Dr. Brian Raichle from the Department of Technology & Environmental Design at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC presented the Science After Dark series Tuesday night, April 9, 2013, at Bistro 1-2-7- in Hickory, NC.
His topic was “Renewable Energy: Present and in Your Future”. This was a snapshot of current energy generation and consumption patterns, including but not limited to renewable energy. He pointed out that many homeowners do not know how much money they pay monthly for their electricity and the average homeowner has no idea of how many kilowatt hours his house uses each month. And here is the beginning of the process of getting control over your electricity consumption profile.
Dr. Raichle described state-of-the-art technologies with an emphasis on those suitable for the average homeowner to adapt. He described the rapid fall in the construction costs of adding solar energy to your home and showed how we can all begin with a simple installation that will provide power to the grid that can reduce the monthly energy costs of our own home. Then of course, we can proceed to increase that amount as we wish to do so.
Dr. Raichle’s presentation was dynamic, vibrant and very personable. He answered questions and encouraged questions and discussion from the participants during his presentation. He got his ideas across so well that many of us were figuring out costs and payback data. This is an example of why Hickory’s version of “Science Cafés”, which we call “Science After Dark” does so well. Here is the place where we can hear a qualified scientist speaking about some of the events which are changing our world. But rather than being in a college classroom atmosphere we all are gathered in a pub, cafe or bistro, and the presentation is informal and we – us neophytes – can actually ask these people questions that have bothered us about their topic.
For more information see http://sciencecafes.org/what/
