Beyond Petroleum

The recent ad campaign mounted by BP would be inspiring if it were not so sad. The bucolic pictures of hard hatted men swinging solar panels into place, climbing atop giant wind powered electric generating turbines, and holding up beakers presumably full of bio-fuels are heart warming. Sadly, each of these technologies is over 100 years old and their effectiveness proven. In the Netherlands, wind power and dikes have allowed them to push back the sea, creating more country. Solar panels have been on most calculators since I can remember, and provided reliable power in virtually all space flights. Bio-fuel has had a proud history as far back as cavemen who used fire to heat their homes. Many of the first steam powered cars ran on wood. It is time non-fossil fuel use. The mess in the Gulf of Mexico just proves what has been said for the last few generations.

I just wish that BP had spent as much on safety as they had on their promotional ad campaign. Perhaps if they had done that, we would not be faced with yet another oil related catastrophe. I cannot understand the big oil mentality of paying lips service to transforming the energy economy, while simultaneously pocketing the largest profits in history. If you take the profits over the last three months alone for BP and the top four US oil companies they made twenty-five billion. Their profit alone was nearly two hundred and fifty dollars per US household. In just three months!

Using this as a starting point, because most of their increased profits were tied to the rising price of oil, which will continue to go up. Every household in the US could be supplied with either a solar furnace (which would provide direct heat in cool climates) or a Photovoltaic system (which would provide electricity in warm climates) Because of scale, approximately one hundred million total units, the cost would be reduced significantly. At current prices, this investment of, say, just a single year's worth of profits could provide half of either home heating costs (in cool climates)or half of the electricity consumed (in warm climates) Even without the benefits of scale, within at least five years, we could have all of our home energy needs met through solar alone. I don't advocate confiscatory tax systems that would make this a government program, I'm just making a point. This is the kind of money we are talking about. Twenty-five billion dollars every three months. Just think what good it could do!

Wisconsin's Legislature Stimies Clean Energy Bill

Once again, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce has had their way with Wisconsin's leaders. They claim that the potential rise in electric rates that Wisconsin's Clean Energy Legislation might bring would have a chilling effect on Wisconsin businesses. These are the same lobbyists who have opposed every significant environmental regulation that Wisconsin has attempted to pass as far back as my memory serves. The 16 Billion that Wisconsin shells out for imported energy each year was swept under the carpet by WMC and the people who want to continue business as usual. These dollars that we pay, for fossil fuel based energy, go away for good, creating jobs in far off regions, destroying the foundation of our quality of life. Renewable energy sources are all around us. If our business leaders can't see the damage that energy costs have on our daily life now, they are too well paid to understand the reality of the situation. Shame on our leaders who have once again knuckled under to the most powerful interests in the state, the few, the ignorant and the wealthy.

Every single person that sees renewable energy sources, in place and working is impressed by the quiet, clean and logical approach to harvesting available energy. As an energy producer, who uses a solar furnace to supplement about forty percent of one of my houses heat budget, I have begun to realize cost savings after only two winters. Of course, with more expensive production facilities, the pay off might take longer, but the solar furnace I own was built in 1972 and has only four moving parts, two automatic dampers, a thermostat and a fan. It continues to provide heat, and will for years to come. What is required to make positive changes that effect the future is will. "You can't get something for nothing" the old saying goes, but when what you have no longer meets your needs, it is time to look elsewhere for better ways of getting them met.

What Wisconsin's leaders fail to realize is that the time to act has come. Leaders can only be called that when they lead. Letting a special interest kill legislation that will create jobs, limit energy production costs and create a new infrastructure that will allow Wisconsin residents to keep more dollars inside our borders is criminal. Each and every one of us deserves to have our say in the direction our state is headed, not just the most wealthy among us. These are the same folks who opposed every piece of clean air legislation that was proposed for the state, clean water regulation, and recycling efforts. Even though,in the end, the regulations that passed helped rather than hurt their members. I'm sure that many of the folks who oppose any government oversight or leadership feel that government has grown too large. However, when we all work together to do what is right, it makes the job easier, more cost effective and stands as a testament to our cooperative spirit. Fighting the inevitable is Quixotic but Don Quixote was only a hero in a play! Tilting at windmills is not only dangerous, counter productive and futile but also just plain naiive.

TheOnly Thing More Expensive Than Education is Ignorance

We frequently hear the lament, "Our taxes are too high." Some, especially in the business community, have taken to heart the message of the Right, that we are over taxed and the money is frittered away in wasteful programs, inefficiency and graft. These same folks are happy to have our tax dollars spent on programs that will help them, up to a point. Construction firms love to be offered curb and gutter, turn lanes and traffic signals or sewer laterals, sometimes even tax free status until their developments are completed. That kind of corporate welfare is welcomed, even expected, whether we need another sub-division or not.
I think that if I were to reap those kinds of rewards, I might not complain either. It rubs me raw when those same recipients of my tax dollars balk at spending money for our schools. The fact that school buildings are woefully overcrowded and in need of repair, or that teachers keep receiving more unfunded mandates that take away from teaching time, or that we continue to churn out graduates that have dubious qualifications for any job, most likely the same ones that these business people offer.
To illustrate, I was recently speaking with the head of a solar installation company, his lead man at a job site couldn't figure out how to do Algebra, or he just didn't understand how important it is to angle panels toward the sun. He had blundered through an install, only to do it wrong. Then it took several workers a full day to rip it off and re install the system. Waste, waste, waste. Lack of education cost him more than a day of labor, it may have cost him his reputation, at least with that homeowner. Knowledge, even the insight that sometimes we don't know as much as we need to has power. I am the last person to defend the waste fraud and corruption that happens in our government, but the education of our children will have lasting effects for generations. Imagine the difference it would make if job applicants had a better background in spelling, math and communication skills.
I would rather pay taxes that were wasted on children than put to good use by corporate elites that have bonus checks issued to them from companies receiving bail-out money from the Feds. It is hard to not see the erosion of test scores, readiness for entry into the job market, and basic communication skills in our young people. I fear that this is a harbinger of what is to come, all over America (Sorry, Canada and neighbors to the South, for lumping you in with the U.S.) schools are attempting to do more with less. We have passed the point at which selling candy can turn the tide. Hoping for a rapid recovery without additional funding flies in the face of facts. Time was, every child learned the meaning of our patriotic songs, flag etiquette and enough history to realize that the Declaration of Independence is not the same document as the Constitution, or that the Revolutionary War was different than the Civil War. Sending our children unprepared into intellectual battle with the rest of the world is a menace.
Reason and intellect are given to us by Creator, squandering them, or allowing others to tell us what to think, puts us at odds with reality in very dangerous ways. The overpowering urge to cut taxes must not lead us down a path of cheating our children out of a future that is at least as bright as the one we inherited from our parents. Take time to study the history of the past twenty years and you will find plenty of examples of why we should not continue on the current course. Taxation without representation is what the Revolution was fought over, but only a small minority advocated war with Britain. The ultra-wealthy among us today, adept at bait and switch tactics, will always have reason to want more for less. Their tyranny more than any other fact drive the rhetoric of the "Conservatives". Business as usual has led to the greatest disparity between haves and have-nots since prior to the Great Depression. When trying to grapple with salaries of the top earners, ask yourself why one person would be worth more for a single day's labor than another could make, working two, or three years?

Feeling Our Way

In many ways we are like the five blind brothers described in the Chinese folk tale. The first time they encountered an elephant, each took hold of a different part. The first brother felt the ear and declared, the Elephant is like a great fan! Another grasped the leg of the great beast and said This creature is like a great tree of the forest. The third brother grabbed hold of the tail and said, the elephant is like a sinewy rope. Next, the fourth brother felt the trunk and said this beast is like a large, soft snake. The last brother experienced the great belly and decided that the creature was like a great wall.

As we grapple with the unknowable, we each are privy to but a slice of the whole and we must be forgiven for our lack of understanding of the whole. One of my favorite representations of this idea is from a lost sacred city in Indonesia. All of their Buddha statues are contained within perforated clay vessels. they show us in no uncertain terms that we each are bound by our own perspective, unable to fathom the true nature of the Great Spirit. We are all entitled to our own view, but occasionally we must be forgiven for them as well.

To be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way. Part of the sweetness of life is knowing that others hold both insight and awareness of things we cannot fathom. Careful listening to the perspectives of others have the potential of helping you to "see around corners" with regard to these hugely unfathomable concepts. That is why the most enlightened people are often the most patient. They realize that after everyone has exhauseted themselves by expressing their beliefs, they will eventually become open to the deeper truths that have the deepest meaning.

What Be the Rewards?

A little over two years ago, I purchased a solar panel. It is the most low tech device that I know of. Imagine a large box low and flat, like the shirt boxes that will be found under the Christmas Tree in a few days. Of course, mine is larger, (seven feet by twenty) and air tight, except for a small inlet and a small outlet. The side of the box that faces South is covered with fiberglass, relatively clear. The rest of the box is covered with insulation. People who sell more high tech devices often call this type of collector "Scorched Air" because it removes air from the house, warms it up, and brings it back into the living space. Inside the box is a bi-metal thermostat that automatically turns on the fan that blows air into the device when the temperature inside the box reaches a predetermined temperature. To keep cold air from cycling back into the house when the fan stops, two automatic dampers close when the fan is off.

Yesterday, I spent a few minutes brushing the snow off the panel and was rewarded by the soothing hum of the fan. Even though our high temp was only twelve degrees, the panel was able to bring one-hundred degree air into the house. Warmed by the sun, powered by a twenty-two watt squirrel cage fan. The entire system paid itself off in under two years. In year one, the panel provided about twenty percent of the home's heat budget. Now, due to creatively changing just a couple things, the panel is making up about forty percent of our heating needs. Rather than using unheated basement air and pressurizing the living space as I did at first, we now use air from the living space to feed the panel, increasing the efficiency and increasing the hours that the fan runs each day.

I am saving money that would otherwise be spent on energy, but this is not what makes me happiest. Knowing that with no major upkeep, this panel should last another thirty years or more makes me feel pretty good. Keeping the place comfortable without burdening the furnace feels pretty good as well. My favorite part is knowing that the sun really will come out tomorrow. During the coldest spells we get during the winter, it is usually crystal clear and the panel works all day long. In the spring and early fall, we use the extra dry and warm air to dry clothes, veggies and herbs. When it gets too hot in the house, we just unplug the entire system.

The most curious thing is that this whole system was created back in the early seventies and has been providing heat ever since. I bought the system used when trees grew up in front of the panel for a second time. The former owner installed it outside his home that was in a suburban area. When trees grew too large to let the sunshine in, he moved to a different home further out in the suburbs. Trees there grew up there too and shaded the panel again, so I bought the thirty-five year old system for about what it cost to build back in the seventies. Where I placed it, in an older neighborhood, the trees are all mature, and there is still plenty of sun, so I won't have the problems that he did.

Why do we continue to deny the fact that solar is a good way to go? Why is the focus on producing electricity, which is more difficult and expensive? I am stumped by the inability of people to see the benefit that would come from requiring similar systems on all new construction in areas that need heat in the winter.

While our elected officials talk about making progress toward energy efficiency, hoping for a seventeen percent reduction in energy use over the next two decades, or by increasing efficiency over the next generation, I have done more than twice as much with virtually no funding, in less than two months. Those who make their money on things staying the same will never get behind the changes that will require them to live on less, or to re-educate themselves. Corporados want to talk about costs, the displacement, the turmoil that they hype as the "result" of doing the right thing. My belief is that doing things wrong because they benefit business as usual is both short-sighted and irresponsible. The workers that will be displaced when we change our goal to sustainability will have to get jobs that support and enhance our planet, and her people, rather than raping it, and them. No talking heads have cogent arguments for environmental degradation. The "powers that be" are, and have always been afraid of change. We must drag them kicking and screaming into the future that we can plainly see is possible. Corporate Welfare recipients will not let go of their billions without a fight.

I hope and pray that you too will one day know the beautiful sound of "free" heat coming from the sun. This is just one tiny piece of the puzzle of how to live in harmony with the planet. There are millions of answers to the question, what can one person do to make positive change in the world. "Take your time, think a lot, why think of everything you've got, for you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not."- Cat Stevens. When we finally figure out how to mimic nature, creating no waste, living in community, with respect for all beings, we will be well on our way to solving many of the problems that plague humanity. We Believed in change. We voted for Barack. We even made him the President. Now we have to fight for him. Show the Corporate Outlaws that we mean business. Remember, The Constitution says: "One person one vote", not one dollar one vote.