Someday we may be free.
August 28, 2008 (Thursday)
New York City Mayor Bloomberg has an energy plan for his town that involves putting wind-powered devices on the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as many other structures. He envisions the Statue of Liberty’s torch being powered by a wind farm on the waters.
A company is offering a $50 book of instructions to build your own energy system for your home. The system involves wind power, solar power, batteries, and an emergency generator, along with other peripherals necessary to join it all together in the house.
I expect such ideas to proliferate in the coming years, as high oil prices put pressure on organizations, industries, businesses and families to take action to reduce energy costs. I’m sure many homes in our country will eventually be self-powered to some degree in the years ahead.
We need only to look at our history to see that the basic idea of a house having its own systems has been with us in the past. Homes were heated by fireplaces and kerosene or wood stoves. Many homes today are heated by furnaces that burn oil or coal, independently of any outside connections.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so we can count on more ideas to surface. I recall seeing a naturally air-conditioned home in Azle, Texas, that required no electric or gas power at all. Whatever they were doing probably needs to be done by some. I foresee American ingenuity surfacing in many different ways in the days ahead.
I was raised in a Houston without air conditioning. We didn’t have it because it didn’t exist. The day may come when we won’t have it again, simply because it’s not affordable.
I have visited in Texas homes that were designed with porches, high ceilings, tall windows, lots of shrubbery and trees, all of which combined to keep the house at a pleasant temperature on hot days. Build a house that needs less electric power? It can be done. And, mark my words, somebody’s going to do it, sooner or later.