Panels Versus Plants

Let me be clear. The only true solarpunk is tending plants. It isn't solar panels and electrification. That's simply industrialization of the sun. Mining, smelting, and forging are not solar in any real sense of the term. Neither are they punk.

That said, I'm a big fan of solarpunk.

Why should be readily apparent. I live in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, which only averages 158 sunny days per year, well below the U.S. average of 205 days. The sun, in addition to improving my mood, powers photosynthesis, which miraculously turns solar energy into mass that can sustain animals both directly and indirectly, as in the grass-fed beef that gets us through the long winter. It drives the evaporation and transpiration that leads to the snow and rainfall that recharges the Bitterroot's water cycle, providing us with drinking water and irrigation for our pasture, orchard, and garden. In other words, the sun is crucial.

My neighbor Todd is a perfect foil. Although we have known him and his family since 2016, he and I really got to be friends during the pandemic, when we would take long walks along the county road on which we live. Todd is a tinkerer, and he is constantly engaged with projects. Whereas I tend to theorize on many subjects, Todd is hands on with them. While I was reading and learning about the societal potential of blockchain and cryptocurrency, Todd was building a mining rig in his crawlspace. He didn't really care what the point of the crypto he was mining was; mining it covered his electric bill and gave him something to tinker with.

Todd's most recent project is a photovoltaic solar system to power his house. I'll try to follow up with some of the specifics on the system he installed but suffice to say he has a smart inverter that is grid tied so that he can access electricity from the grid when necessary and operate independently when the power goes down. It's a wicked cool set-up, if a bit too complicated for my tastes, and I'm truly jealous.

When we started this conversation half a decade ago, Todd asked when I was going to get solar panels. He knows I'm an independent type, keen on self-sufficiency, and into that sort of thing. At the time, our vehicles consisted of a Chevy 4x4, a Honda Civic, and a Volvo XC90, so I explained to him that, having done the math, I was prioritizing an electric car over solar. It was Todd himself who had been first begun looking at EVs, and he was constantly cracking me up with his admitted "range anxiety".

The population of the Pacific Northwest enjoys access to relatively cheap hydroelectric power. Todd and I are served by the Ravalli Electric Co-operative, and our rates are some of the lowest in the nation. Nearly 60% of the electricity he and I use comes from hydroelectric, produced by dams that were built before I was born and are thus, if we exclude the environmental externalities, some of the cleanest energy sources in the United States. This means that buying an electric car would "green up" my transportation footprint while reducing my financial outlay, assuming that the EV was replacing one of our ICE vehicles that would otherwise need a major overhaul, which they all did (as I've noted in this blog before, the cleanest vehicle is the one you already own - drive it till it drops).

Admittedly, Todd bought an EV before his solar system, but I beat him to it. I also wonder whether the things we do on our smallholding - keep goats and chickens, maintain a garden and orchard, constantly plant shrubs and trees - are more solarpunk than Todd's solar panel-powered suburbia. Considering the hydropower we have access to and the limited sun we receive, photovoltaic solar seems more prepper than punk. Not that I won't be getting some of my own, especially now that Todd has done all the work to spec out the ideal system; only that it's down the list from grapes, blueberries, and more bur oak.