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We meet every Wednesday Evening from 6-8 p.m.
at 113 East Logan Ave., Gallup, NM
Refreshments are served
The public is welcome and all input is valued.
PLEASE COME

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Sometimes we watch inspiring movies
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/battery-powered-homes/

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OUR MEETINGS ARE OPEN TO ALL.
WE LOVE TO HELP YOU,
IF WE CAN,
WITH YOUR SOLAR UNCERTAINTIES

April 6, 6-8pm
 

Were you wondering...

What is a

Gallup Solar Meeting

Like?

Portraits by Shirlene Rogers-Cheromiah


During the election season we always invite candidates to present their positions to us and in turn to listen to our concerns.

On Wednesday, March 23, we had two aspiring candidates for State Senator for District 4, Felisha Adams and Dr. Jordon Johnson.


Jordon Johnson                         Felisha Adams

The candidates presented their positions.

Jordon Johnson is Executive Director of McKinley County Health Matters. His primary concern is the impact of the uranium legacy on human health. He wants to take his community work to the next level and promises to take a bold stand on legislation. He also mentioned the uranium impacted Red Water Pond plans to have a solar powered community on the mesa.

Felisha Adams is passionate about opportunities for youth. She wants to take her own business experience, some of it international, to  create better working environments and opportunity rather than dependency. Has a long term commitment to what she calls a stew pot rather than a melting pot.

After presenting their campaigns they stayed on
then the meeting turned to solar, mostly….

Ed Munoz, brother of the incumbent sitting Senator George Munoz, and our resident NABCEP certified Solar Electrician: There’s a battle going on over Solar Gardens in Colorado. Solar Gardens are a way for renters to own solar and they are fighting for a retail return on the power they generate to the grid, which would bring the payback time down to four years. Solar installers are looking for a real solid commitment to solar on the part of utilities and municipalities, not coal!

...and BTW the ground mount for the latest Habitat House has to be fire resistant as well as pressure treated. There is a new regulation every time we do an install. Solar has caught the attention of the regulators.
 
and I've found a simple universal form for presenting
to permitting regulators. 
http://www.solarabcs.org/about/publications/reports/expedited-permit/

Bill Bright: Luckily our Pinon ground mount is all metal, steel posts and unistrut. That installation was for a blind woman, Beverly Matt, evicted for non-payment
of electric bills.

Ed: With solar you are trading a bill for a payment and investing in free electricity for the rest of your life

Bill: That is scaring the utilities. It is disruptive.
We are still waiting to hear about Gallup’s Megawatt Plant that is out to bid. Investors will own it until they have gotten back their money with the help of the extended 30% tax credit and the 10% State Credit, still expiring December 31, 2016. We wish it had been extended, but at least it means they can’t delay the MW installation.
We still don’t know the final size as the original estimate of available land turned out to be exaggerated.

Ed: In the future you are not going to see many major arrays, because of line loss over long distances.

Be Sargent: When you look closely at the transmission lines, those held up by wood, tall trees, many of which are bent, you realize how outdated this technology is.
 
Ed: You have to look at the microcosm. In Hawaii, electricity used to be produced by diesel engines.
Elon Musk threw in a monkey wrench with his lithium batteries. Now we can cut the cord, look at Hawaii for the future, look at island nations. And in Europe, soon Denmark won’t have a gas car on the road,
charging is free with geothermal generation.
We haven’t brought a single tech company
to New Mexico.

Jordon: We need to draft legislation for shift to better ways of generating revenues.

Jacob Holloway, Perhaps forgetting that he is at Gallup Solar, not Work in Beauty, another arm of the triumvirate meeting at 113 east Logan, Habitat, Gallup Solar and Work in Beauty:  Native tribes have demonstrated a  resounding consensus that they are against GMOs. I was shocked in Las Cruces when Extension Agents were given GMO talking points. I am very concerned that a bill promoting the branding and marketing of New Mexico Green Chile as New Mexico Green Chile could somehow include genetically modified chile, a bill that Senator George Munoz is sponsoring. The NM Legislature did vote down GMO labeling so we can’t tell where they might stand on a Round-Up Ready Chile.

Pat Bietsch: I appreciate the background you candidates have in health care and social justice. We are narrowed to solar but you have to see it all connected.


Dwight Largie
Dwight Largie is a Coordinator for San Juan Community Alliance working predominantly concerning Health & Equity of communities in San Juan County:
We coordinate with all food distributors, farm boards, and the four sovereign nations, Navajo, Apache, Ute, Hopi. With mapmaking we have identified areas of large enough water resources to sustain agriculture, like watersheds between the mountains. We are also promoting the genetic purity of tribal heirloom cattle. We are encouraging a change from dependence on federal programs such as WIC and SNAP to more self-reliance. Navajo EPA is head to head with National EPA. Using the international  of trust fund of 450 million and 2% junk food tax money, we will no longer be a sacrifice zone.

Ed: Here’s another connection to the energy industry. What I see is that the farmers who work in the oil fields can afford to correct ph with fertilizer and buy big tractors and raise higher value crops like grapes.

Muffled outcry against tilling and fertilizers.

Bill: Let’s get back to how State Senators can help promote Solar by allocating capital outlay to Chapters

Be: Gallup Solar’s partnership with Chapters does depend on Chapters having the matching funds to help families without electricity to get a basic system to run lights, a small refrigerator, phone charger, computer and TV for as little as $3,000. The family pays $1500 and Chapter matches that. We send Ed out to explain the systems and train people on their installation and use
so that those trained can help others go ahead.

Ed: It is as simple as an Xbox hookup.

Pam Maples' Planned Presentation on her visit to Mccune Solar Works, Albuquerque, Saturday, March 19, mccunesolarworks.com

The CEO is Chuck Mccune. He's long time anti-nuke activist. He promotes a 100% transition
to Renewable Energy.
http://thesolutionsproject.org/

Mccune Solar Works has a new nonflammable potassium battery, safer than the Elon Musk lithium and his panels have 30 year warranties, and will last 90 years.

He’s very interested in the 18,000 Navajo families with no power and ready to talk.

Chuck says it is an evolution not a revolution and  emphasizes that usage must be cut in half as we go adopt clean energy. Four hundred an fifty kilowatt hours should be a maximum use per household. All need to go to efficient technology, LEDs, low use TV.

Alfred Barney, Gallup Solar’s electrician from Navajo, New Mexico interjected:
George isn’t going to change out his TV!

The story behind that comment has to explained.
George Brown’s home had been wired for electricity in 1969 but never hooked up to NTUA.
Last year Gallup Solar gave George a small system with one 245 watt panel. Now George has lights and TV. However with that system, he only generates 40kw per month, one tenth of what we are asked to reduce to.
So we bug won’t him about his huge old TV.

The wonderful part of the story is that Alfred was the electrician who wired the Brown’s in 1969
and the one who brought them solar in 2015.

Pam: Solar adopting Natives have skipped the stage of fossil fuels and are going clean into the Solar Age.
We have been disparaging solar goers as hippies, survivalist, etc.
From now on we should see these
first adopters as leaders.
Energy sovereignty needs to be looked at as first class.

THE END
Another great Gallup Solar Meeting bites the dust!
We meet every Wednesday, 6-8pm
at 113 East Logan Ave, Gallup, New Mexico
All are welcome and refreshments are served.
JOIN US

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GREAT OPPORTUNITY BELOW

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