SOLAQUA: Sundog Solar
by Ross Rice
Jody wants people to see burning hydrogen at work in his on-site forge and foundry, “so that people see, and get a feeling: whoa, that’s burning hydrogen! People say ‘hydrogen economy, that’s a joke’, well, what do you think we have now? Anything we burn now: wood, coal, oil—the energy comes from hydrogen.”
Jody has big plans for a hydrogen converter, to use the excess power generated that the grid won’t pay for from his arrays. Apparently the net metering laws in NY State won’t let the meter run backward for commercial ventures. You can probably thank the utilities lobby for that.
Jody already has difficulty with the well-connected utilities. “[They] look at my 12 kilowatts as competition, and if more people put up 12 kilowatts, then how are they going to justify building those three power plants that they want you to supply 18 billion dollars of tax deferment for? Or better yet, to build more nuclear plants, since they’re so ‘green’ and ‘sustainable.’” (Maximum sarcasm here.)
Citing the new German model for power self-sustenance, Jody points out, “If you put in your solar system (in Germany), the utility pays you the first year five times the amount you would have to have paid for the electricity had you bought it, with a sliding scale downwards over time. You pay for your system in about five years. After that, you’re on par with the system, and they pay you. You’re being paid by your government to produce electricity!
“We’ve known we’ve had this technology all through this industrial age that de-couples people from the meter and the monthly bill. And that the government and the industry wants a meter on your house, they want you to pay every month, put 50,80,100 dollars in your tank every week... CONTINUE...
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