by Tom Kruzen, Mining Committee Chair
 Elmer’s round house in the Rockies Photo by Tom Kruzen |
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It shines on all of us every single day, warming our oceans, skies and every surface it touches. The energy from our star, 93 million miles away is offered to us for free. It is the energy policy in front of our noses, spurned by our fear-driven leaders in Washington and Jefferson City.
Elmer Schettler, my Iowa friend recently transplanted himself to Pagosa Springs, Colorado into a well-insulated round house with few windows on the north side and a huge cathedral window array on the south. All windows are modern and super-insulated. On a cold February, 2005 day with 5 feet of snow outside the sun poured in the south windows striking a massive flagstone and tile floor overlaid on cement. This Lighthawk pilot/organic soybean grower’s house is a post and beam circle whose wooden beams rest on a Russian masonry stove, similar to the one in our Pans’ Garden Greenhouse. Elmer’s elegantly modern house is nestled in the southern Rockies at 8500 ft.
 Elmer’s grubka and tiled floor. Photo by Tom Kruzen |
On sunny days when the temperature hovers around 35 degrees Fahrenheit and above, Elmer needs no fire in the house. The sun warms his stones, tiles, cement, and stucco walls and gives off an amazing amount of heat. With this kind of winter weather, Elmer burns a wide-open fire in his grubka only two to three times a week. After a two hour clean burn (85-90% efficient) of limb wood a damper keeps all the white-hot coals’ heat inside the firebrick, brick and stucco stove. Roughly 6 ft by 4 ft, by 4 ft., these masonry stoves have been used in Europe for centuries. The convoluted flues distribute the hot gases throughout the mass of the stove and for the next 24 to 30 hours, the stove radiates a glowing heat, which, in turn, warms Elmer’s floors and walls.
 Gauges help John keep track of the sun. Photo by Tom Kruzen |
If temperatures stay below 20 degrees for extended periods a daily fire might be required but only for 2 hours to keep the heat momentum going. Angel and I found his house warm and full of light. Our upstairs bedroom was so warm that we had to open a window to sleep well. When Elmer is away, flying for Lighthawk (the environmental “air force of volunteer pilots) or gone to Europe to visit a friend, he leaves his home in the good hands of “Ole Sol”. There is no thermostat to worry about and his solar/stone flywheel keeps the house at between 38 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit. No frozen pipes, no frozen house-plants and enough heat to be tolerable while he fires up the grubka. “It not only keeps my heating bills to a minimum and close to zero, but it also keeps me very conscious of the daily weather; it’s a very organic relationship”, says Elmer.
Since 1992, Elmer and his airplanes have flown environmental activists, politicians and reporters over Missouri chip mills, gravel miners and lead mines. A pilot’s eye-view often changes people’s minds, the state’s laws and the course of history. A house like Elmer’s could do likewise if it were replicated millions of times. No coal, no oil, no dead miners. Just the sun and natural materials warming hearts and hands!
In our own state, John and Dolores Hanson, some years back, settled into a remote Ozark valley, eight miles from any power poles or telephone service but very near one of our National Scenic Rivers. The re-insulated modest wood frame home is heated with an efficient wood stove. It has the usual compliment of lights, kitchen appliances, computers, television, radios and such. John and Dolores, however, did not pay the quarter of a million dollars it would have taken to bring them electricity from our coal-fired or nuclear power plants. At roughly a tenth of that price, the Hansons powered their farmhouse and workshop with forty photovoltaic panels. Their lifestyle suffers no absence of electric gadgets and tools in the midst of their excruciatingly beautiful valley. John can even weld using the sun’s power.
 Looking from the power shed to the workshop and beyond to the house. Note the satellite dishes on the house. Photo by Tom Kruzen |
His “power shed” sits behind his workshop and is in reality an old ship’s container. 36 photovoltaic 500-watt panels rest on top of the shed, two sit on a portable car-charging cart and two down at the house round out the forty panels. A separate container houses his deep-cycle 2-volt batteries. Twelve of them give him 24 volts stored power, which is then inverted to 120 volts and sent to the workshop 100 feet away and the house 300 feet away. Heavy-duty wiring keeps his line drop to a minimum.
“It’s not like a normal household though”, explains John. Fully charged, he can maintain his lifestyle for three days without any further charging. ”But one becomes very conscious of what the sun is or isn’t doing on a daily basis”, he remarks, saying that it has made him an energy miser. Yes, he turns out the lights in public restrooms when he leaves! Dolores shows up with an orange/lemon/banana smoothie, which she created in her regular blender. I sip the solar-generated smoothie on this truly cold bitter winter Saturday. John explains that he likes the self-sufficiency of solar panels. Thunderstorms and ice storms leave them kindly unaffected while people on the “grid” all too often suffer outages, sometimes for days! ” We’re at 2 amps right now, barely enough to run a couple of lights”, John points out. Just then the sun burst from a late afternoon cloud cover and our monitor jumps up to 50 amps. Most of the power is made between 10 am and 2 pm on sunny days, but some is made even on these bleak winter afternoons. On rare occasions in the darkest time of December, he might have to run a back-up propane generator to supplement his “free power”. “Situations like that generally last a day or two” he explains but with these batteries we can go for three weeks without charging.
 Deer pausing by some solar panels at the Hanson farm. Photo by Tom Kruzen |
He has a satellite hook-up for his computer and gets satellite TV so he is connected to the world if he chooses, but he has switches on all appliances, which he turns off immediately after use. John says many electronic appliances have “phantom power use”. Instant-on televisions, radios, stereos and computers all use unnecessary electricity to keep them primed so they turn on instantly. He and Dolores have become very conscious of the vagaries of the sun and solar power. “It’s not perfect and it really wouldn’t be cost effective for the average person yet to convert to solar yet, but if you want to be energy-independent and walk with a lighter foot-print on the earth, then solar’s for you”, says John. No mountains were blown-up in West Virginia, no strip mines in Wyoming and no dead or injured miners bought the Hanson’s their electricity. In the case of Missouri, John and Dolores didn’t contribute to the Proffitt Mountain dam failure or the destruction of our state park and Black River.
By the way, their well-insulated workshop with a six-inch deep cement floor and large insulated windows on the south side always keep the building warmer than freezing and somewhere between 35 and 55 degrees, just from the sun. Where have we heard this before???
Having visited these two homes exactly a year apart have given me new appreciation for the sun, for human ingenuity and for good conservation–minded folks like Elmer, John and Dolores. These technologies, some old, some new point the way in these dark political times when young men and women are sent to die for oil and to “save our lifestyles”. What is happening in the Schettler and Hanson households is a partial solution to our energy woes with proven technology. The more we replicate these and more, the less we will need foreign oil or more nuclear power or so-called clean coal. Add hybrid car technology and energy self-sufficiency would no longer be a dream but a reality.