Repowering America, Locally

Our Sustainable Flatbush Neighborhood Solar Forum on Wednesday was a great success. This was the first of what I plan to be a series of forums on energy-related topics, and the timing is clearly right: the very next day Al Gore made his speech urging the United States to Repower America – convert our entire electricity grid to carbon-free sources in 10 years. If you haven’t checked this speech out yet, do it now! He minces no words about the urgency of the situation:

…our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges — the economic, environmental and national security crises,” Mr. Gore said. “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”

He also points out that the more oil we use the higher the price goes, while the more solar we use the lower the price goes. The goal of our neighborhood solar forums is to inform homeowners interested in solar about the new tax credits and higher net metering limits just passed in New York, and encourage networking so they can share best practices and potentially approach installers as a group to negotiate costs. Stay tuned, we will definitely be doing more of this neighborhood-oriented energy education.