Solar Dump

The piece of crap in the picture here that looks like your grandmothers trailer after her trailer park was hit by a tornado is the so-called “celebrated solar house” of Troy Michigan.

Would you believe this bit of “green technology” cost over $900,000? Yeah, that’s right it cost as much as the awesome beach mansion you wished you could buy one day. This magnificent bit of government funded non-sense is supposed to be a self contained solar powered home. That would fine if it was actually built in a place that had some sunshine and not so much winter…

But…it’s in Michigan. I would classify that as mistake number 1. By the way, I just got back from a vacation in Puerto Rico where I stayed near Old San Juan and the El Yunque National Rain Forest – a marvelous place I must say – and what is interesting is that in Puerto Rico the people build simple cinder block homes covered in plaster and colorful paints, with gardens on the roofs, and very small heaters and air conditioners.  Of course it is always between 75 and 85 degrees in Puerto Rico so they really don’t need much in the way of energy – they also collect their rain water from the roofs (using line as they do in Bermuda to filter it) and other resource conserving things.  And it’s cheap. Hmmm, could some of these ideas be modernized?

But you know these people never gave that any thought, they need to get those papers published so they can get more grant money!

Next, we have the fact that after spending nearly a million dollars on what looks like half a double-wide, the pipes froze because the solar panels were not getting any sun (no..really?) and the storage batteries ran out of power.  No alarm systems to warn somebody even after spending a million dollars!  You can have an alarm system wired up in your conventional home to detect pipes freezing, fires, burglaries, etc. for 25 dollars a month from most home alarm system installers… Mistake number 2.

I understand that a research project requires funding for observations, upgrades, development, and writing the papers as well as building the prototypes, but please, you need to do your due diligence on what has already been done – what a disappointment.  And it was a disappointment to the city of Troy, which was expecting to open it to the public – but alas, the floors are buckled and the pipes are broken… another $16,000.00 needed to repair. (here is the link).

Warped

So, what is my take on this whole thing?  Simple, when people want such a home and call for it, then there will be more than enough private firms willing to put up the money and the research to build actual working versions that wont look like a 800 square foot piece of crap trailer, and won’t cost a million dollars – you see no one including the students who built this thing were willing to live in it.  Had they, perhaps the damage would not have occurred – or perhaps they would have spilled beer on the floor and the entire thing would have exploded…hard to say.

I am a huge fan of Buckminster Fuller who create a very simple home structure called the “Dymaxion House” that used little energy and was both efficient and easy to construct…and he did it in 1929 with the materials of that era!!!

It did not cost $900,000.00 (even factoring for inflation) to research or build the prototypes or the final structures of the Dymaxion house.  I suspect that if the students had perhaps paid some attention  to Dr. Fuller’s work and that of other visionaries in the various fields of solar and other energy sources they could have really come up with something useful.  Alas…

This house, however is doomed to be bulldozed most likely in a few years and forgotten – and another lesson will not be learned.

You see the problem is that this is the kind of solution our current government loves – big useless boon-doggles that have the best of intentions, cost way more than they should, and never get around to solving the actual problems.  Then an enterprising individual will sacrifice everything, under the mountain of government regulations and taxes, and will succeed in solving the problem – and he will be called a pariah if he wants to be paid for his labors.

This is what is coming from Big Brother Government to solve your problems too.

David T. McKee

Tags: Enviromentalism, government waste, Green, Solar