Page 16 RAIN October 1977 NORTHWEST SOLAR UPDATE Two events of great importance to anyone interested in having , a solarized, windpowered Northwest recently occurred, both in Oregon, as befits that state's reputation for being ahead of the pack in eco-sanity. 1 First, the 1st Pacific N.W. Solar Confererfre took place in Portland with turnawax crowds, finally bringin'g together most of Idaho, Washington and Oregon's solar experts and enthusiasts. The useful1and ·inexpensive (for the amount of data provided) solar information booklet produced from "Solar '77 Northwest" is now available. It includes names and addresses of all attendees/panel members·in case you have further questions or can't remember all 800 partic.ipants, has both complete papers and summaries of panel discussions, results of the "Solar Olympics"-a solar collector race, and ranges through passive and active sola,r heating and cooling, solar thermal/p-rocess heat/solar ponds, photovoltaics, windpower, bioconversion, institutional-financial-educational barriers and incentives, and state energy policy. For the booklet make a $5.00 check out to Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and send it in quickly, as only a limited number were printed, to: Solar '77 Northwest Conference Packet OMSI Energy Center 4015 S.W. Canyon Road Portland, OR 97210 Second, Ballot Measure No. 2 will give Oregonians a_chance in November 1977 tp broaden the state's bonding capacity, now limited to hydroelectri<;: projects only, to include any and all "non-nuclear" energy sources. Besides providing money for solar, wind and geothermal projects, it directs the governor to establish specific small-scale demonstrations around the state where the power produced will be close to the point of use. Volunteers are needed to canvass neighborhoods and towns, to write letters in support of the measure, to speak on renewable energy at public meetings and, of course, to provide financial assistance for the campaign. If you can help or just want more details, write: Effective Energy Policy for Oregon Citizens Committee (Ballot Measure No. 2) Edward N. Fadeley, chairman 801 E. Park Eugene, OR 97401 503/342-5,804 It's also, as with Oregon's bottle bill, a useful model for other states. E.R.D.A.-StonewallingSmall Business arid the Sun For years now there have been increasingly vociferous and well-founded criticisms of the dangerous and unreliable sources for America's energy, mainly nuclear and imported oil. At first, in the mid- and late '60s, there was only an unorganized handful of young Americans who thought r;enewable energy made more sense. The hippie counter:culture and radical student movements'both looked on straight society's values- w<:1,steful, status-materialism and economics as if people didn't matter- with unconcealed disgust. Alternative technologists, as they called themselves in order to proclaim their energe_tic ~ttention to_op·tions not yet_respecte~ by establishmert srn:;nt1sts and engmeers, were a mmonty withm that move- \ ment. Unlike their contemporaries, these tech no-freaks felt \ that we sh6uld not give up on applied science as bad but ' rather work to re-disEover and re-direct American know-how toward other ends, reflecting more important human values than the production of consumer goods no matter the cost to the environment or to long-term human survival. In the early '70s, the number of people sharing these hopeful perspectives for a more humane and human-scale technology gre·w immensely. Even before the 197 3 fuel crisis, nascent environmental, consumer, civil and human rights, and public interest organizations began to recognize their common interests and started to work together. A strong network now exists which can produce well-reasoned, and often irrefutable, policy critiques, design new and prac'tical options and then lobby successfully for their adoption at all levels of government. Finally, many former nil-'pies and radicals, mellowed with age and shorter of hair, iWW v, :: ::- 1' "inside" the very establishment that they once disdained to speak of. ';'i1ey ~rP ,,,_.,~ressional staffers, executive office aides, advisors to governors and sta.te legislatures (or actually serving in those offices) and tucked here and there in most local, state and federal agencies. With their peer group friends "outside" they work an incredible double-pronged riff that changes the conventional wisdom and governmental action. They are effective far beyond their '60s fantasies, or, in a word, quietly powerful. As they and their generational cohorts ripple ·through the American system, we can expect faster adjustments to new realities in energy or whatever other area; as they rise to higher positions of authority and responsibility. Yet ERDA (or the Dept. of Energy after Oct. 1) seems not to have understood 'this. Recently, some of the most respected watchdog groups in the nation with thousands of members, Consumer Action Now, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Public Interest Research Group and Rain, charged that ERDA and the Honeywell Corpora,tion were undermining the development of low-cnc;t, citizen-owned, passive solar
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