Remember around, say, 1996, when everyone was saying “By the year 2005, every home will be solar powered, and cars will run on water!” Well, here we are, several years AFTER 2005, and we’re still running on fossil fuel.
The funny thing20is, we don’t really have to be running our homes on fossil fuel. It is entirely possible to convert your home entirely to solar power. Alternative fuel for cars is still not quite practical yet, but you could convert your own home to solar power if you felt so inclined. The problem isn’t that we can’t run on solar power, but that most people don’t.
If you want to install just one solar panel, not even a full system, but just one panel, you can make a huge difference in your power bill. There are plenty of other small ways you can begin making the switch, as well. For example, solar water heating. You can get a solar water heater that basically runs the water through a black plastic panel (sort of like putting it in a black garbage bag and leaving it in the sun), heating it up and sending it into your hot water tank.
But beyond that, it’s even possible to run your entire home on solar power, and without spending millions of dollars. In the past, it really has been a luxury for the rich, as it would take hundreds of years of powering your home with solar energy for it to pay for itself in terms of materials and installation costs. Today, it’s possible to switch over to solar power for less than the cost of a new car, for a nice, robust solar power setup, and considerably less than that for something more modest.
“The price of a new car” sounds expensive, but say you switch over at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. How much is your average electricity bill? If you average, say, two hundred dollars a month, it will take less than a decade before your solar system has paid for itself and you are literally getting free electricity for your home. What’s more, most cities in the US provide an incentives program. You see, your home will probably generate more electricity than it needs, and that excess power will be put into the power grid for the homes around you, and so, the city will actually send you a check each month. This check can be anywhere from twenty bucks to a few hundred, depending on how much energy they think you can produce with your solar panels.
So in effect, yes, solar power is a reality, it’s not a dream, like flying cars or space colonies. It’s here, and it’s relatively easy and inexpensive to install. When will everyone catch on and make the switch? Maybe ten years from now, maybe never, but the fact remains that today’s homeowner has the option open to them.
