Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
By now everyone has seen some, if not thousands, of Bernie’s mittens memes. Our friend, the keenly insightful Adam Thada, up at The Center at Donaldson in Indiana adds to the fun. I borrowed the new term (“mittenology”) from Naomi Klein who has put forth a five point thesis on mittenology at The Intercept.
These excerpts from Lee Camp, a comedian, writing on SheerPost are fitting thoughts for this holiday season for reflecting on a painful pandemic year still fraught with consumerism: …the problem is far larger than just advertising. Our modern culture, due in no small part to the market economy, values and favors and supports and highlights
Note: I heard Dahr Jamail on a podcast back in the summer saying he– a brilliant, award-winning journalist and author– can’t even write in the present moment. This is a guy who went independently to Iraq to cover war up close and in the streets. Now, instead of writing, he’s immersed in grassroots mutual support
NOTE: Kitty Calhoun, the author of this op-ed, is an old friend, rock climbing partner, and fellow Outward Bound rock climbing instructor who went on to become an acclaimed alpinist thanks to her drive, focus, ability to endure, and especially for her minimalist approach to big mountains. Now, decades later, she’s climbing a much bigger
Our favorite critical food politics voice, and Maverick Farmer, Tom Philpott will be discussing his new book tonight at 7.30 pm Eastern. Go to https://facebook.com/BloomsburyUSA/ to join the live conversation. In our view, food and energy have much in common in terms of sustainability, sovereignty, and actions we organize in our communities. For example, the
The solar installation was completed on Monday, August 10th. Now we await only Duke Energy to connect the system to the grid. The advocacy community uses the term “slow walking” to describe how long that may take. Only Duke knows, but hopefully soon. The garden is producing healthy food, ideas, healing vibes, and is ready
This guiding question borrows from the title of a collection of essays, “WHAT ARE people FOR” by agrarian writer, Wendell Berry. It is provocative because it calls our values into question and challenges assumptions. Our conversations and activities at AIRE have recently asked a similar question out of the same vein– What is solar for?
The Indiana Chapter of the American Planning Association will be holding its semi-annual professional development conference on July 30th, 2020. We mention this event because it promises to be informative in addressing an important yet, often overlooked topic– land use after solar is installed. But more importantly to us, it showcases the bold and brilliant
What does solar power have to do with Cheerwine? Nothing really unless you’re pondering the question “where does electricity come from?” Most of us would say from our utility, and most of us would be right. However, the utilities have constructed a self-serving myth that we are merely passive consumers of a commodity beyond our
• We now have all of the system components on hand (e.g. solar panels, inverters, racking, etc.). • Required filings have been completed at North Carolina Utilities Commission. • System interconnection request has been filed with Duke Energy Progress. • Installation is scheduled to be July 27th, maybe sooner. Looking back at the crowdfunding campaign