Leaves are now beginning to yellow, I set the first fire in the big fireplace to warm the great room last night. It was cold - not yet freezing - but cold enough that the flickering glow and the warmth from the fireplace was very welcome. Soon the chill will drive most evening activity inside. The indoor activities to keep the place up will begin.... I've been asked to repaint and install a wainscot in one of the upstairs bedrooms... I must build the storage cubbyholes for the master closet and there is the annual upkeep on all the wood, and some additional trim and tile that I'd like to see if I could get done... When you build a home of your very own, from scratch, it never ends... The exterior oiling is still progressing, the front porch is almost finished and another gallon of linseed oil is gone. I will soon be taking a break to head out into the woods down by the Gila National Forest to search for an antlered beasty.... I'm still on schedule to finish reoiling the outside wood before Thanksgiving.... still a little time to be thinking of the winter ahead and how to make things more comfortable for the future....
Since I began to plan my home, even before we had selected the location, I had been plotting and planning some way to wrestle myself away from the power and gas companies. Alternative sources for heat and light are very expensive up front to purchase and are not easy to finance reasonably. We invested in extra insulation, efficient windows, and other energy efficient components in our home which have, I'm sure, kept our energy consumption down, but the modern internet connected teen attitude is less than conscientious about energy usage. I keep seeing the costs rise and lament not insisting on a solar installation when I was building. I did however carefully consider the orientation of the roof-line to accommodate a photovoltaic system when I could afford it.....Little did I know the amazing amount of usage three teens can rack up! Despite the astronomical expenses on power and heat we have endured, I still am having difficulty balancing the cost of the systems which would reduce the utility bills to zero vs the monthly bills. I am beginning to think the expense and difficulty to finance alternative energy on any scale is directly related to investment by the banking industry in conventional energy companies. It is not in the interest of the financial industry or the conventional energy companies to undermine their massive investments in infrastructure for the monopolistic power and gas industries by the promotion of energy sources which cut into the revenue source that repays the billions of dollars in notes held to finance the construction, expansion, and upkeep of those investments. I keep being reminded that the purpose of the financial industry is to scrape as much profit for the lenders from exchanging money as is possible. "Money for nothing" like the song, is mostly how it seems, although they call it a service..... I think it is a service to the bankers wallets and little else.
At a very young age I began drawing out ideas, building things, fixing or making things, designing and trying out changes to see if I could improve them. I continue to learn, design, and build. I hope to have cultivated the same DIY attitude in my children, so to reinforce that sentiment, I have been looking at ways to, over time, and with a little investment at a time, begin to build some reasonable resources that will eventually break the strangle hold the energy companies have on us. As yet I've not found any reasonable or elegant methods to accomplish anything with the "do it a little at a time method" in mind. (there are some interesting developments in solar cell arrays with attached inverters ) I have looked at the falling prices for solar voltaic systems but the up front cost even with government incentives is substantial. There are several very interesting systems for heat - but again the up front cost when borrowing with interest is considered makes the investment look unappetizing. I see the cost of energy escalating in the near future and without something to curb the negative economic effect this will have on household budgets I fear there will be many more people in trouble. I have to some extent offset the cost of gas by burning wood.
I installed several fireplaces in our home, which if needed could heat the place fairly well in the winter, but there aren't enough trees for every household to heat their homes with, and wood smoke contributes to smog in densely populated areas and can lead to health issues. The only answer is some form of energy capture, storage, and redistribution. Geothermal, wind, tidal, or solar are the least objectionable natural energy sources other than burning something. Here at our home the choice is limited to geothermal,wind, or solar. The cost to harness any of them in a substantial way is still, today, too high.......
If our elected officials would stand behind the rhetoric about the "renewable energy future" and "breaking our dependence on oil" and provide the needed political push to truly make the move financially reasonable........either subsidize alternatives as is done for conventional energy, or remove the subsidies and have the "real" market value for energy drive up costs to make alternatives more appear more affordable.....either way we will be seeing a substantial change I think sooner than later......
Autumn is my favorite season, so I always enjoy reading what other people are doing at this time of year. This is an intriguing narrative; the beginning paints a picture of coziness, of fireplaces, and getting ready for cold weather. By the end, though, I found myself doing a slightly uneasy mental inventory of my quilts, comforters, and wool socks.
ReplyDeleteHow is it possible to deal with subsidies? I'm not sure I trust the current fashion for green initiatives; how much of this is real and how much is it what James Carville so inelegantly refers to as "boob bait"--albeit not for "Bubba" this time, but a more sophisticated audience?
My fear is that the current energy situation is made up of an interlocking set of deals long ago made, and there's no longer much room for change. So, will we simply keep going on as we have been and try something else only when the status quo can no longer be sustained? I throwing the idea out as the worst-case option, but I'm certainly not resigned to that being the only one.
I fear that status quo will continue to be the only choice until there is a solid financial reason to make changes. Although there has in recent years, a ground swell of rhetoric, as there was in the 1970's, about moving energy production and other facets of our economy to more ecologically centered methods. There is nothing that will move massive corporate interests unless there is a profit to be made. So until the monetary incentive is either made by policy, or by market, there will be no major change. Whatever changes are made will be minor and incremental and mostly symbolic. As have been the installation of solar and wind systems compared to the coal infrastructure in the country.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting if a parallel could be drawn between the cattle industry in the west and the energy industry in that some of the new ideas on cattle ranching with regard to high density herds and pasture rotation have significantly improved the quality and quantity of the ranchers lands and incomes. This method has also been successfully employed in areas of Africa and other parts of the world including locally even on smaller acreages such as at Sandia Indian Reservation. It was based on studies of "natural" environments where herbivore populations are allowed to move more naturally rather than being fenced in a single location. The improvement of forage production and water retention has been unbelievable in some areas. Because the economic benefits are being realized by those who employ the techniques, the methods are taking hold in many areas to improve production and land quality. This change is becoming a revolution in land preservation and improvement as well as habitat revitalization. Some similar equation for energy production is needed but as you said the "interlocking set of deals" may be difficult to unwind enough to see where a resource change will be seen as a better way to go. Power companies, railroads, and coal mines, gas and oil drilling, refining, and distribution are massive economic engines world wide. A structure as large as this interconnected economic resource web will be difficult to change unless there is either will or catastrophe. My hope is there is will by enough of the individuals on the planet that catastrophe can be avoided. My experience in other areas tells me other wise.....