Buzz words

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In November, I shared my frustration with Washington political leaders who do far more talking at each other rather than to each other, but politics does not have an exclusive license on imprecise speech. Businesses of all types also have their misdirected buzz words, whether referring to food or alternative energy sources.

‘Farm to table'

It seems as though every restaurant menu and grocery produce aisle now touts “farm to table” or “eat local” selections. There is nothing bad (and a lot good) about producing and consuming food locally, but this is not farm to table as I knew it growing up. It’s not the same as eating a tomato in July from a vine you set in the garden in late April, hoed and watered through the summer, and picked that very morning. In my experience, farm-to-table green beans are the half-runners you planted in April and picked under a late-June sun while looking down the row to see whether it was getting any shorter. Farm-to-table stew beef was last year’s 4-H project retrieved from the freezer.

In the absence of any sufficient acreage, time or desire to invest in making my family meals truly “farm to table,” I accept these restaurant and grocery store offerings as the next-best thing—a choice that lets me go on with the other commitments I’ve made. I promise myself that one day I’ll get back to real farm-to-table growing, cooking and eating.

‘Off the grid’

I hear this term applied to our residential energy future. It suggests that we can dodge monthly power bills and surround our homes with a virtual moat of distributed energy resources (DERs) like rooftop solar panels. But, truly living “off the grid” and supplying our own energy comes with very real challenges.

My family experimented with energy independence in the 1970s. My dad had an additional chimney added to our home and installed a wood-burning Buck stove in the basement. It became a favorite place to gather and share family stories. The heat rose up the stairs to the upper reaches of the house, and we used less heating oil in the furnace. There was a lot of good in that stove—and a lot of work.

I know, because I spent most of every summer and fall cutting and splitting wood for that stove. In the winter, it had to be fed at all hours, even when ice and snow were on the ground around the woodpile. The ashes routinely had to be removed and dumped. My father’s appreciation for that Buck stove waned in the 1980s just as my brother and I left for college. I wonder if there was any connection.

What finally doomed the stove was the bird. We think it intended to roost in the chimney, only to fall down the flue into the stove. Its constant chirping led my mom to open the door one day, and you can guess what happened next. Over the years, the description of the bird’s wingspan has grown wider—it now spans somewhere between condor and pterodactyl. Up the stairs it flew. Using a kitchen broom, Mom eventually chased the bird out the back door, and before long, the old Buck stove was gone, too.

Today’s efforts to live “off the grid” using residential solar panels are a far cry from that stove. The price of photovoltaic panels has fallen over the years, federal and state tax incentives are available, and we have professional solar installation crews working across South Carolina. As with the Buck stove though, the challenge is not the product itself but the misguided notion that alternatives are an effortless way to energy independence. That stove needed regular fuel and maintenance. A solar panel needs fuel (sunshine) and maintenance, too.

Until affordable battery-storage systems exist, the lack of a continuous fuel supply (the sun doesn’t always shine) means consumers will still need an electricity supplier to make up the difference. Homeowners with distributed energy resources will also need trusted experts to help them ensure proper sizing, operation and maintenance. To whom will they turn? Stay tuned. It will likely be your very own electric cooperative.