SOLAQUA: Sundog Solar
by Ross Rice
It’s a very ambitious plan, that’s for damn sure.
I mean, check this out: a large complex just outside of Chatham (near the Taconic) that would house a restaurant/pub, art gallery, retail space, theater, and an outdoor plaza with a stage—interconnected with incubator businesses, a fully equipped foundry for metal works, ceramics, and glass-blowing, manufacturing space for solar-ready home building components, and a biofuel/hydrogen vehicle conversion station. All of this adjacent to 180 acres with locally-produced modular homes, and all buildings powered by solar, hydroelectric, and hydrogen….with the goal of zero power costs and zero carbon footprint. A self-sustaining eco-community of creative people and entrepreneurs, enjoying the liberation from oil, coal, and nuclear power needs. Pretty ambitious, all right. You got a better idea?
Big plans like these take time, though. And yes, money. And yes, people who get the plan and make it work. But first you had really better have a bona fide visionary. Like Jody Rael.
When I pull in to the address of Solaqua provided by Mr. Rael, I find myself at the north end of an aging array of buildings, clearly an old mill of some kind, sitting atop Stonykill Creek, which runs along Rte. 295 just northeast of Chatham. Huh. Smack dab in the parking area, a prominent cluster of sturdy-looking solar arrays point in a southerly direction, in front of a medium-sized warehouse, where bright orange and green colored banners announce the presence and contact information of SunDog Solar. But the sign in front of the warehouse reads Kling Magnetics. Hmm. I walk into the lobby which, frankly, has a college dorm type feel, a stationary bicycle (more like a velocipede) festooned with mini-lites sits idle by the door. Just up some stairs—ah yes, a door with logos. This must be the place. CONTINUE...
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