How I Spent My Summer

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The photo of the big plant shows the 1,000-gallon digester in a pit over which we'll erect a greenhouse. Since the picture was taken, I've put up five courses of cement blocks for the greenhouse and I'm starting on the rafters. I have a 275-gallon tank mounted on a chassis (honey wagon) in which we'll haul spent slurry from the methane plant to eight acres of gardens. Gas created by the plant will be stored in a 1,200-gallon wooden-staved fruit juice tub ($30.00) sunk in the ground and topped by an upside-down 1,000-gallon steel tank ($20.00) which acts as a floating collector.

All in all, I've spent in the neighborhood of $420 on my alternative energy experiments this summer. I feel pretty good about that . . . especially after seeing the "alternative energy projects" (what a laugh) recently constructed at another college here in Michigan.

That school (I won't embarrass it by mentioning its name) received $12,000 from the National Science Foundation to carry out its energy research. As usual in these big buck government deals, there has been more dollars than sense involved. One follow—got this!—spent $1,300 on a 110-gallon anaerobic digester which didn't even work!!! I was truly stymied at how the hell anyone could blow so much money and not have anything to show for it.

The same school also spent a ghastly $2,700 for a 4' X 8' flat-plate solar collector and the people involved were quite smug about all my inquiries: "How much did you pay for this pump?" "Why did you buy all now hardware? Why not got your components from a salvage yard at one-tenth the price?"

Once I had figured out that the copper piping (with radiator fins) alone in their collector had cost $612 (without tax) I made the statement that, "if these alternative energy idea are going to mean anything to the folks who need them, then they'll have to be built and financed alternatively in the given socio-economic-political structure . . . that is, scrounged and financed from junk."

This really made my hosts indignant and they told me to got off their government property and please (one could easily tell a nerve had been struck) leave the premise& To which I replied, "Who, pray tell, is the government?" With this, I put my arm around a friend who was with me and said, "Hello, Government How are you today?"

The others in the group failed to appreciate my humor.

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