“Solar Isn’t Practical”? HAH!

Yesterday, I got into a heated discussion with a very conservative neighbor about the potential for clean energy in this country. He doesn’t think it’s practical to power the whole country through solar, wind, small hydro, etc. I do—but only if we first reduce our energy loads, and I argued that we can easily cut energy use in half or more with today’s technology.

So I appreciated the timing of these two articles on Triple Pundit that crossed my desk this morning.

First, deep conservation can save us 50 percent on existing buildings, 90% if incorporated into the design of new buildings. I know of a solar house built in 1983, long before solar and conservation  technology evolved to today’s sophistication, that was pretty darn close to net-zero energy. If we’d mandated this in the early 1980s, we wouldn’t be facing the climate crisis we have today. And second, the price of solar continues to fall.

I live in a house built in 1743, which we solarized. It has both solar hot water and a small PV system–and we hope to tie in to the cow poop-powered methane generator that our farmer neighbors are building for their farm that was established in 1806. My neighbors across the street from the farm put geothermal in their 1747 home and use it for heating, cooling, and hot water.

And we live in Massachusetts, a much cloudier and colder place than many other parts of the US, and the world. Similarly, cloudy, cold Germany is a world leader in solar. If we can do it—so can you.