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6 things about solar PV, from one who actually knows

My friend Mark Turner just finished up his own solar PV roof installation, and like everybody else I’ve been curious about how it worked — and how it’s working out.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


My friend Mark Turner just finished up his own solar PV roof installation, and like everybody else I've been curious about how it worked -- and how it's working out.

He responded with a blog post that answers just about every simple question, so I thought I'd share it here. I hope we follow along sometime soon. I'll let you know if we do.

He notes that though his roof isn't perfect, something is better than nothing. With solar and wind power both expected to soon be cheaper than fossil fuels, he makes the point that any generation is better than none, at the very least because it helps provide the push towards economic viability that these technologies need -- and the adoption that will convince remaining naysayers. He also makes a small but very important point -- that it's better to know what you're using. He says using an eGauge, which helps him monitor not just generation but usage, has made him hyperaware of his family's electricity use: "The meter’s made me so aware of our energy I can actually tell by looking at it when a light bulb has been left on somewhere in the house. Just getting an energy meter can drastically alter your energy use and make you a greener household, all for a small fraction of the price of a PV system."


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Hybrid drivers say the same: just seeing them MPG fluctuate provides a feedback loop enabling them to consciously drive more economically.

Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as ESPN, Backpacker, and Fortune. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His books include Defining the Wind, about the Beaufort Scale of wind force, and No-Man's Lands, about retracing the journey of Odysseus.

His most recent book, On the Grid, was his sixth. His work has been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.

For 2014-2015 Scott is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which is funding his work on the Lawson Trek, an effort to retrace the journey of explorer John Lawson through the Carolinas in 1700-1701.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.

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