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The New Independent Home

     by Michael Potts
from chapter 14 :

Public Consciousness and Cyclical Change

     When I started compiling a comprehensive list of cycles that homes live through, I missed a very important one, but Mac Rood reminded me. "Don't make long-term business decisions based on short-term government policies," he admonished. In 1993, after a little Ice Age in the political fortunes of solar energy, the U.S.'s second longest political regime of the twentieth century appeared to come to an end. With a new president from the alternative energy generation and an allegedly pro-environment vice president, energy-conscious people hoped for a return to a more sympathetic hearing in Washington. In Hawaii, an island nation held in thrall by fossil fuel suppliers despite the most clement solar situation on the planet, the opportunity for evolutionary energy production goes begging. Cully Judd, who lives in a grid-connected solar-powered demonstration home in the middle of Honolulu, says "Hawaiian Electric Company should get down on their knees and beg to pay me a dollar for every one of my nonpolluting, absolutely renewable kilowatts!" But state and federal regulators stubbornly navigate into the future by looking in their rear-view mirrors.
     We have learned not to hold our breath while awaiting governmental enlightenment. Slow progress is evident. In 1993, only two states had enacted net-metering, whereby small energy producers can return their excess energy to the grid for the same price they buy it; in the next five years, ten more states joined the net-metering parade. But the development of an energy policy for the next millennium is neither rational nor consistent. Scientists widely agree that we have extracted half of the planet's available oil, and so should now begin to experience the inevitable run-up of prices unless some dramatic reduction of demand is achieved. Arab oil, since 1979 a reduced fraction of the source for U.S. domestic consumption, is again inching its way back past 30% of our supply, the point at which the sheiks have pulled the noose tight twice before. Meanwhile, El Niņo and mild winters left short-term domestic oil supplies at such high levels, in 1998 and 1999, that gasoline was cheaper than it had been for decades. The presidency for which so many had such high hopes has been stymied by entrenched interests; its showcase "Million Solar Roofs" program of tax credits is neatly contradicted by deregulation of electrical supply, which has providers promising lower rates and longer guarantees of unsustainable pricing. With so many contradictory signals, we are fortunately unable to base any kind of decision at all on government energy policy.
     The solar industry survived its nuclear winter, and is stronger for the experience. With so many cycles at play -- economic, generational, the quick-time quadrennial political cycle and its weird perturbations for two-year congressmen and six-year senators -- makers of solar energy equipment have kept their eyes on the sun. "The solution," they say, "comes up every morning." As an undercurrent to all else, the environment's cycle endure. Some people are so deafened by the foreground noise of the jobs vs. owls debate that signals from the natural world are inaudible. For others these signals -- topsoil loss, species extinctions, endocrine disruption -- are an imperative heartbeat. Fickle fashion and government programs ride the crests of waves of public awareness, and like all short cycles, the change can be brutally fast, thrashing adherents against the rocks. In the twentieth century, Los Angeles saw solar hot water go in and out of fashion twice; each time the promise of cheap energy left sensible technology stranded. In the last solar binge, following the second Arab Oil crisis, millions of active solar hot water systems were installed with tax credit money (an enlightened but poorly implemented program) and cobbled together by fly-by-night installers (a horrible outcome). How many of these early-1980s systems are still working? When they broke, how many owners could find reputable service people and replacement parts? No one really knows, for this was a program without follow-through, a dream scam for exploiters, and a black eye for solar technologies.
     One relevant lesson was suggested by Amory Lovins: "Nixon made a wonderful speech about population, perhaps one of the best ever made by an American president, but nobody ever thanked him, and so he never mentioned it again." We can affect political cycles only by exerting economic pressure, and seeking out influential people, insisting they take the right actions, and letting them know that we appreciate their work when they do so.

sidebar: Mac Rood on energy politics

[[photo: Mac Rood

     I prospected for hydro sites with Bill McDonough during the early PURPA days, when Jimmy Carter had us looking for energy anywhere we could. We looked at five hundred sites, and developed four; one of them, in Barnet, had ninety feet of drop in seventy feet of river, and produced 550 kilowatts. The PURPA deal was, the utility companies had to buy locally produced electricity at the avoided cost, in other words, the amount it would cost to build the power-generating facilities to provide that amount of power. We figured that, at Arab Oil Embargo rates, we could make enough to justify the investment. We wondered why business people failed to flock to invest with us. We were young, naive, and had the law on our side; obviously oil was going to cost more and more, and electricity would be in greater demand, so the government program would go on forever. We learned: what makes sense, and what governments do, are not necessarily the same for very long, so don't make long-term business decisions based on short-term government policies. We got the rate of return we expected one time, the first month we went on line with our first site, 7.8 cents a kilowatt hour, I think, and then the avoided cost started nosediving, 7.2 cents the next month, down now to 4 cents. Our best year, we made ten thousand dollars from the Warren site. We sold three sites, but I kept one, 50 kilowatts here in Warren. It's still a good idea.

 

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The New Independent Home


People and Houses that Harvest
the Sun, Wind, and Water
a book by Michael Potts
paper   *     8x10   *     408 pages
8 page color section + 200 illustrations:
b&w photos, graphs, charts, and diagrams
ISBN 1-890132-14-4   *     $30.00

this book at Amazon.com

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Michael & Sienna Potts, websters updated 25 December 2002 : 14:35 Caspar (Pacific) time
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