Entreprenuers and Conservation

When we moved to rural Nova Scotia almost twenty-five years ago, I took it for granted that my engineer husband and I would be generating our own electricity. In Florida I had admired the ability of Floridians to generate their own and remain connected to the electricity grid with a two way exchange system. I remember sharing a July 5th with one family who lived in suburbia, made their living from the sea with a tiny yacht, and generated their own hydro in a very modern home.

At the time I wondered how the individual generating of electricity could be made to work in British suburbia, where even solar panels for a three-bedroomed detached house then cost over six thousand pounds, without guarantee of success. The salesman could give us no figures on cost reductions for running the household with solar panels installed. No one was talking about wind farms in Britain then, although the equinoxes alone generated endless energy.

I had planned electricity generating as part of our small farm enterprise. The other thing I had expected was to use solar heat. Even twenty years later in Nova Scotia I found that the so-called suppliers of solar heat panels and windmills offered them at exorbitant costs. They also seemed uninformed about these natural power sources.

By comparison one landlord, in St. John, New Brunswick, built his own. The primitive solar heat system he built took a thousand dollars off his winter heating costs. When you live next to the roaring Fundy tides and the massive St.John river, huge winter ice flows are commonplace.

My inquiries in Nova Scotia were repeatedly treated with derision. The local hydro company did not want regular folks generating hydro and connecting to the grid. One family with a small house went solar at a reported cost of over twenty-two thousand dollars, but was cut off from the grid. I was always told, "You'll need an awful lot of batteries, to store any power you generate." At the same time there are rural households throughout Canada that lack electricity. They can have it if they are willing to pay the cost of extending power lines to their homes, providing that cost is affordable.

During the ice storms of Ontario we heard of tragedies and also of homes designed to maximize solar heat and maintain a seventy degree Fahrenheit temperature summer and winter. These were not using external heat sources other than natureand synpathetic building materials. When do we get to share in this expertise? In Nova Scotia I was told that the local power company wanted to retain control of all available electricity.

Why? We are all looking at huge increases in the cost of essential power in a climate of extreme winter cold and dangerous summer heat. At the same time breakdowns in supply are regualr events during the multiplyig fierce storms that cause weather advisories telling us to stay at home. We need to privitase and remain connected to the grid in order to survive. This thinking would enusre better hope for myriads of small businesses. It would also create further business for maintenance and repair persons.

Now I have found a breakthrough in a surprising source, The huge cost of solar and wind heat has been reduced by Chinese manufacturers who are selling electricity generating windmills and solar panels at reasonable prices, way below the costs last quoted in Nova Scotia. The small farmer and rural home dweller can return to the traditional self-sufficiency that has been the hallmark of country folk. Would it work in the city? Maybe.

The e-mail address I found is mail@energyenv.co.uk and the telephone number within the United Kingdom is 0161 881 1383; web page http://www.energyenv.co.uk/Solar_Electric.asp>.

Let me include a quote from their sale pitch : -
1. Grid-connected solar (PV) systems....
2. Solar PV Grant Funding for private individuals, community groups and (in Scotland) housing developers.

Wind generated power installations start at : - "Basic price 445.00." web page http://www.energyenv.co.uk/WindPower.asp.

The grants in Britain for private home owners have now ended, but the installation remains worthwhile. In Australia grants for installing solar power have increased. Is there anyone out there who has experience of these products? Please share.

The Canadian Maritimes have never been known for big business, If Quebec separates from Canada, the Maritimes, or the four Atlantic Provinces, including Newfoundland and Labrador, may need to amalgamate and seperate from Federal Canada and return to being Canada's first Government. In these Provinces many families are finding conventional electricity unaffordable.

If we bought inexpensive Chinese products for home produced electricity, we could sell the Chinese our second hand particulators. Particulators are designed to minimize carbon emissions from fossil fuels. We might even sell some to the smoke stacks of the Alberta Tar Sands. Then my cousin who emigrated to Australia to cope with asthma, might be able to make regular visits to her family in Canada.

Come on Canada. Let's do business with the Chinese and cut fossil fuel use while cleaning up the smog ridden skies of both countries. The pioneers did not need big business. Why is it needed now? Let us individuate and participate, to keep the nation healthy

Caveat is a Fine Artist, Journalist, Conservationist and Business Person with a background in Seafaring, Farming and Forestry

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