Are we screwed on the whole oil thing?

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

A friend of mine sent an e-mail today with a touch of desperaton:

“I was just reading From the Wilderness, and I now know about peak
oil. Uh Oh! Do you think we're screwed on the whole oil thing? What do you think we should do about it? Are solar panels really expensive?”

Since my good buddy has two babies, I first recommended that he contact Citizens Energy Cooperative (CEC) to install solar water heating panels on his home. Can you imagine how much water those babies use now and how much they’ll use when puberty hits and they want to smell good to the opposite sex? (RENEW Executive Director Michael Vickerman recently installed solar water heating panels from CEC, as you can see from the photo, and his wife reports that he indeed smells good.)

My friend also owns two small businesses in buildings that he rents, so I recommended that he sign up for green power and brag about it to his customers, by saying something like, “I power my products and services with wind-generated electricity, so do business with me.” (Okay, I’m not an advertising wizard.)

On the cost of solar panels, “expensive” is all relative. Niels Wolter, a Focus on Energy consultant, installed a solar array for an out-of-pocket cost of around $7,600. (New federal tax credits would reduce this amount further.) He will get free electricity from it for the rest of his life. Free is pretty cheap.

Of course, energy efficiency would be less expensive than solar panels, and dozens of Web sites, like Focus on Energy, promote compact fluorescent bulbs, Energy Star appliances, and other efficiency measures for homes and businesses.

Yes, we're screwed on this whole oil thing. It's a finite resource, after all.

But, take hope, my friend, you have time to prepare for the end of oil as we know it.