Man Offers Free Charging for Electric Cars on His Solar Farm
In the tiny Aspen sleeper community of El Jebel, Colorado, a man is on a mission. Jim Duke has always been known for his environmental streak — back in the 80s he spearheaded efforts to establish recycling and composting programs for Aspen and surrounding communities.
Now he’s spent $84,600 to install a large array of solar panels on his ranch capable of producing 15,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually — and he’s giving away the power for free to charge any electric cars who’s owners show up on his doorstep.
He’s gotten rid of his gas stove and changed out his gas boiler for an electric one. To further ween his family from carbon, he’s purchased two cars from Miles EV for every day trips to and from town.
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Although the up front costs are huge, Mr. Duke is eligible for nearly $51,000 in federal, state, local and power company credits, which take the edge off just a little bit. Still, $34,000 is a gigantic chunk of change to lay out for a project that could take decades to pay off.
But it doesn’t seem that a pay off is what Jim Duke is looking for — he sees becoming carbon neutral as an obligation to future generations and the planet, saying, “It’s way, way, way past the point for talk. It’s time for action.”
Source: The Aspen Times
Image Credit: Jordan Curet/The Aspen Times
Cool. Now if only more people had the motive and the means to do this, the governments lack of effort would not be so bad.
“The government lack of effort would not be so bad”
Did you miss this part, “Mr. Duke is eligible for nearly $51,000 in federal, state, local and power company credits”
A web-available bunch of technologies can be combined to produce “Zero operating cost, Zero upkeep” housing, post (GRD) great republican depression survival shelter! combined with solar powered fridge, solar pv panels, passive solar heating, wind power, super-insulation, green housing, composting, humanure composting ( perfected in Sweden), water conservation techniques, ground heat storage, modernized microwave cooking, LED lights, and various other up to date tech advances, totally off-grid, extremely low cost survival in relative comfort is possible! A modern, tech supported off-grid survival shanty for the GRD and post GRD years, to keep us alive and well fed. We need and Obama-miracle just to extricate ourselves from past sins! We are knee-deep in economic clownshit, excreted by our “savant” economists and still no Utopia! It is time to take a closer look at reality and live accordingly! Smaller, off-grid, technically advanced basic survival units built for survivability through times of unemployment and economic duress will make the nation richer and stronger than strings of foreclosed McMansions! The world is really running out of oil! The Saudis will not come clean about how much they have! Why? We need the truth , NOW! and we need to replace oil with solar and wind as fast as possible! This home is a step in the right direction! Solar refrigeration is possible, solar/electric low D.C. microwave cookers can be built, passive solar heating works, greenhouses filled with GMO’ed super veggies are possible, Aquaculture for fish production works, wind power, battery stored is still power! Each of us can do better with less, we expect too much right now, because advertising has convinced/hypnotized us that it is so! It is not so! We do not have to “go third world” We have the technology when applied, to make great progress towards a better world! the GRD will force this upon us and we will yield to its pressures. Some will die resisting, the majority will pull through into a greater age for America than ever before! This is our time of tests. These are the homes of the future.
Uncle B,
I’ve come to love your wackiness, thank you for adding life to the comments section of this site.
lol… “economic clownshit”… LOL!
PS… I don’t mean to imply that all of our regulars don’t add life into this site’s comments. You are all very much appreciated members of the gas 2.0 community
@ Matt, if you think offering a few tax credits is government action you are definitely part of the problem.
Fair play buddy, he has the right idea and very good of him to share it also, hopefully members of his community will switch to electric motors to benefit from this
Uncle B.
Electric solar systems are not low cost, my modest system is a fraction of what Jim Duke is reported to have. Maintenance is considerable. And making the solar cells and related electrical cables, batteries, switches etc, is anything but green.
Oil reserves are known, numerous professionals have documented this. More than half the oil has still not been produced. The issue is how quickly will we use this. How many mega trucks do people drive like cars, when the latter would do. How many cheep holidays do people take in far away places, how many specialized organic foods do we eat - grown miles from our homes. All this creates mega consumption or energy and resources. Why do we heat our homes so much when wearing a sweater would save lots of energy. Why does the US export beef to Australia, and import beef from Australia?? Governments make silly trade pacts that are good for the transport industry, and wasteful. A wake up call is needed, and we the people need to be less selfish.
All the problems would be insignificant if we have a 80% reduction in the world’s population. The planet cannot sustain human selfishness.
Jim Duke sounds like a nice guy that I should like to have for a neighbor and friend. That doesn’t mean that I agree with him, just that it seems that he at least has reasons that he could articulate to explain them and we might be able to have discussions about them and about mine.
@Doug,
The government should not be involved in such matters. It requires a consumer shift in order to change the market.
Personally, I think it is a travesty that the government is collecting taxes from you, me, and every other working person in this country in order to masquerade as a social engineer! If you want the change to happen, change your preferences as a consumer… This is NOT a legitimate role for government.
“It’s way, way, way past the point for talk. It’s time for action.” FTW!