Yesterday (Monday the 29th of March) I went to a rally where our (the state of Illinois’) current governor Pat Quinn announced his running mate for his reelection. The pick for Lt. Governor is Sheila Simon who championed trying to get Photovoltaics on a city building when she was a city of Carbondale, IL council woman and when she was running for mayor of the city.

I did end up writing a proposal to be installed on the Eurma Hayes Child Development Center which may still happen especially since the price of PV has fallen over 50% in the last year and a half.

Pat Quinn’s office (when he was Lt. Governor) actually had all us renewable  energy installers on a conference call to try and determine what is slowing or stopping renewable energy installation in the state of Illinois. Two things are stopping the installation of renewables: one is the fact that the state is operating without a budget and keeps sweeping all or most of the money out of the RERP (Renewable Energy Resources Program) so it is completely unreliable, which in term makes it so we rarely tell our customers about the program. Second is there is no good financing programs for solar. Solar will not be regularly installed or mainstream until people can pay off a loan instead of pay for an utility bill. There is a payoff with a solar system but never with an electric bill.

At the rally Pat Quinn said he has brought honesty to the state and with Sheila Simon on his side will continue to do so. As long as people are paying as part of their utility bill into the RERP that money is supposed to be set aside to create rebates for the installation of renewables. I respectfully ask all the state government but especially Pat and now Sheila to make the state honest and stop stealing our renewable energy program money. Make sure the RERP is fully funded!

Lets get the state of Illinois Energized with Renewable Energy!

Advanced Energy Solutions will be at the Green Fest Indy show powering the stage with solar power all weekend. The stage’s load is only drawing 5 amps so should have no problem in spite of not having a completely full battery bank in our Mobile Solar Power & Training Trailer due to it being a cloudy week charging it up.

The Mayor of Indianapolis (Mayor Gregory A. Ballard) started the show off Friday morning by introducing Karen Haley (director) of the City of Indianapolis Office of Sustainability and he said people would be surprised by how fast the city would become a sustainable city. People were talking about how he is an independent mayor and a go getter. And we got to solar power his speech. How Energizing is that!!

Saturday morning woke up at 5 a.m. (this is 6 a.m. Indiana time. all times are in my time)  to drive to the Green Fest Indy to be interviewed at 6:15 a.m. live (and it was lively) by Dick Wolfie then did the Green Fest Indy until 7 p.m. which makes for a seriously long day. Luckily Endangered Species chocolate had a booth (made in Indianapolis !!!) for the good energy buzz.

There was a real awesome eco chic fashion show (everything came from Goodwill).  There was an issue when the photographer plugged in this lamp that drew 5 amps alone. More than all the other loads including the conference style projector (which actually put out a better quality light and more lumens  but they had their cameras set for that energy wasteful lamp). Didn’t want to draw the batteries down too quick as this was an indoor show and no solar charging the system.

Sunday afternoon, we made it through the 3 day indoor event without completely draining the batteries on the solar trailer. We will be glad to be back out under the sunlight instead of under the extra bright lights of the convention center. Natural light is the best for us and for power production.

November 15th was America Recycles Day, which isn’t a bad thing as an idea — certainly, more recycling is better than less — but do we really need a day for it? Last year, Lloyd called recycling “bullsh*t” as a big picture solution, and reiterated it this year, and he’s right. Do we really need a day dedicated to reminding us to recycle? Isn’t it time to move beyond the inefficient model that supports single-use and disposable items like plastic bags and bottled water? Can’t we do better than this?

Credit: America Recycles Day

Lets Celebrate Zero Waste 

So let’s remove recycling from the three R’s; it doesn’t belong there, use “repair” instead.

There are 7 Rs, not three, and recycling is the last of them, after Refuse, Rot, Refill, Repair, Return and Repurpose.

Maybe eight, if you consider getting Radical.

Because ultimately, Recycling is Bullshit.