Did you know that the landing on the moon was staged? Or that swallowing seeds will cause fruit to grow in your stomach? Or that the cost of solar power has gone up 63% since 2001?

If you are tied to reality, you’d know that all three of these statements are utterly false. And while most people know that the moon landing was real and that seeds don’t grow in your stomach, the last falsity is an easy one to slip by people who don’t follow energy — which is almost everyone.

In fact, the installed cost of solar has come down nearly 40% since 2001.

That ridiculous statement about solar comes from Dr. Ben Zycher, an economist with the Pacific Research Institute and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who has a new book out about renewable electricity technologies. Last week, AEI held an event for Dr. Zycher to talk about his book, in which he claims to be conducting a “fresh analysis” and a “reality check” on clean energy.

It seems Dr. Zycher needs a reality check — some of his math mistakes have introduced errors that are off by a factor of 100!  Below is a response to some of his claims.

According to the authoritative “Tracking the Sun IV” report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the installed cost of solar has come down about 40% since 2001, from $10 a watt to $6.2 per watt. And with a scale-up in manufacturing, the market price of modules has come down an astonishing pace, with prices declining from $7 a watt in the mid-80′s to under $1 a watt today. Some analysts predict that we’ll see solar module prices at 70 cents a watt this year.

Zycher also claims that “wind energy costs have been steadily rising even though the capacity to generate electricity has expanded.” (Note: I inaccurately said that Zycher used turbine pricing data. In fact, he used data from the EIA on cost per MW installed and MWh of generation.)

It is true that the cost of wind power increased slightly since 2001 due to a rapid scaling of global capacity, a shortage of product, and a huge jump in the cost of raw materials. (Steel doubled in price and copper quadrupled in price in the past decade.)  But this is after a stunning drop in costs over the previous two decades:

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By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Congressional Western Caucus, consisting entirely of Republican members of Congress, held a hearing this morning entitled “Washington Barriers to Prosperity and Property Rights in the West.”  It was an opportunity for members to criticize a variety of regulations that protect our lands, water, air, and public health like the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Wilderness Act.  Congressman Steve Pearce (R-NM), co-chairman of the caucus opened the hearing by saying that such regulations are “devastating the West.”

Members also accused the administration of killing jobs, in ways such as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s recent decision to withdraw 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon from new uranium mining.  Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) railed against “the extremist policies of this administration.”

But, new on-the-ground evidence shows that westerners don’t necessarily believe with the assertion that regulations kill jobs.  A recent poll from the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project found that voters in six western states overwhelmingly believe that regulations do not harm business. Only 38 percent of respondents agreed (and 60 percent disagreed) with the statement that:

One of the best ways to create jobs is to cut back environmental regulations that are weighing down [your state’s] businesses.

Another question on the poll asked, “when you hear about the laws that govern industry’s responsibility for [your state’s] clean water, clean air, natural areas and wildlife do you think those are more likely to be…”:

-  63 percent answered “…important safeguards to protect private property owners, public health and taxpayers from toxic pollution and costly clean‐ups.”

-  29 percent answered “…burdensome regulations that tie up industry in red tape, hurt them too much financially, and cost jobs.”

On top of this, westerners are not particularly trustful of the mining, drilling, and logging companies that Republicans promote and defend.  In fact, only 21 percent of voters queried in the poll believed that “we can trust companies to act responsibly to protect [your state’s] land, water and wildlife on their own, without laws and regulations that require them to do so.”

Rather than bash environmental regulations, Republican leaders would do well to listen to what their constituents are telling them—that regulations help keep protect and preserve the land, water, air, and wildlife that makes the American West so unique.