Solar display

Bright sunshine and leaves


makes a dramatic effect.


Go solar power!

Yay, Solar Energy!

The morning's sunshine,

Bringing life to the flowers.

Yay, solar energy!

Solar power

Solar panels at Luther College, Decorah, IA

In an article, The Secret to Solar Power, in the New York Times Magazine, Danny Kennedy, with Sungevity, makes a strong argument for solar energy.  Mr. Kennedy observed...

Think about it this way. We’re killing people in foreign lands in order to extract 200-million-year-old sunlight. Then we burn it . . . in order to boil water to create steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity. We frack our own backyards and pollute our rivers, or we blow up our mountaintops just miles from our nation’s capital for an hour of electricity, when we could just take what’s falling free from the sky.

He further states... 

Humanity needs to be reminded that the sun’s putting out four hundred trillion trillion watts every second of every day, and we should tap that. Let’s wear it, be proud of it, push it. That’s the real motivation, I think. We’ve got to brand the sun.

Got sun, then why not tap into solar energy?  We had a solar company come out to see if it might make sense for us to install panels on our home.  Unfortunately we live by a hill and have too many large mature trees in our yard to make it worthwhile.  Long winter months when the sun is low on the horizon doesn't help much either...

Support for solar and wind power

Wind turbine at MN State
Fair Eco building

Even in a strongly capitalistic society, such as the United States, it is nice to see people would be willing to pay more for clean power sources than those that are more harmful to the environment.  An article in the StarTrbune, Solar, wind get strong support in Midwestern poll, noted that a majority of people in four Midwestern states would pay up to $6 more per month on electrical bills for power coming from sources like solar and wind.  A majority of those polled were opposed to hydraulic fracking to extract gas from shale.

Nuclear power phase out by Germany

I was amazed and encouraged to read that Germany plans to cease nuclear power production within the next 11 years (Germany will phase out nuclear power by 2020).  Recognizing the inherit dangers of nuclear reactors, as demonstrated recently in Japan, they are going to be looking to other sources of power or energy savings to make up for the existing 25% of their electrical power which is currently being generated through nuclear power plants.  In the sort-term natural gas will make up for much of the difference in fuel sources.

Additionally, chancellor Angela Merkel, stated Germany would like to "reduce our CO2 emissions by 40 percent and double our share of renewable energies from about 17 percent today to 35 percent."

I just checked yesterday with a solar company about installing panels on our roof.  Turns out with trees and a hill we wouldn't get enough sun to make it worthwhile.  However the person I talked to at Innovative Power Systems, indicated we could have been eligible for a 30% rebate from the local electrical company and a 30% rebate from the federal government.  It seems like for those with clear access to the sun should consider the long-term positive return on investment for solar electricity.

On a side note, yesterday I think that the laundry dried outside on the line just about as fast as it would have in a drier.  We had bright sun, low humidity and a stiff breeze.