{"id":1385,"date":"2011-10-17T16:43:38","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T20:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/yes-i-do-have-solar.html"},"modified":"2011-10-17T16:43:38","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T20:43:38","slug":"yes-i-do-have-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/yes-i-do-have-solar.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes, I do have solar"},"content":{"rendered":"Here’s my LTE in the VDT today. -jsq\n
\nA letter last week asked, “Do you have solar energy yourself?” Why yes, I do.\n\n<\/a>\nWhen we installed solar panels on our farm workshop in 2009,\nthe closest certified solar installer was in Marietta.\nThere were only four in the state. Now there are forty.\nGeorgia may yet catch up with North Carolina and even New Jersey!\n

\nHannah Solar had all the paperwork ready when\n\nOkra Paradise Farms<\/a>\napplied for a USDA REAP grant for more solar panels a few weeks ago.\nMuch to our surprise,\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\nwe got the grant!\n

\nThat grant plus federal and state rebates will pay for around 90%\nof the cost. Sure, I’ll end up paying the difference out of pocket,\nbut the whole thing will end up net positive in 3-7 years. What else can\nyou say that about with any certainty: a car, a house, stocks, even a job?\nFinancing solar is a business opportunity for some local bank or banks.\n

\nBefore anybody gripes about subsidies, remember fossil fuels get 12 times\nthe subsidies of renewable energy. Plus private venture capital\nis looking for large-scale solar projects right now.\n

\nNational Solar Power just announced a mostly privately funded\nlarge-scale solar project in Gadsden County, Florida,\nonly about a hundred miles west of here.\n

\nThat Letter to the Editor also asked, “what it would cost to keep one freezer\nrunning.” How much coal would it take to run a single freezer?\nExcept, wait, for solar no fuel is required!\n

\nNobody really sells\nsolar at the per-freezer level. For household or larger,\nthe\n\nGeorgia Solar Energy Association<\/a>\ncan help.\n

\nWhich is cheaper,\n(1) Solar for your house, which costs less than a car out of\npocket and starts paying back in 15 years or less, Or (2)\nan extra car you don’t need that depreciates anyway, Or (3)\npower from the nation’s dirtiest coal plant near Macon plus the\nextraordinary negative side of coal mining, Or (4)\n\nincreasing\nfees to Georgia Power for building its two new nukes,<\/a>\nincluding any\ncost overruns?\n

\nLet’s look at the big picture:\nHow can we afford to continue subsidizing polluting fossil fuel companies\nwhile they make record profits for any companies in history?\nHow can we afford to continue paying for wars for oil, owing our\npower generation to Saudi Arabia, where they flog women for driving?\nHow can we afford not to get on with renewable and sustainable energy,\nespecially solar?\n

\nWhy not use the south Georgia sun to lead in the fastest growing industry\nin the world?\n

\nAnd what are you doing to help?\n

\n\nJohn S. Quarterman is a Lowndes County resident\n<\/strong>\n<\/blockquote>\nIf it sounds familiar, that’s because I condensed it from\n\nthe longer version of ten days ago,<\/a>\nwhich has a lot more links to further information.\nThe picture is new, though.\nHm, maybe I should wash those jeans.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s my LTE in the VDT today. -jsq A letter last week asked, “Do you have solar energy yourself?” Why yes, I do. When we installed solar panels on our farm workshop in 2009, the closest certified solar installer was in Marietta. There were only four in the state. Now there are forty. Georgia may […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,216,14,264,265,16,18,3252,104,21,32,23,24,133],"tags":[424,8753,8704,2061,1164,8708,8868,2421,8737,799,1131,8713,8714],"class_list":["post-1385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-coal","category-economy","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-environment","category-georgia-power","category-hannah-solar","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-vdt","tag-business","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-electricity","tag-finance","tag-georgia-power","tag-hannah-solar","tag-national-security","tag-nuclear","tag-opportunity","tag-pv","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-ml","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}