I’m not breaking any news when I say that air pollution is a problem here in the mountains. But I consider myself a reasonable environmentalist, a person who realizes the need to manufacture goods and transport them, who knows that there is a trade off. Lately though, especially as I’ve watched pollution become a daily problem in the summer, I’ve become a little less forgiving.

So when I heard that Sen. Dan Robinson has a problem supporting the Clean Smokestacks proposal offered by a statewide clean air coalition, and that George Bush was trying to decide whether to do anything serious about global warming debate and carbon dioxide, I thought of Dave Hollister.

Hollister is one of those people who makes you sit back and re-think what you do nearly every waking minute of every day - use fossil fuel. You can’t do too much reflecting in his presence though, because he is a good talker and way too impassioned about his subject. He will completely win you over to his arguments.

His company is Sundance Power Systems, and those who know something about renewable energy had told me he was probably as knowledgeable as anyone in Western North Carolina about solar energy and other renewable power sources.

We met at a home he had recently outfitted to go completely “off the grid,” which means they were buying no power from the local utility company. I arrived before Dave, and the homeowner assured me there was nothing to worry about. Dave would be there shortly. He was, she said, notoriously late. A few minutes later he was bouncing in without knocking, white gauze turban on his head (to keep his hair out of the way when he worked, he said) and ready to explain how solar energy worked. He look more like the swami of sun than a solar power system installation man.

I started asking questions and, before a couple of minutes had passed, had gotten to the bottom line, at least what I imagined the bottom line to be - how much?

“Oh man, I knew that was coming, and so soon,” he howled.

Before answering, he wanted to do some talking. I listened, and the first words out of his mouth surprised me.

“The worst thing that happened to solar energy was when Jimmy Carter got tax incentives approved,” Hollister said. “Really, it turned out to be a bad thing.”

The tax breaks prompted many people who were considering installing solar systems to base their decision purely on economics. That question has remained a deciding factor for those considering solar power. When would the investment pay off, people always ask? While people always want to know when solar systems will turn a profit, most of our other buying decisions aren’t based on that equation, Hollister argues.

“You know, people will spend $40,000 on a huge SUV when they could’ve gotten a car that would accomplish their needs for $20,000. That’s great marketing,” Hollister argues.

“It’s more of a shift in consciousness than a shift in lifestyle,” Hollister said.

Those who think only about economics probably won’t install a complete solar system, Hollister said. The up-front costs are somewhere between $25,000 to $50,000 to be able to go completely off the grid.
While magazines, televisions and radios scream at us to buy bigger cars, bigger televisions, bigger houses, and a multitude of expensive toys and other diversions simply because they are cool, no one is effectively marketing renewable energy, Hollister said.

“Solar guilt is rampant in the industry,” he said. “I see poor marketing as our biggest obstacle.”

Hollister, needless to say, thinks solar energy is cool. No moving parts, putting yourself in touch with the cycles of nature that we are fast detaching ourselves from, and simply doing something that is right.
“I like to think I help facilitate people to let the goodness rise up,” Hollister said.

He doesn’t think power companies are evil, and he says it is OK to buy power from the grid. But he does say our industrialized society has had an easy time leading us down a path that accepts a lifestyle that is harming us as individuals and harming the planet.

Here in the mountains, the ill effects of producing electricity and powering automobiles is easy to forget in the winter. Soon, however, the haze will come and hang around for six, seven, eight months. We will be surrounded by smog, haze, ozone, particulate matter and all manner of suffocating gases. And I will continue driving, continue making ice cubes in my refrigerator freezer, keep using the dishwasher and watching VCR movies.

But I know in my heart that Hollister is right. Fossil fuel energy is going to become passé some day, and the only question is how much damage we will have done before we are forced to make some changes.

(McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

 

Back to Top
The Smoky Mountain News