Should we be growing more "power plants" at home?

 Whose in charge of your yard?  (No, it isn't a trick question.)

Taking care of the yard, the garden, the shrubs and trees, can be a lot of
work.  But we do it anyway.   We do it because we want to take charge of an
area in our lives that won't do as well without our personal attention.  We
want to produce certain results.  I'm speaking very broadly, of course, to
cover a whole wide range of plant care.

I've spent up to two years on some yards, simply cleaning up the place,
ridding the land of old burn piles, junk piles, jungles of weeds and poison
ivy,  thickets of wild trees and shrubs, slowly bringing a lawn back to
life, tidying the landscape.  And I never hesitate to jump right in and do
it all over again someplace else.  There is pleasure in making things
better.

The United States is not unique in having people who like to create
something orderly and beautiful out of chaos.  In some ways, we've done that
with our collective lives -- making a new nation out of what was once a kind
of bondage, as we saw it back then.  We wanted the chance to make our own
way, to build our own land, our own culture.  And we got that chance when we
won our independence.

But human nature has a way of slipping back into easy bondage -- to all
sorts of things, and to all sorts of people.  If we think we can get by a
little easier, we will too often allow others to have more and more power
over us, until we are once again in the yoke.  We need to be alert right
now, I think, and to be making wise choices.  We once got rid of a king
because we resented the unfair tax loads inflicted on us.  But now we're
paying out huge sums of money just to keep the lights on.  Where is our cry
for freedom today?


Whose in charge of your life?


What do you think?   Are the people of America still independence-minded?  I
mean, really?

Here in America we have a reputation for holding the idea of independence
pretty high. But we need to be careful not to give too much power to
corporations that love to keep a hold on our lives.

Think about it. There are the credit agencies, such as banks, credit card
issuers, etc. that can end up with a lot of power over a person, or even
over an entire family. There are the advertisers who work very hard to
persuade us that we need to be thinking about this, buying that, and so on.
And along those same lines, there are the media people who very much want to
sway folks as to what we should think and feel about various issues.

But my main thought right now is the power companies themselves. The utility
companies and oil companies. We tend to gripe about these guys but then we
do very little to shake off the hold they can have over our entire
household.

When I see the grip that electric companies and gas companies have, for
example, I wonder just how much we really cherish our freedom in this
country. It's not like we have no alternatives.

Alternative power is here. Some of our neighbors are using solar, wind
power, various geo-thermal power, and so on to either supplement or supply
their household power. The technology is here. It's working. But only a
relatively small number of people are going for it.

It's possible to heat your home all winter by using passive solar, wind
powered generators, and solar panels. Of course, the other big alternative
is also in place and being used by a larger number of people: wood heat.

Only when enough people are switching from total dependence on the electric
grid and/or gas lines to private power will we begin to see a real return to
independence-minded America.

Griping about poor leadership, griping about high prices, griping about the
economy -- none of this gets anything accomplished. Personal freedom &
independence never comes without a struggle. The "fight" has to be inside of
us before we will emerge as a free people. We can see this when we look at
nations such as Iraq. Why can't we see it in ourselves?

Real freedom cannot be given to us by other people. Politicians will never
be able to do it for us. It must be earned, forged, built with our own
hands. That's demonstrated in the history of our own nation. It's just as
true today as it ever was.

Anyway, just thinking about these things.

Jim
www.jimsdesk.com


Here's a partial list of alternative energy information sources (there are,
of course, many, many more)
http://homestead.goodwordusa.org/energy/listing.htm

Start your own small newspaper business
free online help at:
http://www.newspaper-info.com

free 13-month 2006 calendar (pdf file)
download at:
http://www.jimsgraphix.com/lowcal.htm  

 Amen brada

 Like the ideas you bring out.  The reality is that its not quite the
shangra-la you're portraying regarding independent power for our homes.
Wood (trees) is very slow at renewing its resource, unless you have heck of
alot of wooded acreage, just won't work.  Independent solar power for
electricity is a good idea, but has it coorelated problems of maintenance
and where the product and repair parts comes from (monopoly), cloudy days
are nuisance.  For wind driven generators, same maintenance and sourcing
problem, and you need lots of continuous wind.  Wood heating requires a
goodly sized acreage source over the long haul.  Wind driven generators are
not an urban option for single family residences.  And you better hope they
don't put up a tall building on the sunny side that's feeding your solar
panels.

--
Jonny

utility

electric

 "The reality is that its not quite the shangra-la you're portraying
regarding independent power for our homes. "

Exactly.  The main reason these alternate solutions are not widely used
is simple: cost
With the price of energy today, it's still not practical for most
people to switch to these alternates.  Plus, none of them
are without their own problems.  Take  wood for example.  We already
have enough environmental issues with harvesting
trees for existing uses, let alone undertake the massive amounts of
additional forest it would take to use for a significant energy source.
And what about air pollution?  There are already communities that are
limiting fire places and stoves because of wood burning
pollution.

Solar energy for electricity?   Sounds good until you realize that it
costs $60K to outfit a single house.   That will take a long time to
pay back
and how long will the system last?  How much does maintenance cost?
Some folks here have done it becaus the govt is subsidizing
and helping to pay for the cost, but we all end up paying for the true
cost in the end.

Wind?  This does work, but only really economical and practical in the
right windy locations, eg Palm Springs.  And there are issues
with this too.  Here in NJ there is a proposal to put up a wind farm a
couple miles offshore.  There are lots of people objecting to what
it will do to the view from the beach.  Same thing happening off Cape
Cod, where even environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. is actively
against a wind farm.

Alcohol from corn?   Every study I've seen shows that gasoline would
have to be around $4 a gallon for alcohol to compete with it.  Just
because
it grows doesn't mean it's cheap.  And it still takes energy to make
fertilizer, plant it, harvest it, process it, etc

 Most of his ideas will work with ample sized acreage, 5 or better for
unobstructed sun.  20 or better for wood with thick hardwood growth.
Unobstructed hilltop for wind in a constant windy area, sitting on about 2
or more acres not including the house.

This leaves most city folks out of these options.

He didn't talk about water supply either which is another independent option
with hidden costs.
--
Jonny