As I attempt to go back off grid for the first time in decades, this time with a family in tow, I'm struck by just how much the solar, and by extension renewable energy, industry has changed.
What once was geared towards people living an alternative lifestyle is now centered around making yuppies in the suburbs believe that they're saving the world if they grid-tie some solar panels on their roof and charge their Tesla at home. It's populated by "business managers" who are only interested is seeing how many shoddily done jobs they can slap up in a short amount of time who mask that fact by pretending to care about the environment to their customers.
I have yet to have a positive interaction with anyone in the industry about actual self-sustainability. They just don't care. It's all so....corporate and phony now.
This is a real disappointment in my current life. Can't even drop out of society effectively anymore.
I don't know if it would pass your bar - but look up Babcock Ranch in Florida.
The community is solar powered and has power through and after Ian
Thanks for mentioning them. I'm actually quite familiar with them and have visited before!
This post has brought up a lot of good questions many of which I have a lot of thoughts on, but probably aren't best served as one off responses for what is actually a complex issue. The internet is not always great for nuance!
Solar is better than many alternatives that are available to us. Often, but not always(see @zonz post above) large scale solar is "better" but they're nuances there, too.
To the best of my fairly limited knowledge many places like Babcock Ranch exist is the US and their footprint is much more minimal than the average neighborhood/village/city and therefore a positive step in the right direction.
