Bette was following the reports about the devastating heatwave gripping much of the nation and the forest fire smoke that was forcing folks to cancel summer activities. Along with all that gloomy news, however, she kept running across stories filled with interesting fractions, percentages and numbers. So many in fact, that she decided to call up her old pal, Adam Uppe, to see if he could make sense of it all.
“So great to have you stop by!” Bette smiled as Adam, with abacus, slide rule, pocket calculator, and sharpened #2 pencil, strode in. He immediately spied the jumble of newspaper articles and clippings spread across Bette’s kitchen table. And after a brief look exclaimed, “This is simply fractionating...er, I mean fascinating!”
“Take a look at this for example. About 8% of Wisconsin’s farmland is used for growing corn for ethanol. But if just 1% of that farmland were converted into solar farms, it would generate enough electricity to cover 50% of Wisconsin’s needs. Some kind of silly mis-match going on there!” he declared.
“And this other report by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission says that 2/3 of the state’s electrical needs could be generated by rooftop solar on homes that are suitable for solar.” “Wait a minute,” Bette interrupted, “doesn’t 50% and 2/3 add up to more than 100%?” Whipping out his trusty abacus, Adam made a quick calculation. “It sure does!” he blurted out.
“But we wouldn’t need even that much electricity according to this other report from the U.S. Dept. of Energy. It says that the typical U.S. home could lower its energy use by 25% by utilizing wise energy efficiencies. Granted, much of that is heating costs, but the electrical savings would still lower our over-all generation needs,” Adam added.
“I’ve heard some nay-sayers remark that we’d all have to suffer in order to transition to a clean energy economy. Huh!… these numbers don’t seem to show much suffering has to happen. Looks to me, we just need to take the resources we have and put them to work,” Bette Urway reasoned.
Then she glanced once more at the headlines about the heat wave and wildfires. “And there’s no time to lose. After all, this precious, beautiful blue speck in the vast universe is the only home we’ll ever know. It’s where we’re all forever…Earthbound.”
“So great to have you stop by!” Bette smiled as Adam, with abacus, slide rule, pocket calculator, and sharpened #2 pencil, strode in. He immediately spied the jumble of newspaper articles and clippings spread across Bette’s kitchen table. And after a brief look exclaimed, “This is simply fractionating...er, I mean fascinating!”
“Take a look at this for example. About 8% of Wisconsin’s farmland is used for growing corn for ethanol. But if just 1% of that farmland were converted into solar farms, it would generate enough electricity to cover 50% of Wisconsin’s needs. Some kind of silly mis-match going on there!” he declared.
“And this other report by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission says that 2/3 of the state’s electrical needs could be generated by rooftop solar on homes that are suitable for solar.” “Wait a minute,” Bette interrupted, “doesn’t 50% and 2/3 add up to more than 100%?” Whipping out his trusty abacus, Adam made a quick calculation. “It sure does!” he blurted out.
“But we wouldn’t need even that much electricity according to this other report from the U.S. Dept. of Energy. It says that the typical U.S. home could lower its energy use by 25% by utilizing wise energy efficiencies. Granted, much of that is heating costs, but the electrical savings would still lower our over-all generation needs,” Adam added.
“I’ve heard some nay-sayers remark that we’d all have to suffer in order to transition to a clean energy economy. Huh!… these numbers don’t seem to show much suffering has to happen. Looks to me, we just need to take the resources we have and put them to work,” Bette Urway reasoned.
Then she glanced once more at the headlines about the heat wave and wildfires. “And there’s no time to lose. After all, this precious, beautiful blue speck in the vast universe is the only home we’ll ever know. It’s where we’re all forever…Earthbound.”
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