What are the true stakes behind humanity figuring out this whole carbon thing? It’s hard to know for sure. Science seems to tell us that the future of humanity depends on it. The fossil fuel companies want us to believe otherwise. I figure we might as well hedge our bets. When you have kids, you tend to think of the future beyond your own lifespan.
Ultimately our governmental leaders and the policies they create have the best chance of changing the system before it’s too late. That’s why the single best thing we can do to save our planet is also the easiest. Show up at the ballot box.
But even politics will ultimately be decided by the will of the people. And the will of the people is dictated by the stories they hear. In a world of fake news and science denial it’s sometimes hard to know which stories to listen to. So I like to occasionally conduct my own experiments.
People say we need to transition more to renewable energy and so I started to explore solar energy. My interest in this topic was probably sparked when I started bringing small solar kits on expeditions and big wall climbs. The ability to simply point a small man made object at the sun and therefore power lights, cameras and communication devices seemed like magic. So I decided to put solar on my van 12 years ago. Suddenly I had the ability to live off the grid, but with all the amenities of home. I once asked Yvon Chouinard what he thought the biggest immediate threat to society was. His response surprised me. He told me that we needed to decentralize the power grid.
I have never considered myself a survivalist. But I have found that one of the most liberating aspects of adventure climbing is how it disconnects us from the rest of the world. We learn to live for days or weeks at a time reliant on only ourselves, our partners, and our small kit of tools that can fit in a few duffel bags. We produce little waste and life seems simple. Putting solar on my van allowed me to bring a bit of that liberation out of the high mountains to a venue that could be easily experienced with my young family. That’s what got me hooked.
To bring it back to a larger perspective, as in the future of humanity, I believe that we as humans have to switch to renewables because air pollution will kill us. And currently it’s people who are in lower income neighborhoods that are suffering the most in America because these neighborhoods are often closer to major highways and industrial areas and feel the effects of this pollution at a closer level. But ultimately economics drives human behavior. So the only way renewables will beat out fossil fuels, is if they become less expensive. And if we want to power our homes and transportation with reduced emissions, we need to transition away from combustion based energy sources and to electricity. The big debat in my mind is: Have we already gotten to a point where it is less expensive? I figured that if I could reduce expenses within my own life by transitioning to renewable energy sourses, it would not only improve my lifestyle because I would be spending less money. But it would also strengthen my arguments when advocating for policy change.
Home Solar
A decade ago I moved into a house with a large old school hydronic solar system on the roof. The 1600 sq ft house was built in 1935 and was poorly insulated, the system was in disrepair so the house consumed about 1000 gallons of propane a year. I was able to half the propane consumption by adding storm windows, blowing more insulation into the attic, tightening up air leaks and updating the solar controller. I further reduced propane consumption by updating some of the old heaters as they aged out. I transitioned to efficient electric when possible, not because it was less expensive right now but because I believe it’s the future and I want to support that transition. I was also able to add some insulation into the walls during a few interior remodels. With those updates my house consumed an average of less than 1 gallon of propane and $4.30 a day in electricity. Propane is dirt cheap right now (1.00 per gallon) so total cost $5.30 a day in energy consumption. $4.30 a day on electricity or $1934 a year.
My house is in Colorado and has good Southern exposure. So I decided my next energy upgrade would be a rooftop PV system. (Electrical solar Panels). The financial details of how this all plays out are somewhat complicated so I’ll do my best to simplify. The solar company (for free) upgraded the energy efficiency of your house by adding more insulation, air sealing and changing out old light bulbs. They calculated that would reduce my energy usage by 30 percent so they based the size of my PV system based on 70 percent of my current energy usage. They sized my system to cancel my electrical usage to zero. Finance charges based on a loan amortized over 20 years would have cost $15 less than my current bill. But I still have to pay the base fee of $33
Not surprisingly the solar company overpromised a little. But essentially the PV system worked out to $20 more a month in electric costs for twenty years . After that it reduces to only my base fee (currently $33). My 1935 house will produce all its own electricity and use only around 300 gallons of propane a year. If you compare that to the consumption of the house when I purchased it of 1000 gallons of propane and $200 a month in electricity. I reduced my overall yearly energy cost by 50 percent. Once the panels are paid off I will be paying 80 Percent less for energy than I was when I purchased the house. If I decided to just pay for the panels in cash it reduces the payoff to 12 years.
Of course this took a fair amount of tinkering, number crunching, some investment in insulation upgrades, and a credit rating that allowed me to get the solar loan.
This experiment led me to the conclusion that if you have a certain amount of resources upfront, solar can in fact save you quite a lot of money. And it feels good to be consuming less. A tax break of 30 percent on the solar helped a ton and might leave some to believe that solar is only financially viable because of government incentives. But if you dig a little deeper you learn that fossil fuels get the biggest government incentives of all. Most reports site 5 to 10 times as much as renewables. PG&E says that it is now less expensive to build new solar plants than it is to maintain the current coal plants. All this is to say that renewables are kicking butt, and cleanly produced electricity is the future, both in terms of protecting the planet and my pocketbook.
Solar Car.
I believe in using what it have until it is dead. So buying an electric car really hasn’t been in the cards yet. But I know I will eventually need a different car. And I have been lobbying for Protect our Winters to electrify transportation, so I figured I should find out if driving an electric car would have a similar effect on my pocketbook as going solar on my home. I rented a Tesla for a road trip through southern Colorado. I could dive deeply into my findings but right now I want to go climbing so I’ll summarize. For auto transportation, buying, maintaining and operating a new electric car is far less expensive that a gas car by basically every metric conceivable when considering the total cost over 10 years. That’s even if you buy a super posh Tesla and compare it to a Honda Civic. And they are way more fun to drive. And you never have to stop at a gas station if you can plug in at home at night. The obvious downside is the need to stop and charge on longer trips. For me, a trip through one of the more remote sections of Colorado went from 8 to 9 hours because of the charging. The route takes a little more planning, but the technology in the cars is helping their users calculate this into their trips. The infrastructure is mostly in place and it’s getting better as time goes on and more motor companies are creating electric vehicles. As more and more people buy electric vehicles the industry grows and the infrastructure will improve. There is so much money going into battery research as well that could be a total game changer.
There are some situations where it’s difficult for someone living in an apartment building without a parking spot and designated charging spot that makes it trickier than someone who has a driveway and an extension cord, but forward thinking city planners are seeing that electric vehicles are the future and finding ways to implement chargers in these more urban settings. Even in my small mountain town of Estes Park we have at least 4 different electric car charging areas around town.
I will be the first to say I’m not an expert in any of these areas, but this is my own experience. I truly believe renewable energy is the future and the sooner we can get policy makers in office to push further adopting, developing, and transitioning of and to clean energy the better off we all are going to be.