Renewable Resources

**UPDATE** Go check the link under "Blogs I Watch Regularly" marked 'My friend's blog--she's really smart'. She did a great discussion on how Christian's should respond to global warming. Should we cherish the earth because it's God creation (Romans chapter one)? Or should we "subdue" it and use it up (Genesis) ? Great discussion.

If you look at the comments for "It's not easy being green" you can see it stirred up some great suggestions and things friends are already doing to be green.

There was a request for information on how to receive the amazing amount of rebates a household can receive by installing solar panels, both for heat and water. I have sat and done some homework and retraced all my googling on this issue. I am not going to add this onto my main homepage because I really do want to give that space to family/friends issues and adoption.

But here is what I found for Oregon:

www.energytrust.org Specifically, if you click here you'll see how they add up and make sense of all the rebates from local municipalities plus federal. What the setup is, you can get those rebates if you have a system installed by one of their contractors. As I clicked around the contractors, I realized there are specialty fields. Some only do panels for water systems, for businesses, for only residential heating, etc. I did find one in my city that does both water and heat, and comes highly recommended.

www.oregonsolarrebate.com That is the company I heard all the radio commercials for in southern Oregon. It is one of those approved contractors, and their website really keeps up on the new rebates. From my reading, all of these contractors are quite willing and friendly in helping you get those rebates because they get paid directly from those government agencies.

http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Solar/ Here is the state of Oregon's official page on what they think of the issue. They also give a great grid map of what areas in Oregon have the best sunlight. From what I have read, no matter where you live, the solar panels these days are highly efficient and can squeeze some sort of light out of a cloudy day. Click around here for a bit.

There are also some great links on that page for other states near us. Washington, California, and Florida readers, you have some links there for you.

I also want to note, please look at some of the pictures, especially the contractors, of what they show a system to look like. They are not the huge panels that caved in roofs when we were kids in the 70's and 80's. The basic setup is to place a bank of smaller panels on a south facing roof. I don't have a south facing roof on my house, but I do on my detached garage. And it wouldn't be very visible from the street. That is where I would start asking questions with a contractor. Plus, they have setups that can work around such issues to be efficient yet not make your home suddenly look like NASA lives there.

One thing I am doing right away--putting solar power on my chicken coop! It is easier than electricity! To keep a light on in the coop during the winter to keep the ladies warm, I have to run an extension cord through a window from my garage. Makes my coop look like it's from Sanford and Son. So, there is a great product out there called "Light Your Shed". You can pick it up at a hardware store. It's an itsy bitsy solar panel half the size of a piece of paper for installing on the tops of sheds, and probably chicken coops too. Have an unlit shed or out building of some kind that you could use just a little light but don't want to spend the money to wire it up? Try that! I am going to do that here in the next few weeks. My chickens are going green!

So my summary as I read all of this--I want solar power for my home. My husband does agree with me when I say that--he's just distracted with his dissertation right now. If I walk up to him right now and say "Let's do solar panels" his head might shrink up and die. He's not up for new ideas right this second. But, I think it's a great technology that doesn't rake more resources from our planet. It is also affordable. Without having a contractor give me a bid yet, my calculations tell me I can put a heat and water system on my home for around $5,000 after all the rebates the contractor does for me. I know, that is $5,000 that I don't have right now. But I am keeping a close eye on this--I have the feeling the rebates are going to get nicer and juicier in the next few years to the point where we can do it. Plus, $5,000 is a lot cheaper than the full price of $20,000+. I am excited to think this could be feasible for a lot of homes in the near future.

Plus it will pay for itself in a few years! No more electric or gas bills! In addition, on months my panels gather more energy than my usage, that extra power goes back into the power grid and heats your home. I really can't wait to be green! I am so jealous of my chickens.