Last week was my first residential solar cell exposure (tee-hee) in this Durham community. It was a very interesting, well attended meeting with our First Selectman, Laura Francis, some residents who have actually installed systems, some guests from solarizing agencies and a bunch of us curious people. Looking around the room, I was pretty sure that more of a few of us were eco-conscious back in the 70's and 80's but somewhere in the busi-ness of life, grew a bit dim on the issue. Honestly though, was the technology there for it back then? I remember tales of milk jug systems installed on roofs failing in rather spectacular ways (turns out water is really heavy).
Well, there are some major shifts that make this whole issue very worth another visit. Solar cells are way more advanced. Heating by oil, gas and wood is far more expensive. We now have the internet, perhaps a blessing and a curse, but information certainly travels more quickly, and the conversation is bigger. I think that's good.
Why not solar? Views of mountain top mining, fracking disasters and oil spills make this technology look pretty darn good. Just because we don't have mountains to rip up, oil sands to hydrofrack or a coast line at risk here in Durham, doesn't mean we can't be wholistically aware of what our consumption means elsewhere. I'll be watching, blogging, and asking questions to try and shed some light(can't resist) on this issue for myself and anyone interested.
