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Meet Mark Curtis. Mark is a standard man, dwelling the American dream. He married his school sweetheart, Becky, who he met at a keg celebration 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. Based on Mark, “I’m lucky to have free supercharging for the lifetime of that automobile and make the most of 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!).”
The workplace constructing, with free EV charging for workers, which resulted in numerous staff shopping for EVs!
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 tremendously lowered their month-to-month electrical energy payments, resulting in an 8 12 months payback interval. Based on Mark, “It has been ‘free photo voltaic electrical energy’ since 2020.”
Mark stated, “Over a lunch with my staff in late 2011, I went to the white board and diagrammed the associated fee benefits of proudly owning an electrical automobile. I supplied so as to add automobile chargers to our constructing and supply free electrical energy to the workers. Over the subsequent few years, a dozen of the staff members purchased or leased electrical automobiles! We added 4 Clipper Creek degree 2 chargers, that are nonetheless in use. For among the staff their EV was primarily ‘free’ when in comparison with their earlier ICE automobile prices which had been prevented (gasoline being the biggest of the prices prevented).”
Mark then showcased this success to mates, who he says just about 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 impartial media ecosystem that may expose corruption and hold society working by and for the individuals. If you concentrate on it, there are few different industries or establishments which have this functionality, and lots of of them are governmental, and due to this fact topic to inside corruption and defunding at a dictator’s whim.
Lately, I wrote a bit concerning the media business, which is in hassle. 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 workers a month after profitable a few Pulitzers.
The pool of promoting cash is drying up, because it has began to circulate towards influencers on social media. Pretend information and AI to generate it’s ubiquitous now. And generally, there are a lot, rather more worthwhile companies than media retailers, so normally, the brightest minds in entrepreneurship steer clear … I’d wish to assume Zach and I are vivid minds, however possibly we’re not so vivid in any case…? I’m after all kidding — Zach is a whiz, as you realize. However the problem of doing good journalism and monetizing it’s not to be underestimated.
Our aim right here at CleanTechnica is to speed up the cleantech revolution. However the aim of different media retailers 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 bucks a month if we might transfer away from the clunky system we had been utilizing with PayPal and get to one thing that was straightforward 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 accomplish that 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 respect it a ton!
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 easy methods to 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 situated in a sunny spot 650 ft from the house,” stated 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 larger, so we by no means should clear the panels ourselves. The solar energy lowered 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 — should you see one thing that may assist CleanTechnica thrive and proceed to develop in a troublesome media business, hit us up!
Photographs 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, but it surely all the time felt unsuitable — and it was all the time powerful to resolve what we should always put behind there. In principle, your most unique and greatest content material goes behind a paywall. However then fewer individuals learn it! We simply don’t love 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 endless Olympic problem to remain above water and even maybe — gasp — develop. So …
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