Public Comment. Volume III - Montana Legislature

1. hcgv Conservation. (Using less energy to accomplish similar purposes, which involves
architecture, product design, and interface with adjacent but dis-similar enterprises, etc.)
2. Wind Generation. (Denmark is the world's leading manufacturer of megawatt wind
turbines and is presentIy erecting a major system in North Dakota.)
3. Photovoltaic Sola. (Converting sunlight directly into eIectrica1 energy, a world wide
rapidly growing phenomenon.)
4. Natural Gas- and Fuel Celk (We are presently in an intermediate period
between the oil and coal era and the hydrogedfkel cell era, the fuel of choice now being natural gas,
which is less polluting than oil or coal. Not only that, but the new power plants burning natural gas
are rarely on the grand scale of their predecessors and are convertible to hydrogen when
economically feasible to do so. Meanwhile, world consumption of coal is two years into a modest
decline which could become permanent.)
To dispel any suspicion that the author may have plagiarized the above fiom somebody's
textbook, consider the following:
In 1993, the author and his wife relocated fiom Gallatin County to Lewis and Clark County
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and built a new two level 2400 sq. ft. south facing home incorporating numerous energy
conservation features as in #1 above. We also located off the utility grid, meaning we were obliged
to generate all our electrical requirements on site, as per #2 and #3 above.
In that process, we have retraced the ~merican experience with electricity, which began
locally, with each community generating its own power. Then the U.S.A. and communist Russia,
opted for the economy of scale available in super systems, very large hydro, fossil and nuclear he1
generation complexes intertwined with giant transmission lines. Russia put facilities wherever it
suited communist purposes. Our country did the same, but "democratized" the process by
interposing the concept of Eminent Domain.
But now we, personally, have gone back to ground zero - basically traveling from
maximum to minimum scale, which in much of the third world is a triumph of irony because some
of it went fiom oil lamps directly to photovoltaic, omitting super systems altogether and the
pollution accompanying them. So our family, like that sector of the third world, has no need for any
electrical transmission lines (nor buried telephone cable either - we use a combination of cellular
and private microwave).
Set next to our home are 25 south facing solar panels on a fixed array which also includes
two small wind generators. The D.C. current produced is converted in our lower level to both 120
and 240 volt A.C. When more energy is created than is being used, the extra flows into a bank of
batteries until needed.
-152- Volume Ill: Public Comment