January 14, 2007

(Columbia, SC) – Sleet. Freezing rain. Snow and temperatures dancing around the freezing mark. Ice builds up on power lines and trees. Or, alternatively, sweltering heat and some moron drives his car through a power pole. Power goes out and we Carolinians start cursing the power company.

Blame Edison.

If the genius from Menlo Park had not given in to his ADD, each home in America would have its own power source, each home would be using less power, and the only homes that would lose power would be those whose owners did not pay their upkeep bills.

Edison quit believing in Direct Current. It didn't flow well over long distances the way Tesla's Alternating Current did. So, instead of staying with DC, he tricked Tesla out of his patent and used his considerable fortune to solidify Edison as the baron of power.

The problem is that DC wasn't perfect for individual consumption, not then. Since then, thanks to NASA, it is. There are DC air conditioning units, DC stoves, DC computers. The dirty little secret, of course, is that ALL electrical devices are, with very few exceptions, end users of Direct Current. The utility companies use AC to get it to you, but then it has to be (expensively) stepped down when it gets to your neighborhood and again when it gets to your house and then changed to DC by your device or that little square box that fits into the wall socket and leads to your electrical device. Yes, some hair dryers are pure AC. They're the one's that cost the most to run - and the most dangerous to have around.

Today, for the same price as it costs a South Carolinian to pay for electricity and gas from one of our temperamental utilities, an individual can power, heat, and cool his or her house, off of the grid. This is not some fantasy. It is real. With a combination of a natural gas individual generator and solar, complete with service for the ignorant and lazy, the cost over 10 years, including generator and solar panel replacement and gas, is identical.

Identical.

The next time you're steaming in your home on a hot summer night because some SOB decided to drive his car into a power pole, or the next time you're freezing your appendages off because there was freezing rain and the trees took the lines out, think about it.

You should have the opportunity this year.

- Dick Anderson