by Cam Mather

You know what I’m really tired of? Watching newscasts in which people who are without electricity during a blackout complain about it. It’s invariably storm related and it’s completely unnecessary. When the U.S. was being walloped by winter storms last month there were people whining on the news every night. With the technology that exists today people have the choice of whether or not they want to be totally dependent on the electricity grid. If you roll the dice and hope the power will never go off, then when you lose the bet you should take your lumps and not complain about it. No one ever said the electricity would flow flawlessly, forever. In fact the more I learn about electricity and the grid, the more I’m amazed it even works at all. It is simply the largest, most complex machine we’ve ever built and the last time I checked, machines break.

I find when I work at my neighbor Ken’s place, which is on the grid, I marvel at the wonder of the grid all the more. When I installed my solar thermal system I had to weld together a steel frame so that my solar thermal panel would sit at a 45° angle on my back porch roof. When I fired up Ken’s welder to do the job there was a huge load placed on the grid. Ken is at the end of a power line and so every time I hit the trigger of that welder the grid had to sense a huge load and instantly have the juice to handle it. Even though most of the time the loads on this line would be pretty manageable, if I started the welder at the same time someone else’s well pump clicked on, and someone’s fridge came on, and the compressor on someone’s heat pump clicked on, etc. the load must have been enormous and yet the power company had to be ready. We’re not close to any power plants so that electricity had to travel an enormous distance the instant the load was turned on. It’s simply a miracle. It’s a miracle but those of us who have always had the luxury of it, don’t appreciate it.

I have been openly critical of large power utilities for being so resistant to having small generators pump renewable energy onto the grid, but I have to admit I understand the challenges it must present for them. It’s a manageable challenge but a challenge none-the-less. The fact they’ve been able to engineer this wondrously marvelously complex machine we call the grid tells me they can do it, even if it presents some unique challenges. I think often it’s just been that they’re lazy and like the status quo, which is to have large-scale centralized power generation facilities that they control, do all the work. But life IS complex. I had to figure out how to keep my computer software up-to-date and I learned how to send a text message on my cell phone and I have figured out how to use the “Self-Serve” check out line at the grocery store. The power utilities need to just get over it. Suck it up and deal with small generators. We need green power and ultimately so do they.

If you’re a homeowner expect power outages. If you have a furnace with a fan, when the power goes out you won’t have heat. Your pipes will freeze. You will get cold. If you live in the country your pump won’t work. You won’t have water. Your fridge won’t keep things cold. This is what will ultimately happen. Grids go down so deal with it.

You DO have some options though. Step one; get a small battery backup to charge your cell phone. Step two; get a generator so that you can at least run your furnace fan so your pipes won’t freeze. Step three; get some solar panels on your roof and a battery backup. Step four. Stop whining. Next time the power goes off your family shouldn’t notice the difference. Sure, telling ghost stories by candlelight during a black out was fun when you were a kid, but with the technology available today it’s soooo 1950s.

by Michelle Mather

I'm going to turn 50 in a few months and even after half of century of living and learning I can still be surprised and intrigued by the world around me.

Take this photo for example;

Cam took this photo on Wednesday afternoon. I was working in the office and he was walking back from where he was cutting firewood. He looked up and saw this and called me out to take a look too. It was a sunny afternoon but there seemed to be some haze just around the sun. It almost looked like a rainbow but not quite. It stayed there for quite some time.

One day a number of summers ago we noticed that the sky had a strange appearance. Kind of hazy... almost smoky.... but it wasn't a humid day so we wondered what was causing it. We even began to detect the faint aroma of smoke and we got a little worried that there was a nearby forest fire. We called our local fire department. Eventually we figured out that due to some sort of weird inversion effect, forest fires that were raging in Quebec were actually affecting our skies here in Eastern Ontario. The effects lasted for over a week!

At times like these I am reminded once again that we are all "roommates" sharing the same planet. The activities and behaviours of each of us that pollute the water or the air or the soil will affect all of us. I'm working to limit my impact on our home. I hope you are too!

P.S. If anyone has an explanation for the "solar rainbow" we witnessed, I'd love to hear it!

by Cam Mather

My goal was to move off the grid and be a hippie. You know … Birkenstocks, ponytail, eating sprouts and strumming Bob Dylan songs while sitting on my front porch. The reality is a little bit different. With a satellite dish for television, another dish for high speed internet, a high tech phone system, charge controllers for PV and wind, and sundry other “toys” my house looks like Mission Control in Houston and sometimes I feel like one of those harried nuclear plant operators. Okay, I exaggerate a bit. My point is that while I’m “sort of” anti-technology, running an electronic publishing company and living off-grid but being completely plugged into the matrix, I couldn’t really be living this way without technology. My solar array and wind turbine have convinced me that renewable energy offers the solution to climate change.

Today I took this to the next level when I attended an on-line meeting. Seven or eight years ago I began attending SWITCH meetings. SWITCH is a group in Kingston that gets together to promote renewable energy. (http://www.switchkingston.ca/) When I started going and sometimes chaired the meetings there were only 8 or 10 of us in attendance. In the last few months more than a hundred people have attended the meetings. Amazing! My challenge is that the meetings are a one-hour drive away. In the past I’d try to save up all of the errands I needed to do in the city and accomplish them on the day that I went to the meeting. I have often chosen to not attend though, because I am aware of my carbon footprint in driving down. It seems wrong to drive an hour to go to meeting where the ultimate goal is to reduce carbon being pumped into the atmosphere.

The good news is that SWITCH is now web-casting the meetings. This morning I was able to attend the meeting without leaving my house. I watched and listened to the whole meeting on my laptop. Zero carbon was produced and I didn’t have to go to the big city. Sorry, but I moved to the woods cause I’m not an urban guy.

The meeting was set up in such a way that it allowed me to watch the PowerPoint presentations in one window, watch a live image in another and then communicate with the others watching on-line. I liked it because I could “chat” the whole time via my keyboard without interrupting the speaker. This is a bad habit of mine that I began in public school and is and was frowned on by many, especially my teachers. I also liked this chat feature because it meant I could be the class clown and attempt to inject humor into the proceedings. For instance, I typed in “I have a camera in my Mac Laptop. Do people mind if I'm watching while wearing my Star Wars PJs?” I think my attempt at humour worked because I could hear the system operator laughing.

The presentation I watched today was about advanced ways to monitor PV array performance. I was feeling pretty good about watching the meeting in a home and business powered entirely by solar power. There was no wind this morning so it was all PV. In fact I had a baseball cap on because the sun was beaming into my window, the window that I can look out of and see my solar trackers. It’s one of those cold March days where we still have snow on the ground in front of the solar panels, so they are just cooking away. They are at their peak performance in this weather. Brilliant sun, clean air, cold temperature and reflected light from the snow all combine to make a perfect day to make electricity from PV. I had tea from our electric kettle and toast from our electric toaster while I “attended” the meeting. The computer and satellite dish that powers my internet were powered by my solar panels. The radio that provided my background music was solar powered.

Renewable energy is exploding in Ontario and SWITCH has been a leading vehicle for people in the area and now in the province to network and spread the word. Now I can keep attending their meetings and not produce any carbon in the process. Some days it just seems like anything is possible!