Green Year

In the last two days, I’ve had two meetings with people where millions of dollars were discussed, and heard someone say with a straight face “well, 14 (million) is actually easier than 2 (million), so let’s see if we can scale this up.”

Scale this up. Hmm. Lessee: two months ago, someone asked me to find a home for a 30KW solar array that M. C. wanted to donate for use at the event this August. Yesterday, we were talking about scaling up from the 300KW they just agreed to the day before to a 2MW install ( half each in Gerlach and Lovelock). That’s almost two orders of magnitude in two days.

How this is coming together is a testament to the power of framing the discussion in big enough terms. Several weeks ago, I started repeating over and over “let’s make Gerlach the first town in the world to generate more energy than it uses, and let’s do it this year.” And there wasn’t anyone whose job or role it was to say no. So no one did.

Instead, people started seeing what they could do to help us get to yes. Which is why the Sierra Pacific energy company is sending teams into “greenlach” in April to do a conservation sweep of town. Net result: 18-40% energy reduction. In a weekend. Cost? Zero. PS-they’ll also sign up low income folks for energy rebates, which will end up covering about $850 per year for about 85% of the town.

Then, the solar guys got on board. How it will work is pretty elegant: Sierra Pacific rebates up to 30KW per meter at $5 per watt, or $150,000.  Cost per installed watt is normally $7. 20-30% of that, or $1.40 to $2.10 is labor. Sierra Pacific will provide the technical labor free, as a training exercise.  BWB will provide non-tech labor free, just ’cause. With rebates and labor, we’re now down to .60 to -.10$ per installed watt. Schools get free power. Funder works tax mojo to meet their needs.  If NV’s legistlature scales up net metering limits from 30k to 1m per meter this year and matches it with incentives, then we’re headed for 1MW in each town, this year. Kubota.

I know this is being repeated from earlier posts. and I feel like I should instead be writing about Jim Mason’s gasifier experiments and how they’re going to change power as we know it. But I want to pause just a moment and reflect. We went from can’t be done to may well be done in just a moment, it seems.

This thing in the desert is transformative. It can move mountains. I’m honored to be in the place I am. I hope I am up to meeting the opportunity for all it’s worth.

Today, prepping the board members individually on the solar project for Gerlach and Lovelock, in advance of the board meeting tomorrow, at which time I hope to get formal sign off.

It’s pretty incredible and somewhat complex, so I should probably capture the players and parts:

1. Using rebates and tax incentives, a burner friendly CEO of the world’s only renewable energy VC firm (Renewable Ventures) will bankroll purchase/installation of 150+/-KW of solar power in Gerlach, and perhaps the same in Lovelock. The town will see the power bill on the school, fire station, senior center etc drop 90%+ percent.
2. BRAF could/will work as a fiscal part of the puzzle, delivering non-profit status to the project, and recouping perhaps a steady stream of revenue in return.

3. BWB provides low cost labor/social engineering, and gets a hella cool volunteer project.
4. Sierra Power’s Solar Generations project ( ably led by Scott Gerz ) does a big conservation/efficiency push in Gerlach on Earth Day, dropping the towns usage of energy 20-40% in a weekend. Cost to residents? Zero.  They’ll also do the tech specs for the racks, making them elevated for safety on the playa and easily converted to shaded parking in Gerlach. They’ll use the exercise as a training ground for their engineers, and hopefully help get a few DPW folks certified as installers. Waaay better than being a barrista in the off season.
5. Coolingman donors ( and all other participants ) will drive through town to the event and be able to see their dollars in action, perhaps enjoying a bit of shade from the panels–some will go in before the event, the rest after.

6. Burning Man gets to help gift Gerlach/Lovelock with low cost juice, and gets a very accessible story about taking our gifting values off the playa.

7. Renewable Ventures gets a story about large scale application of their work.

8. Sierra Power gets a wonderful showcase of renewable energy.

9. Gerlach ( fingers crossed ) gets to be, if we scale it enough, the first town in the world to generate more energy than they use.

10. We reduce or eliminate 2,000,000 watt hours of fossil fuel based global warming gasses from the atmosphere. By the end of the year. At no cash cost to anyone.

A gift, given, gives, and moves on to repeat itself. I really hope we can make this work. There must be a thousand snags; time to sharpen my machete.