Meet Mark Curtis. Mark is a standard man, dwelling the American dream. He married his faculty sweetheart, Becky, who he met at a keg get together as a freshman at Michigan State. He and Becky began an organization in customized software program and consulting, and ran the corporate for 30 years earlier than retiring just lately.
Mark is a local weather warrior. He began driving an EV 12 years in the past, a Nissan Leaf with 75 miles of vary, and has pushed electrical solely since then. He now drives a 2016 Tesla Mannequin S, which has 110,000 miles on it. In response to Mark, “I’m lucky to have free supercharging for the lifetime of that automotive and benefit from that for Tesla Highway journeys. In April we loved a 3,000 mile street journey to hike within the Nationwide Parks in Utah (free electrons!).”
Mark and Becky owned a 7,000 sq. foot workplace constructing for 16 years, promoting it just lately. They used the workplace to advertise clear power and electrical automobiles. The workplace constructing is 100% electrical. In early 2012, Mark and Becky added an 8.4 kW photo voltaic array to the roof which drastically diminished their month-to-month electrical energy payments, resulting in an 8 12 months payback interval. In response to Mark, “It has been ‘free photo voltaic electrical energy’ since 2020.”
Mark mentioned, “Over a lunch with my workforce in late 2011, I went to the white board and diagrammed the price benefits of proudly owning an electrical automotive. I supplied so as to add automotive chargers to our constructing and supply free electrical energy to the staff. Over the following few years, a dozen of the workforce members purchased or leased electrical automobiles! We added 4 Clipper Creek stage 2 chargers, that are nonetheless in use. For a few of the workers their EV was primarily ‘free’ when in comparison with their earlier ICE automotive prices which have been prevented (gasoline being the biggest of the prices prevented).”
Mark then showcased this success to pals, who he says nearly all drive EVs now.
Defender of democracy
The Washington Submit has a tagline that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That is an homage to the significance of an unbiased media ecosystem that may expose corruption and preserve society working by and for the individuals. If you consider it, there are few different industries or establishments which have this functionality, and lots of of them are governmental, and subsequently topic to inside corruption and defunding at a dictator’s whim.
Lately, I wrote a chunk concerning the media trade, which is in bother. Noteworthy is the shuttering of reports divisions together with Buzzfeed, MTV Information, VICE, and extra, in addition to the layoffs throughout many media firms, together with the LA Occasions, which laid off 15% of its employees a month after successful a few Pulitzers.
The pool of promoting cash is drying up, because it has began to stream towards influencers on social media. Faux information and AI to generate it’s ubiquitous now. And basically, there are a lot, rather more worthwhile companies than media shops, so normally, the brightest minds in entrepreneurship steer clear … I’d prefer to assume Zach and I are shiny minds, however perhaps we’re not so shiny in spite of everything…? I’m in fact kidding — Zach is a whiz, as you realize. However the problem of doing good journalism and monetizing it’s not to be underestimated.
Our objective right here at CleanTechnica is to speed up the cleantech revolution. However the objective of different media shops is precisely the alternative. I inform the story typically of how Tucker Carlson received a $3 million verify from a coal baron to fund his media startup, which, not surprisingly, did nothing however solid doubt on local weather science and scare individuals about local weather options like photo voltaic, EVs, and extra.
Mark wrote in after studying my article, suggesting a number of issues we might do, and providing to pitch in a couple of dollars a month if we might transfer away from the clunky system we have been utilizing with PayPal and get to one thing that was simple to make use of a bank card with. We discovered one, thanks to a different reader who wrote in, named Ryder. It’s appropriately known as “Fund Journalism,” and in some way, it had by no means crossed my desk previous to Ryder’s suggestion. It’s a lot simpler than what we had beforehand for our month-to-month contributors, which was clunky and unreliable.
So now, due to Ryder, we’re off and working with a brand new contribution web page, the place readers (like Mark) who need to assist us speed up the cleantech revolution can achieve this with only a bank card and arrange a month-to-month contribution of any quantity they select, and cancel with a click on or two at any time. Mark pitched in $10 a month to our publication, and we recognize it a ton!
Try our month-to-month contributor web page, and in case you can, chip in a couple of dollars.
Reader feedback are tremendous useful to us! Extra on the backside about that.
So, what’s up for Mark, the conventional local weather champ and defender of democracy, now that he’s retired?
It’s time to spend time in his off-grid log house. The couple constructed the house in 1994, however had to determine how you can energy the 5 bed room house and outbuildings, on the time, utilizing a ten kW propane-fired generator, a 4,000 watt inverter, and a pair of,200 kilos of lead-acid batteries.
Later, as cleantech superior, they greened it up. “In 2017 we added a 7.4 kW photo voltaic array positioned in a sunny spot 650 ft from the house,” mentioned Mark. “The 24 panel array is mounted on 2 poles to maintain them away from the deep winter snows. The snow slides off the panels when the temperature is 32 levels or greater, so we by no means should clear the panels ourselves. The solar energy diminished our generator use from 1,200 hours a 12 months to 200 hours a 12 months. The photo voltaic addition has an 8 12 months payback.”
Thanks, Mark! You’re the change we need to see on the planet. Thanks for being a frontrunner, and a reader of CleanTechnica.
And, take a cue from Mark — in case you see one thing that may assist CleanTechnica thrive and proceed to develop in a troublesome media trade, hit us up!
Images courtesy of Mark Curtis
I do not like paywalls. You do not like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Right here at CleanTechnica, we carried out a restricted paywall for some time, nevertheless it at all times felt mistaken — and it was at all times powerful to resolve what we must always put behind there. In concept, your most unique and finest content material goes behind a paywall. However then fewer individuals learn it! We simply do not like paywalls, and so we have determined to ditch ours.
Sadly, the media enterprise remains to be a troublesome, cut-throat enterprise with tiny margins. It is a unending Olympic problem to remain above water and even maybe — gasp — develop. So …