NORWAY – Two women with an interest in emphasizing the relationship between sustainable living and affordable housing have launched a new series at Norway Memorial Library, inviting Maine speakers to explain a variety of topics from solar rebates to structures built with foundations made of reclaimed tires.
Jan Kubiac of Albany Township and Kim Patnode of Bethel were at the library Wednesday night to hear the second of the series led by Don McLean on making electricity from the sun.
Kubiac said she and Patnode were inspired to explore ways of creating sustainable, affordable housing when they realized during a creative economy conference last spring in Bethel that sustainability is not often included in affordable housing projects.
Patnode said, “We were in a break-out session that focused on affordable housing, and we were surprised how many people were interested in ghettoized apartment complexes for poor folks” that weren’t being created with sustainability or long-term ownership in mind.
Kubiac is working to become a consultant on green homes and products, and Patnode is a therapist.
McLean, who lives locally, held up a blue rectangular photovoltaic panel about two feet long and explained briefly how sunlight can be converted to electricity to power regular appliances.
McLean and a few other experts at the discussion said that if someone is thinking about switching to solar electricity, they must first evaluate their energy needs.
On an average day in December, McLean said the amount of electricity produced by solar panels “is a pittance to what people live on normally.”
For instance, those depending on solar electricity are not likely to have a big, old refrigerator, an electric range, or a coffee maker that uses 1,000 watts of energy, said Mike Dunn, who was also asked to speak at the discussion. “There is no way you can compete with CMP with cost and ease,” he said. “The amount of money we’ve put into our systems, you can buy many, many years of electricity from CMP.”
McLean added, however, that the cost we pay for oil is “not reflective of the real cost, the social cost or the environmental cost.”
This is why he said he has chosen to live off the commercial electric grid, and he said he lives comfortably – he watches some television, listens to some music, and has a number of power tools to boot.
He suggested people visit www.homepower.com for more information.
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