By Joseph John Rothengast
(919) 247-4143
jjr@jmja.com
This is the time to think about a new investment strategy for many people. While it may be too late for many who lost retirement funds due to the stock market and various corrupt practices by executives, it is not to late for a new thinking. Even those who are in their 50’s could take benefit in this idea, if financial firms follow the concept.
The idea is to create a site that generates a livable income from making electric and selling it back to the utility. The source should be from solar, wind, hydro or several other clean renewable sources to obtain incentives. It would generate continuous income, some of which would pay debt services and the remainder would be income. Even thought the person may be out of a job, using incentives, the site should produce an income and make the property more valuable and result in a higher value. You then can do a reverse mortgage and still have a continuous lifetime income plus the income from the reverse mortgage. If you have a family the site could be left to your family as a nice legacy that would give them income for years. Photovoltaic modules can last 40 or more years without maintenance and still generate electric. The financial industry should like the lack of a major risk.
Rather than investing in the stock market that goes up and down you can invest in something that will continue to grow and ensure a major increase after you pay off the loan. The investor would be subsidized by the various incentives. The person would also gain an income from the generated electric that is sold back to the utility and the site would be immune from corporate corruption or bear markets destroying their retirement incomes. The world will thank the USA for reversing the trend to pollution and maybe global warming will be turned around. The private citizen who creates a site that produces electric should be considered a patriot since he is aiding the country, the economy and making us independent from oil producing cartels.
Other than just generating electric the home may also get free heating from waste heat and they would have their own backup electric should there be an outage at their site.
The advantages to regular users would be the ability to have the utility to better segment the power grid so if there was a general outage homes around the producing site could still have localized grid power. The producer could do several things since they would still be connected to the grid They could also store generated electric in batteries or in the future in fuel cells, and release it to the grid during peak hours to obtain a higher payback rate. Depending on the fuel source they may generate electric non-continuously, and they would need to be connected to the grid for those times when they needed to get electric needs and weren’t generating sufficient electric.
There are several sites in Europe that are producing electric from 20-200 homes and generating an income for the owner.
Why are we, the most technical country in history, still dependent on unstable countries for our energy sources? This should be a non-partisan issue in the arena of politics! Imagine if we converted military production to plants that made photovoltaic cells and wind turbines. While the Department of Energy is promoting a million-solar-roofs by 2010 we could change that to a million small scale sites generating, not only their own needs but those of 100 other families. What a boost it would be to the economy. We would create millions of jobs, expand tax incomes from a broader tax base and many will improve their life styles and that of their families.
If we are to make it happen each one of us will need to take action! Contacting your legislators and the media is easier than sending a family member overseas to fight in a war to protect oil supplies.