Renewable Energy Co-Op

Please don’t spend a second wondering about my intentions. They are completely selfish. I don’t want to pay a power company for electricity. I want to make my own and ensure that the money I spend on making it is reinvested in making it better. Starting something new whether it is a job, business, group or even a habit is not an easy task. I suppose it becomes easier when you have no job and you are cold on the street but for most people I know that isn't the case. People are comfortable! This is great! I have to say, at the top of my list of favorite things to do is sitting in bed and watching a House marathon on T.V., until I run out of Oreo’s. Recently I have had an increasing sense of anxiety. I am anxious because I don't believe the systems around us are built to secure this comfort. The main system I'm talking about right now is our current power grid. I use it! I love it! But what if it breaks? I use this simple term because I hope to emphasize how simple it would be for the power companies to simply cease to make any more power. The main reason I can see this happening is a financial collapse. If the people in charge of making power do not receive a paycheck for doing so then then they will go where they can work to sustain their families. There are many ways how what I’m saying could come to fruition. How do you fix something that is not broken? At least not broke yet.

Make my own electricity. It’s easy! I have made solar panels in my home for very cheap. The total time I spent on one panel was three hours and I can make two in four hours and for seventy percent what I paid for the first. So if it’s so easy why don’t I just do it myself? I cannot afford to completely sustain my energy needs from my own wallet. Much to my dismay I cannot do it alone, therefore I cannot be energy independent at least not at this point in my life. I have resolved to strive for something new, energy interdependence. Alone I can work all day every day and maybe in ten years I will be self-sustained. But with one hundred other people the same outcome could be accomplished for all in a fraction of the time and with a smaller percentage of my own income being used.

My scattered thoughts will soon become organized as I continue to contemplate. Some of the things I hope to write about are: First the process of building a solar panel secondly the process of placing a single solar panel into a larger system and lastly what energy co-op’s are and the many facets that encompass them.