One of the many downsides to our reliance on fossil fuels is that it empowers autocrats in petro-states to spread chaos at home and across the world. It’s time to Electrify & Decarbonize.
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Buy Victory Panels
In the past ten years, we’ve installed solar panels on my house three times. This year we’ll do it again. We save for a while, buy panels, earn our money back on sunshine, electrify more systems in our house and then repeat. Through all the industry changes, the reduction in panel costs, and fluctuating incentives, I’m often asked, when is the best time to buy? My answer: every time. Every single time we spent money on solar panels it ended up being one of the best purchases of our lives. Why? Because financials are only part of the story. While solar panels can, and should, make some economic sense, I…
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8 Days, 2 Kids, 2700 Miles, 1 Tesla
Lessons Learned From A Cross Country EV Road Trip If there is one Achilles heel of the electric automobile (EV), it’s the road trip. Even if the road trip is something we only very occasionally ask of our personal vehicles, it’s still a crucial aspect of the American car owner experience I’ve been singing the praises of electric transport for four years, so it was only fitting that I put my money where my mouth is and attempt not just a local EV road trip, but the most sacred and grueling of American long drives — the Cross Country Road Trip. My family of four (with kids ages 5 and…
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Buy Land and Plant
An Adventure in Reforesting A decade or so ago, I came across an article in the local paper about a retired school teacher who owned some land a couple of hours east of my city of Portland, Oregon, and spent his golden years planting trees. He had planted 10,000 trees up to that point, aiming to reforest a semidry area of land east of the Cascade mountains, where ponderosa pines flourished before the arrival of Europeans and had been mostly clearcut to create pasture. Something about the article resonated and stuck with me to this day. It was powerful to see an individual intentionally rewilding an area, giving it back…
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Induction Stoves
Say Bye Bye to Gas in the Kitchen Induction stoves allow consumers to happily leave behind fossil fuels in the kitchen. Plus, they cook food faster than other types of stoves, adjust heat instantaneously, offer precise temperature control, and are incredibly safe (they only work when a magnetic pan is placed on top of them, so no more accidentally leaving the burner on). Best of all, they are powered by clean electricity. Like so many technologies in the electrified home of the future, induction stoves are exciting newcomers on the scene because they change the rules of the game. They eliminate one more gas industry argument for why we need…
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Signing Up for Community Solar
My Experience Community solar just had its first birthday in Oregon. While the program was years long in the rulemaking, it has been slow to roll out, and COVID then threw a wrench in the works. The first PV projects are now steadily moving forward and will go into the ground and catch solar photons next year. Oregon is one of a handful of states which currently have policies that support community solar. Some states (in green below) have programs in the works or about to launch, while others (in blue) have live, active community solar programs you can sign up for now. Advocates see community solar as an important…
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Hang Drying Revolution
Air drying clothes is a simple practice that offers enormous savings in power use and reduces pollution.
