARM, principle; and
- 1.3 seconds to success is in reference to the quantity of sunshine energy that strikes the earth every day that is equivalent to the same total energy demand consumed on earth for an entire day.