Sandra P. Hoffman:
>Having lived in an area where the big grid went down big time for a good
>long time in parts of the region, my first priority if I am ever
>fortunate enough to own property would be to take it off the grid. I
>also support people who are agitating to shrink the grids to locally
>produced energy sources. The image of the crumpled high tension
>towers will stay with me for a long time. The knowledge that the
>whole power supply to the National Capital of Canada depended for
>several days on one sagging half capacity wire is pretty powerful.
>The understanding that, that wire was all that was between
>hundreds of thousands of people and no heat, no clean water, and
>no energy for cooking is an amazing lesson that is being forgotten
>all to quickly.
Well done. Let us all recognize that the personal reasons for
admiring/wanting/having PV systems may be experiential, psychological,
ethical, pragmatic, financial and any combination thereof.
A friend came over today to help me erect a heavy pole and beam. At lunch
we discussed personal solar systems. His take was that if one took the
seven-to-ten thousand dollars needed to buy such a system and invested it,
the return would be greater than the present cost of paying his or my
personal electric bills. So his point was financial, as valid for him as
the various other points are for the rest of us.
