About five years ago, I recall hiking the Sunrise trail in East Scottsdale, arriving at the top of the trail, looking to the West down the hill, and viewing a sea of densely packed residential development with nary a rooftop solar panel in sight. Shaking my head and exclaiming my surprise to several of the other folks up there, who turned out to be local, (I was just visiting) they retorted with something along the lines of Arizona Power and Light making it way too unprofitable and difficult for people to even bother trying.
Plenty of solar could probably be retrofitted in already high density, developed areas - where energy demand is high - without despoiling the desert, but municipalities and local elected officials need to get onboard and offer tax incentives to homeowners and electric grid providers.
Your post highlights the policy need to encourage and help distributed generation of electricity, rather than the industrial model of centralized large scale production and the expensive grid needed to supply that juice to urban areas. It is a no-brainer to put solar panels on everyone’s roof, some battery supply in the house and a small windmill if appropriate on the roof ridge. All this should be done with efforts to decrease electrical use by encouraging, even subsidizing energy efficiency improvements on heating, cooling and appliances. Costs for solar are lower than ever, and most states and the feds offer tax breaks for installing it. A century ago electricity was a rarity and self-sufficiency and independence were necessities as well as virtues. We can do this again!
Of all the places to have solar one would think it would be here in AZ yet none of the new developments are going to be totally solar. A new development in Gilbert is being planned for 300,000 people. Very disheartening. Where are they getting water?? What can we do as individuals to stop the craziness? In Prescott we elected a new mayor and new city council as a protest to the pro development mayor and city council that we had. I agree with the solar for individual houses. The electric grids are becoming more unreliable and when they go out they leave thousands without power. We are actually having rain plus snow in our mountains. Electric cars don’t seem practical for those of us living in rural areas. My daughter and I pre-Covid spent every Saturday off-roading in AZ and Utah. We drove 300 to 600 miles each time we went. If we were driving electric we would have been stranded. Spending hours to recharge doesn’t make sense either. If one took a long trip it would mean more days off to recharge one’s vehicle. We just drove 3000 miles recently on vacation in 9 days. We drove 793 miles the first day. Most of the electric vehicles that we have read about only go 300 miles on a charge.
Pahrump isn’t exactly a dump but it’s no bastion of everlasting beauty. If not there than where? Aside from that, Im not a fan of all the building of things while shutting down carbon free nuclear. Germany shut their nuclear and then burned coal for another decade to make up for lost megawatts. Great post Jonathan.
I sure hope somewhere in this mess there IS a middle way. The thought that in order to "save" the planet, we have to destroy wildlife & their habitat is not a keeper. What would be the point? Going from fossil fuel & its destructiveness to the materials required to build batteries & storage for solar, plus whatever necessary materials to build & maintain windmills kind of does sound like zero-sum. I'm not a big fan of the whole wreckreation industry nor do I feel everyone deserves to push into our wilderness areas - the whole electric bike & ATV/OTV issue just leaves me cold. I cant imagine being an elk, deer, wolf, grizzly or mountain lion & having either or both descend upon them. On the other hand, do I want to survive with no electricity? Of course not. We MUST find a middle ground - hope Don Friend's students can do that.
Spot on today! This is how I strive to present conservation and environmental issues to my students, and then ask them to make their own discerning decisions about our earth. Thank you!
Super commentary, even with no obvious, disaster-free solution in sight—keep up the good work
PS Better late than never, one obvious possibility to evaluate is population control that, in time, could reduce the destructive ‘human locusts of the earth.’
We have to consider that putting solar on our roofs is not about getting a return on our dollars, rather an investment for our planet and future generations.
About five years ago, I recall hiking the Sunrise trail in East Scottsdale, arriving at the top of the trail, looking to the West down the hill, and viewing a sea of densely packed residential development with nary a rooftop solar panel in sight. Shaking my head and exclaiming my surprise to several of the other folks up there, who turned out to be local, (I was just visiting) they retorted with something along the lines of Arizona Power and Light making it way too unprofitable and difficult for people to even bother trying.
Plenty of solar could probably be retrofitted in already high density, developed areas - where energy demand is high - without despoiling the desert, but municipalities and local elected officials need to get onboard and offer tax incentives to homeowners and electric grid providers.
Your post highlights the policy need to encourage and help distributed generation of electricity, rather than the industrial model of centralized large scale production and the expensive grid needed to supply that juice to urban areas. It is a no-brainer to put solar panels on everyone’s roof, some battery supply in the house and a small windmill if appropriate on the roof ridge. All this should be done with efforts to decrease electrical use by encouraging, even subsidizing energy efficiency improvements on heating, cooling and appliances. Costs for solar are lower than ever, and most states and the feds offer tax breaks for installing it. A century ago electricity was a rarity and self-sufficiency and independence were necessities as well as virtues. We can do this again!
Of all the places to have solar one would think it would be here in AZ yet none of the new developments are going to be totally solar. A new development in Gilbert is being planned for 300,000 people. Very disheartening. Where are they getting water?? What can we do as individuals to stop the craziness? In Prescott we elected a new mayor and new city council as a protest to the pro development mayor and city council that we had. I agree with the solar for individual houses. The electric grids are becoming more unreliable and when they go out they leave thousands without power. We are actually having rain plus snow in our mountains. Electric cars don’t seem practical for those of us living in rural areas. My daughter and I pre-Covid spent every Saturday off-roading in AZ and Utah. We drove 300 to 600 miles each time we went. If we were driving electric we would have been stranded. Spending hours to recharge doesn’t make sense either. If one took a long trip it would mean more days off to recharge one’s vehicle. We just drove 3000 miles recently on vacation in 9 days. We drove 793 miles the first day. Most of the electric vehicles that we have read about only go 300 miles on a charge.
Pahrump isn’t exactly a dump but it’s no bastion of everlasting beauty. If not there than where? Aside from that, Im not a fan of all the building of things while shutting down carbon free nuclear. Germany shut their nuclear and then burned coal for another decade to make up for lost megawatts. Great post Jonathan.
I sure hope somewhere in this mess there IS a middle way. The thought that in order to "save" the planet, we have to destroy wildlife & their habitat is not a keeper. What would be the point? Going from fossil fuel & its destructiveness to the materials required to build batteries & storage for solar, plus whatever necessary materials to build & maintain windmills kind of does sound like zero-sum. I'm not a big fan of the whole wreckreation industry nor do I feel everyone deserves to push into our wilderness areas - the whole electric bike & ATV/OTV issue just leaves me cold. I cant imagine being an elk, deer, wolf, grizzly or mountain lion & having either or both descend upon them. On the other hand, do I want to survive with no electricity? Of course not. We MUST find a middle ground - hope Don Friend's students can do that.
Spot on today! This is how I strive to present conservation and environmental issues to my students, and then ask them to make their own discerning decisions about our earth. Thank you!
Super commentary, even with no obvious, disaster-free solution in sight—keep up the good work
PS Better late than never, one obvious possibility to evaluate is population control that, in time, could reduce the destructive ‘human locusts of the earth.’
We have to consider that putting solar on our roofs is not about getting a return on our dollars, rather an investment for our planet and future generations.