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.

Just learned from Ryan at Gaia Development that Bank of America is now folding 100% financing of solar into 2nd mortgages, so with the savings in power you’re cash positive day one. Wow.

Meanwhile, his company is willing to give us some RECs or rewewable energy credits to count against our carbon offset total. And will sell some cheap on the side. And may have VC money to bankroll the Gerlach project.

And Tom Clarke, our man in Reno, has another client who’s willing to kick in some comp wind turbines, to use at the event, and then in Gerlach.

And word is the legislature in NV may scale up the amount allowed to be net metered back into the grid ( that’s when they have to buy back your power if you generate more than you can use ) from 30 KW per meter to 1MW per meter.

1MW. That’s how much juice we need to save or generate to make Gerlach the first town in the world to generate more energy than it uses. By my count, we’ve got soft lock on somewhere between 25-55% of that total. And it’s February 1. Not bad.