The
(good and bad) ideas I keep getting
by
Robert LaFrance
Last evening I watched the
television show ‘This Old House’ and saw them set up solar panels and a
windmill to supply electric power to a big house in New England and I thought:
“Geez, you don’t have to do all that; you got power outlets and light switches
right in your walls already!” Then somebody said the idea is to save money and
get off the grid, stupid.
It was late.
Getting free electric power sounded like a good idea
to me. I had thought about it for here, but at the time I had never heard of
solar or wind power. I think that was last Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s not exactly free, Bob,” said the Perfessor.
“You have to pay a few dollars to get that windmill and those solar panels set
up at your house.” He pointed toward the TV, now showing a plumber installing a
dishwasher – vital item! – in ‘This Old Mansion’s’ kitchen. “Did you hear them
say how much it would cost? No? Their estimate was fifty thousand dollars, and
that would supply only thirty percent of that house’s power. Make sense?”
I allowed as to how it wouldn’t make a lot – for me
at least. Even if I spent $20,000, and it covered 100% of my electricity cost,
I figured that equipment would pay for itself around the year 2134 unless I won
a lottery in between.
“Then you wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of
electricity,” said the Perfessor, reading my thoughts. “It is a perfect
Catch-22.” NOTE: I forgot to mention that he was a retired Perfessor of
Parapsychology.
A few years ago I read about a PEI dentist (not that
his occupation is relevant) who paid $30,000 to have a windmill installed at
his house. It (the windmill, not the house) supplied one kilowatt of power,
which he stored in a battery he’d bought for $500. Then there was the inverter
to change the power from DC to AC. The windmill supplied enough power to run
his walk-in freezer and an electric razor. When he visited his neighbour he
would take along his laptop computer and plug its cord in the wall over there
to charge the battery.
Back here on this mountain, I have been thinking of
alternate sources of (non-political) power. I suppose a hydro dam is out. They
say you have to have some sort of brook, river, or stream for that – hence the
Greek work ‘hydro’ which means ‘water’.
And although I could take $30,000 out of one of my accounts and put up a
windmill or a bunch of solar panels, I’m much too lazy to do the maintenance
work. The photograph of me a hundred feet in the air and tinkering with a
windmill is one you will never see, my friends. I get nervous wearing
high-heeled cowboy boots.
So let’s just forget alternate power and think about
ways to cut down on the power we use now. Do we really need that electric
stove? The only time we ever use it is when we cook something. That is, when
somebody other than I cooks something. I could set up some sort of solar
powered black metal box and the bread could just as easily cook in there on
sunny days. A pork roast would be a scrumptious treat, especially if the heat
inside the box got up to 700ºF. Nice ‘crispy crispies’ like Grandma used to
make. They say all that fat is bad for you but that’s silly; she lived until
she was almost 35.
Saving money on electric power was easy as you can
see, and saving money spent on gasoline is just as easy. Just think about all
the unnecessary trips you yourself make every week. If at work you have a good
health plan that allows you to take off a couple of days a month and still get
paid, there you go. Not only do you get two extra days of rest, but you also
save all the money you would have spent driving yourself to work. If you live
twenty kilometres away from your job, that’s a savings of 80 kilometres worth
of gasoline every four weeks. So if 13 x 80 is 1040 km. and gasoline is $1.40 a
litre (which it was yesterday in a place near here) and your car gets 12
kilometres per litre, that adds up to…er, a lot of savings.
Of course there are other ways to save both
electricity and gasoline, but I think I have covered the most intelligent
options. Hitch-hiking and being cold in your own living room are two of those.
There is also moving to a warmer climate and hitch-hiking there. Which brings
me to the point. I am just now reading an ad in the Jerusalem Post; a fruit grower
needs pickers. There must be a lot of chance for leisure time for hunting too,
because the last sentence in the ad states: “Must be familiar with various
rifles and weapons including the Uzi and the AK-47.” Although I’m not a hunter
I might still enjoy a walk in the woods on my holidays. What do they hunt in
Israel?
-end-
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