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Solar, Wind, and Fire |
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PO Box 10097, Lynchburg, VA 24506 E-mail: rfitz42@msn.com |
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I believe in renewable energy for saving our planet and I believe in renewable energy for the cost savings. I write articles about it and I keep giving advice. I love solar power anything, wind power, and geothermal.
For five years I worked as a civilian contractor at the US Department of Energy Headquarters and loved it. While I was there I managed to learn about the practical applications of renewable energy for consumers, which I feel is important since how it applies to you and me is very different from how renewable applies to E-on or some other huge energy producer.
For instance, recently a wind farm opened in cotton country in West Texas. This wind farm is environmentally terrific. It is a series of 627 windmills spaced 900 feet apart and it spans across four counties, but doesn’t take away from the farmers growing cotton in those fields. Using the wind as a renewable energy source this one wind farm produces enough electricity to fill the energy needs of a city the size of Lincoln, Nebraska or Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
What does that mean to us? Not much, maybe just that an AEP or LG&E is using renewable energy with almost zero environmental impact, and it doesn’t have to build another dam or burn more coal to produce the electricity that it sells to you.
What matters to you is how you can reduce your own energy bill or lower your energy footprint. The “What can I do?” big question. That is what this website is all about: what can you do to save money, and save the planet!
Let’s start with basics. There is always something going on in the news about renewable energy. The event in the Gulf has inspired people that may never have become interested without this tragedy, so many news articles tend to be about the blame and the disaster. It takes time to sort through all of the opinions and get back to what works for the environment and what can be fixed, and what is being fixed. Despite all the bad press that oil is getting right now, we are still an oil-based economy. We use oil products and by-products in thousands of ways. This isn’t going to change overnight, but simply by necessity, it will change. I take the time to check over 60 newsfeeds every day for energy-related news because I couldn’t find a source like that anywhere else, and I want the knowledge. To me it is important to know that New Jersey has run out of funding for their State Solar Rebate Program, or that Denmark produces so much electricity from it’s ocean wind farms that it actually gives electricity away to the neighboring countries. I take the time to read this information. I print a weekly newsletter that hits the highlights of the week. It’s free at www.earthrenews.com
That being mentioned, I know that most of you know a considerable amount more than I about every facet of renewable energy. I was surprised yesterday when I looked at a picture of a windmill and someone wrote a comment that wanted to know what gauge of stainless steel the post is made of. I’m sure I was more interested in how much electricity the windmill can produce, how it handles days with no wind, is it linked to a network to balance the load, are the transmission lines capable of carrying the load, and things like that. I am guilty of looking at his forest and he is looking at the trees. I will not deny having a certain knowledge, but will not claim to be an expert. I read posts from people that are, and I invite all my readers to post any germane articles or comments in the blog section. I will reserve the right to disagree with them when they are looking at the trees. I am naïve enough to think that we can change the way we produce and consume energy. It is not the job of “they” to make the changes. It is not up to “them” to get involved. You, the lady next to you, and I are “they”. We actually are “them”. It is up to us, the we and the they and the them to implement change, to make it happen. Understand that, for all the knowledge that exists, having the knowledge is useless without implementation. Useless. My laptop holds and has access to an incredible amount of pure knowledge, but it cannot perform without implementation. Somebody has to make it work.
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