ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PROJECT

Come to the Piedmont Alternative Energy Expo!

by Jed Duvall, Winter-Spring 2006

Mark your calendar: Saturday, May 20, is the date of the Piedmont Alternative Energy Expo, sponsored by RLEP. The Expo will be at the Fauquier County Fairgrounds just outside Warrenton [map]. As visitors wander indoors and out they'll see a solar-powered fountain; a two-seated electric car; displays of radiant heat and solar hot-water technologies; and experiments created by talented students from our area. Toys will run about exclusively on sunshine, and we'll have an "energy bicycle" that both young and old will be encouraged to try.

Atop a ridge in Shenandoah National Park, physicist Charles Bigelow demonstrates the portability of the UNI-PAC™ 30 photovoltaic charger by UNI-SOLAR®. The UNI-PAC is designed to provide field communications, emergency power, and battery maintenance to military units, climbers, professional photographers, and others needing energy in the field. Bigelow, owner of the innovative-technology company Light Speed Power, Inc., in Round Hill, Virginia, says he uses the UNI-PAC to charge batteries for his digital camera and other devices in the field. See this and other alternative-energy technologies at the Piedmont Alternative Energy Expo in May. Photo courtesy Claudia Bigelow.

Folks who run their personal vehicles on vegetable diesel (and its cousin, biodiesel) will be there to show how they do it and what's involved in this nonpolluting innovation (which is really as old as the very first motor vehicles!). Others will set up displays on wind energy and on varieties of "green" building construction.

Among the exhibitors will be people who can explain tax credits for using alternative-energy systems. A federal tax credit helps people buy some systems, as it helps with the purchase of a hybrid automobile. (Some states offer tax credits; unfortunately the Commonwealth of Virginia is not yet among them.)

What could you do to meet the high prices of gasoline, home fuel oil, electricity, and natural gas? You could get a second (or third) job, try to marry rich, buy a lottery ticket and hope, ask the bank for another mortgage, or ask wealthy relatives to bail you out.

If you find those avenues unattractive or impractical, you might figure out how to beat the high prices of fossil fuels. Gasoline too high? Run a car or truck on vegetable oil. People are already doing that. Home fuel oil costs worrying you? Heat your house with solar energy. People are already doing that. Are your bills for electricity and natural gas significantly higher this year over last year's? You could use solar energy at home and at work. People are already doing that.

Yes, people all over the United States, even in states to the north, are indeed using solar energy for homes and offices. Not only are they saving money, they're polluting far less—making a cleaner environment.

Energy systems that provide alternatives to fossil fuels cost money up front—sometimes a lot of money—but unlike traditional energy systems generally used in America, they pay for themselves. The payout period is sometimes five, or ten, or twenty years—but they do pay back the investments, however considerable. Think of them as investments, like an IRA. And they help us all breathe easier. There are builders who use alternative energies in their work…and the owners of the homes these builders construct may pay little more than for a home with old-fashioned energy technologies. You'll meet some of these builders at the Expo.

There is yet one more reason to convert, wherever you can, to energy that comes from the sun instead of from fossil fuels: plain and simple—it is the right thing to do. An ordinary automobile or pickup truck spews 250 pounds of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere each year. A hybrid vehicle pollutes a mere fraction of that amount. Isn't it time to stop fouling the nest? Come to the Expo and see another way to go.

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