Aloha James.

Wow and Mahalo.

I was not sure we had such people here on Kauai.  You touched on many a system.  My neighbor just put in an Outback Power system and it is working fine, he put in the small one and it is only 120 Volt, the nice one is 230 Volt.  I visited their plant in Arlington Washington and was very impressed with their system.

I have chatted with the EPA and many others and you are right there are grant funds out there, but the big problem is getting them easily and quickly.  We can not afford not to get going on all types of alternate energy.  Right now there are the hurdles that have been addressed in past posts.  The cost of oil is and has been a factor and as long as it is available and there is huge lobby in Washington DC, to “NOT,” develop other systems for energy and automobiles, it will be status quoi. 

If I had the money and owned my own house there is no question I would have Solar at a minimum.  The new small wind turbines are efficient and getting better every day, as far as noise, the new ones are silent.  The big wind turbines are slow turning and work very well.  I have talked to plant operators who say the birds are smart and see very well, more are killed by running into clean windows that ever hit a turbine blade. 

Your post is very well written and you are correct, we need to get going now.  Burning waste gas, collecting and burning sewer gas, green waste, is sure better than smelling it in our neighborhoods.  I was a councilmember in Washington State and we had a sewer plant in our city surrounded by multi-million dollar homes and it that returned clean water to the sound and you could not smell anything from the plant.  It is embarrassing to have friends visit and I need to explain the smell at our plants here.  We should all be on sewers and the oceans should be clean with no sewage contamination and no smells in our communities.

You are correct about many energy plants not being cost effective, but I guess we have to ask ourselves, “As to WHAT?  Add up all kinds of energy and use what we can, save the oil for things that we have no alternative for right now.

I had both Solar Hot Water and Solar Pool heat in Seattle and also used a small room heater in the house when there was extra heat.  I never ran out of Hot Water winter or summer and we had a family of 5.  Don’t tell me it does not work.  If it works in Seattle it is a dream to work for Hawaii.  Anyone who says they have to take a cold shower has a very serious problem with their system of it is a very poor design.

You can buy system right of the web that work and cost around $1500 to $2500.

Keep up the good work as we can make a difference.  If we all work together then our power companies won’t need to build new plants and can update what we have.  Every KWh we can get from other sources saves diesel or other fuels.