President Barrack Obama 1st Floor, West Wing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500
Reg: Solar Energy Dear Sir, What counts for more, experience or book learning? I say experience is a better and more accurate, but less forgiving teacher. I would like to share my personal experience utilizing solar energy with you. When I became disabled, unable to afford our mortgage in the Santa Cruz Mountains my husband and I decided to sell our house and develop a piece of property I bought in 1991.
This property is along an incorporated highway, FH119 and a short distance, less than a mile for electricity. Our first option was to bring in PG&E but after a $1000 deposit and several trips to my house, PG&E decided they didn’t have a check, wanted $5000 in certified funds to begin engineering and oh by they way, they filed for bankruptcy. They originally quoted me $35,000 for a line extension of one mile but suddenly it went up to $100,000. I had a preapproved construction loan but no longer had the equity to pay for the cost of electricity. With no alternatives, I invested in a solar energy (photovoltaic) system. I bought sixteen batteries, four 165 watt panels and one inverter. That was a start.
Panels at that time were running about $800 each, produced 160 watts per panel and were sold in pairs. My last two panels produced 170 watts per panel. By the time they are installed they average about $1000 per panel to produce 340 watts of power. That will run seventeen compact florescent light bulbs or a 185 watt TV and seven light bulbs. It will not run a refrigerator, forced heating or air conditioner. The refrigerator starting or running the microwave will trigger the generator to start. I have six panels. When I wrote Exposed; the Solar Energy Con, I documented the costs and I had an aerospace engineer, a former coworker and adversary tell me I was all wrong. He said solar panels were cheap and only cost $3 to $4 per watt. I pointed out that was still $3000 to $4000 per kilowatt. Compare that to PG&E’s price of $0.11 to $0.35 per kilowatt. Determined to prove I was wrong he did some research. He came back with the statement that in order to run an air conditioning I would need two acres of panels and a ton of batteries. His conclusion was that I had simply developed too soon. So what has it cost me? Everything. My relationship with my husband. He has Parkinson’s, got sick after we moved here and I have to maintain the system. He also doesn’t understand the system.
It takes an engineer to understand the intricacies of balancing an inverter, charge controller and generator. The only thing my husband can do is check the water on the battery. I change the oil, the spark plugs and monitor the system. Generators break down. I have spent in excess of $30,000 buying, repairing and replacing generators. Batteries have limited life span. My first set of batteries died in five years my second started dying after two. At a cost of over $2000. My propane usage, with solar panels is around 200 gallons per month. Propane is down to $2.13. I have had propane bills of $746 for one month. I have gone through my 401K, my inheritance and my disability settlement as well as my husband’s VA back pay for my home and just to maintain electricity. On SSDI we went bankrupt. We tried to sell but because we are off the grid (on solar energy) our house was worth 50% of what we had invested and people who were interested couldn’t get financing. Not because of the mortgage meltdown but because it is almost impossible to find a lender who will finance a solar energy (non-conforming) structure. My three bedroom Y2K 1664 square foot manufactured home was worth less than a one bedroom cabin due to Mark-to-Market appraisal. On June 26th, 2006 at 7:00 AM I lost the most important part of my life when my five year old dog, my Baby, my BooBoo died due to water intoxication because I was unable to run my air conditioner and keep him cool. At that point I would have sold my soul to the devil to get electricity. Determined not to lose another dog or much worse my husband I became determined to find a way to get electricity. I had my house appraised with electricity for a construction loan. Because of the bankruptcy I could not qualify for a conventional loan so I went to a mortgage broker.
After months of negotiating and his assurances he could get me a loan, he opened an escrow account then told me the interest would be 11.99% and my payments would go up $1000 per month. I told him he was a shylock and told him we could not afford that type of payment. He put a lot of pressure on me but I knew that if I would have taken his loan I would have been in foreclosure within two or three months. I had the common sense to know what I could or could not afford and other borrowers should too. I began looking into grants to bring electricity to my neighborhood. It took about a year but I was awarded a USFDA/RUS High Energy Cost Grant. The first individual ever to be awarded this grant my application came in at number 11 out of 75. That was in April 2008. I am still waiting for the money. The delay has been caused by the California Red Legged Frog. After a $4500 frog assessment the USFWS decided they wanted a survey. Why? Because the biologist didn’t address the location where they have been found, miles away, “We (the USFWS) must assume they are there.” We appealed and offered mitigation that will allow us to start after April 1, 2009. The CRLF is not on the endangered species list as endangered but merely as possibly threatened. Now let me tell you about the CRLF. The frog is supposed to be the frog Mark Twain (a fiction writer) wrote about in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. According to newspaper accounts (at that time) the frogs made their way onto the menus of San Francisco restaurants. This means that the Calaveras County frogs could not have been California Red Legged Frogs.
The CRLF is only two to five inches long, lives up to ten years and produces 2000 to 6000 eggs. You only eat the legs of frogs. In other words, diners would have been eating toothpicks. So why is the CRLF considered to be the infamous Calaveras County Jumping Frog? A recent article in the Calaveras Enterprise says the following; “Basey came under fire from several people for his claim that the red-legged frog was the famed jumping frog from Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Basey set the record straight after the meeting. “In the 1970s, it dawned on me that if there was any truth to the Mark Twain story the winner of that contest would have to be the red-legged frog because bullfrogs did not exist in California until 1922,” he said. “I was making presentations across the state at that time, and said the jumping frog was a red-legged frog to make my speeches more interesting.”" In other words Basey wanted to make his speeches interesting. It has nothing to do with the frog itself. My mail carrier is a tribal elder who told me the tribe has caught people putting CRLF onto the reservation.
To try to claim the tribal land. California is spending millions of tax dollars on California Red Legged Frog surveys in more than 1000 lakes and streams because over 100 years ago when they first started stocking the lakes and streams, they did not perform an environmental impact study. This will collapse the industry as well as sport fishing and tourism. Environmental impact studies only cause delays to development and costs jobs. It does nothing to protect the CRLF. We spend millions on the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, reclaiming rice fields to rebuild snake mounds and even protect the Kangaroo Jumping Mouse, a rodent which is known to carry the Hanta virus. My sister in Colorado lost a friend because of the Hanta virus. Tell her about protecting mice. I say we should spend tax dollars eradicating rodents not protecting them. Should we put the mosquito on the endangered species list because it is the mainstay of the CRLF’s diet?
In California we can’t build any new hydroelectric facilities because the environmentalists in Congress tell us to conserve because they don’t want to displace deer habitat. Hydroelectric is the cleanest energy. You can only conserve so much with a growing population and with the drought we face water shortages that will impact the farmers. So instead of protecting people and jobs we protect the deer. No American should die because they can’t obtain water or electricity.
In California it is illegal not to have electricity because as a recent news report stated people use more dangerous things like generators. So I now find out after 8 years my house is illegal. Even though I was given building permits. Getting back to solar energy. It doesn’t work. It is not cost effective and contaminates the environment. Solar panels degrade after as little as six years. Where are we going to recycle these panels? How many megawatts does it take to manufacture a product that over its lifetime will only produce kilowatts? It doesn’t make economic sense to manufacture something that takes more to manufacture than it can produce. Conserve the energy instead. The batteries required for these systems often end up thrown into creeks by the same environmentalists that are promoting this form of energy. A recent cleanup netted twenty-four discarded batteries. Rain running off solar panels causes erosion and how much erosion do you think would be caused by cutting down two acres of trees? Solar panels break loose from mountings and have gone sailing in high winds. This is a fire hazard when broken hot wires touch fallen leaves. And these panels will be hot no matter where they land. The average consumer has little understanding of electric applications.
My IQ is in the 85th percentile (85% above normal) and it has been difficult for me to understand the complexity and the dynamics of a photovoltaic system. Electric generation is best left to the experts. It is too dangerous for the ignorant. Before promoting solar energy you should live it. I have lived this way for 8 years. Don’t talk to me about sacrifice. You have no understanding of sacrifice. You couldn’t even go without electricity for one day when the electricity went out in Hawaii. Before you talk about what you don’t know try living it for a while. Recent news reports say that 650 world renowned climatologists say global temperatures have actually decreased over the last three years and there is no such thing as global warming, but you refuse to believe the experts deferring instead to people like Al Gore who benefit economically from promoting the idea of global warming. Cap and Trade will put the final nail in the coffin which has become the American Economy. Card Check will take away the most sacred of our voting rights and hurt job creation.
Just look at Detroit to see how good unions are and how much they help the economy. Any idiot can see this. My sister is a Realtor who is raising her two grandchildren. She can’t sell anything because of the economy. My best friend is a broker. He has gone bankrupt. Taxpayers waste millions annually on idiotic protectionist environmental policies. No frog, snake, rodent or bear is worth one human life. ANWR is a useless piece of frozen tundra that the polar bear doesn’t even want. Yet the eco-nuts want to protect ANWR for the Polar Bear. We need to drill ANWR and offshore and develop nuclear power and become energy independent.
It won’t hurt the environment and will help the economy. When Congress said they were going to allow the moratorium on offshore drilling stocks went up. When it looked like you would be elected the Dow started on it’s downhill slide. It is because of the policies you put in place. Every time you speak, Wall Street listens and the Dow drops. But you don’t seem concerned about that. When are you going to wake up and realize oil prices and bad environmental policies ignited this economic wildfire and urinating on it won’t stop it? A pig by any other name is still pork. Call it what you like but Americans can see the so called stimulus package is filled with pork as is the Omnibus package and the budget.
We are not stupid. I see more methane come out of Congress spewed forth from voracious caverns called Pelosi and Reed than comes out of the worst coal burning power plant. It’s time for a pig roast. You spent millions on a coronation including millions of tax dollars on security and cleanup. You serve $80 per pound beef at your taxpayer subsidized Super Bowl party while American’s can’t afford hamburger or milk.
You party and entertain and fly all over the nation on the taxpayer’s back. Have you ever heard of teleconferencing? Try living by example instead of putting out the rhetoric you are asking the American’s to live by. Americans are pissed off.
By: Tiffany Montano Recovering Environmentalist 11997 Oro Quincy Hwy. Berry Creek, CA 95916-9780 530-589-4667 Exposed; the Solar Energy Con Environmentalism and Government run Amuck Chue’s Trip Squirrelly Squirrel Fights Back
