John Kromko of Tucson is a community activist and a former 14-year state legislator.

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About 30 years ago, a great wave of interest in solar energy swept through the state Legislature. Being a former engineer, I realized that the numbers didn't quite add up. But I went along with the near unanimous vote to set up several solar-energy programs, hoping that economies of scale would kick in and make the programs feasible.

Grants, rebates and credits flowed profusely, and the only result was that the state and many of its citizens lost many millions of dollars. The cycle has been repeated several times, the most famous being the alternative-fuels disaster that could have bankrupted the state.

Now it looks as if we're poised for another round.

Repeating history has demonstrated that whenever politicians act with undue fervor or without sufficient knowledge, slick operators will appear to take the money and run.

The media must be especially careful because solar energy is such an intriguing concept and because people so powerfully want to believe in it.

Last week, the Star ran a picture of a golf-cartlike vehicle with a solar photovoltaic panel on top with a misleading caption calling it a solar electric car. What was actually shown was a plug-in, battery-powered golf cart with a deceptive solar panel on top. The photovoltaic panel on the "car" is a 150-watt array, which, in my experience, produces 120 watts, optimally.

One horsepower equals 750 watts, and anything that could be called a "car" would have to have at least 40 horsepower, although, of course, a golf cart would use less. To produce 40 horsepower, a solar panel would have to be approximately 240 times as large as the one shown in the Star's picture. Eight feet by 375 feet would work.

To operate a 40-horsepower car for one hour, the panel shown would have to charge batteries for 250 hours. Even to operate a golf cart, charging time would be unacceptable. The panel shown could operate the taillights, but certainly not the headlights, of a standard car.

Then, on Sunday, the Star ran a picture of a 2-kilowatt photovoltaic roof array with a chart showing that the system will pay for itself in 14.65 years. But the contributions of the government and the power company cannot simply be ignored.

Just because the government and the power company subsidize solar arrays, doesn't mean the money is free. If the true cost is used, then the payback time of a 2-kilowatt array is a very unfeasible 30 years.

Installing 2-kilowatt arrays on individual homes is not nearly economically feasible and almost certainly never will be. On the other hand, solar turbine-generator technology is economically feasible, environmentally superior to photovoltaic, and is ideally suited for Tucson's climate.

A new 64-megawatt facility of this type has just gone online in Boulder City, Nev., about 25 miles from Las Vegas. The facility, called Nevada Solar One, was built by a company called Acciona Energy and will provide enough power for 36,000 homes. This is the kind of serious power needed to successfully drive the solar revolution. Tuesday's New York Times carried an excellent story about this new facility.

Our political leaders should welcome home installation of photovoltaic cells, but should not subsidize the projects. Nor should they waste public money on photovoltaic cells on public buildings or be praised for doing so.

All government and power company funds for alternative energy should be invested in a solar technology that is ready now and is economically competitive. I hope that after reading about the Nevada Solar One project, members of the environmental community will encourage government to do just that.