I started fishing when I was knee-high
to a grasshopper the first fish I
remember catching was a couple pound
catfish but because I was so small I
could have swore and I did that it was a
full-grown shark that first fish was the
first of what must have been hundreds of
thousands of fish that I caught out of
Grand Lake of the Cherokees in
northeastern Oklahoma my family grew up
in southwestern Missouri in the Ozarks
but we visit my grandparents cabin on
the lake during the weekends in
summertime if you’re unfamiliar with
Grand Lake it’s a man-made reservoir as
a kid I had no idea but it was a
reservoir for a hydroelectric dam and as
I grew older I could see the power lines
crisscrossing around the landscape like
many folks my grandfather taught me
about fishing he’d tell me stories about
how great fishing used to be he’d say
you’d have to stand behind a tree to
bait your hook and in doing so that way
the fish wouldn’t jump out of the water
and grab the bait out of your hand while
that may have been a bit of a fish story
the point remain fishing used to be
better and as I grew up I had a better
understanding of what that meant and in
fact not all the fish are is safe to eat
nowadays is what they used to be and
that’s the beginning of how my love of
fishing led to my career in clean energy
you see some large predatory fish like
bass gar catfish tuna and yes sharks
consume smaller prey and accumulate in
mercury there are mercury consumption
advisories all across this country in
various waterways and the number one
source of mercury contamination comes
from coal-fired power plants my fishing
interests reached an apex in college
when I started taking biology courses on
stream ecology macro invertebrates and
entomology that’s bugs and it was right
around this same time that I was so
close to some of the best fly-fishing
waters in the Ozarks
just an hour away and for a part-time
job I even worked at the granddaddy of
all the outdoor stores Bass Pro Shops in
Springfield Missouri and at that exact
same time my local electric company
announced plans to build another
coal-fired power plant and I knew that
that coal-fired power plant would have
negative effects on the waterways that I
love that’s when I had a light bulb
moment I realized if I wanted to protect
the waterways I loved and keep them
healthy I had to do something but I knew
that those spirally little light bulbs
installed at my home we’re going to be
enough to stop this coal-fired power
plant and I had not a clue how my
electric company even operated so after
some research I found out that wind
power and energy efficiency are low cost
alternatives at the time solar power and
natural gas were a little too expensive
but they too were alternatives after
several years of work and research my
city and electric company decided to
build the coal-fired power plant anyway
I thought powerless so how do you begin
to make your electric company better
I’ve got a little secret the shed
most electric companies are government
approved monopolies have you ever
wondered why there’s an electric company
on the Monopoly board game electric
companies aren’t like grocery stores you
can’t pick and choose which ones you
want see at the beginning of the 19th
century the primary model in developing
electric companies was reliant on heavy
expenditures and cities could only
withstand so many competing power lines
Criss crossing over streets and tearing
up sidewalks so the power companies
began to consolidate and create natural
monopolies in many cases there was
little to no competition but in return
they were meant to be regulated by
someone that’s someone
but someone who’s supposed to protect
the public a ratepayer the customer is
different depending on what type of
electric company you see in the late
1890s large for-profit power companies
found that cities were the places to
make the most profit leaving smaller
towns in the dust those larger
for-profit power companies are usually
regulated by things called public
service Commission’s visionary city
leaders would often announce plans to
create their own not-for-profit
municipal but government-run electric
companies these not-for-profit smaller
electric companies are usually run by
city councils and mayor’s in 1896 a
small southern Louisiana town decided
that they needed their own electric
company after a citywide vote approving
the government-run company Lafayette
Louisiana developed Lafayette entities
system let’s think about this for a
moment this is a time and a place in
history where these people had never
seen electricity they weren’t experts
they didn’t know how electricity was
even generated but they had a vision and
that vision is a very powerful thing
these people are called
power adapters they see a better future
and work for it today at that time
virtually no one in the country had
electricity in fact in 1896 there were
no toasters no vacuum sweepers
there was no rotary telephone the
primary mode of transportation was still
the horse and buggy at that time in
history Thomas Edison you know the guy
with the light bulb he was fighting with
Nikola Tesla about what type of
electricity would be best Thomas
Edison’s direct current power DC power
or Nikola Tesla’s alternating current or
AC power this fight between Edison’s DC
power and Tesla’s AC power is
current wars see at the time a lot of
people thought Tesla’s AC power was too
dangerous to use but that didn’t scare
Lafayette
in fact Lafayette had electricity nearly
40 years before President Roosevelt’s
New Deal helped electrify the nation
meanwhile Lafayette Louisiana gets to
hang our hats long sidings powerful
power adapters you see we still live
with the impacts of those power adapters
today Thomas Edison created a number of
power companies including Consolidated
Edison in New York he also created the
General Electric Company Nikola Tesla
won the current Wars so the power flown
through your house and this building is
alternating current Elon Musk one of
today’s power adapters is paying tribute
to Nikola Tesla with his Tesla Motor
Company an all electric car company and
President Roosevelt’s New Deal created
the Tennessee Valley Authority which
generated the power necessary to build
the world’s first atomic bonds and put
an end to World War two his New Deal
also created my favorite lake Grand Lake
of the Cherokees in northeastern
Oklahoma meanwhile Lafayette Louisiana
that’s the hang its hat on history as
well nowadays southern Louisiana is
better known as being at the heart of
the oil and gas industry but in this
century
Lafayette again flexed its power adapter
muscles this time it was with fiber
internet you see very few cities had
gigabit internet service and the very
large for-profit private companies
didn’t see Lafayette as a valuable
customer base so in 2004 the citizens of
Lafayette Louisiana banded together to
launch lus Bible this is at a time when
there weren’t iPhones there was no
YouTube in 2004 there was this thing
called America Online AOL they had 25
million subscribers on dial-up intern
nowadays you know we can see that
dial-up internet is dead
AOL used to be a power adapter but now
they’re a punchline in a TEDx talk so
what happens when a former power adapter
unplugs for many of us we take for
granted that the future is going to
arrive on time under budget and without
controversy that’s not always the case
when my family moved to lafayette in
2011 we were pretty excited to move to a
place that we thought was looking
forward and we bought a house that was
built in the 1980s we immediately
noticed how high our electric bills were
so we started make the house making the
house more energy-efficient and in 2012
we installed solar panels on that house
pretty soon we saw our electric bills go
from $200 a month all the way down to
six dollars per month you see solar
families like mine rely on a policy
called net metering whereby your panels
over generate power during the day and
your electric meter spins backwards the
power flows to your neighbors and your
utility gets to claim that power as
their own as they sell it to your
neighbors at the end of the month
everything’s netted up and then you get
your six dollar electric bill we rely on
those common and fair policies in order
to make decisions on what type of
investments we make for our own homes
but in October of 2016 I discovered that
my local electric company had changed
its net NATO policy buried in a 60 page
ordinance was a small section changing
the net meter policy for Lafayette
utilities system and it didn’t spell out
the word solar and it didn’t tell about
the implications to solar families like
mine not to get too deep into the
details the new solar change was going
to Alevi over $200 in additional fees to
my family every single
for folks that were considering
installing solar panels of their own
they effectively would have never paid
for themselves because of the new fees I
was so shocked I immediately began
getting plugged in I worked with another
number of solar homeowners nearby and
solar panel install our companies and we
started telling the story of what had
happened we dubbed it the solar tax
because after all my government approved
monopoly utility was setting these new
fees on solar homeowners we wrote a blog
describing the issue that blog got
picked up in local news media and then
it went viral on social media probably
hundreds of thousands of people all
across the country were similarly
shocked by the solar packs we started
having people contact our City Council
asking that something be done and within
a week it was announced that the solar
tax would be rescinded we had one but as
a fisherman you don’t go home after you
catch one small fish and as a power
adapter you don’t rest on your laurels
and be satisfied with the bare minimum
keep in mind the victory over the solar
tax should never have had to happen in
the first place this is the 21st century
we need to be rewarding innovation not
punishing it and looking forward to the
next big thing
and many communities are doing just that
communities like Lincoln Nebraska where
they’re getting 48 percent of their
electricity today from renewable energy
resources or Eastern Kentucky Power
Cooperative where residents can rent
solar panels and reduce their electric
bills remotely or Kansas City Missouri
where they’re actually paying people and
offering incentives to buy electric
vehicles for Austin Texas where they’ve
avoided building several massive power
plants just by being more energy
efficient and Springfield Missouri
remember that first town that got me
fired up about energy issues even though
Springfield went ahead and built that
coal-fired power plant today they’re
also buying wind power and solar power
at a lower cost than that new coal unit
and they just recently announced that
they are shutting down one of their
older coal-fired power plants those
communities are planning for their
future and your community can too so
what’s the next big thing here we are at
the beginning of the 21st century we’re
in a new energy era communities all
across the country are facing a
crossroads do we want to become the next
Tesla or rail up power plants are 30 to
50 year investments the decisions we
make today will affect our children’s
children maybe this is your light bulb
moment and you’re thinking I should
really do something but I’m not an
expert and I don’t even know where my
power comes from well that’s okay
in 1896 Lafayette didn’t have a clue
either but they did have a vision and
that’s a very powerful thing we are more
empowered to make positive changes in
our community and electric companies
than we may realize it’s time for
everyone to become power adapters and
get plugged in sure you may need to
learn who your City Council members are
and what the public service Commission’s
do but those people are elected to serve
you contact them give them your vision
light their way and if you’ll indulge
one final pun join me let’s flip the
switch for our community and move into
the future
to a grasshopper the first fish I
remember catching was a couple pound
catfish but because I was so small I
could have swore and I did that it was a
full-grown shark that first fish was the
first of what must have been hundreds of
thousands of fish that I caught out of
Grand Lake of the Cherokees in
northeastern Oklahoma my family grew up
in southwestern Missouri in the Ozarks
but we visit my grandparents cabin on
the lake during the weekends in
summertime if you’re unfamiliar with
Grand Lake it’s a man-made reservoir as
a kid I had no idea but it was a
reservoir for a hydroelectric dam and as
I grew older I could see the power lines
crisscrossing around the landscape like
many folks my grandfather taught me
about fishing he’d tell me stories about
how great fishing used to be he’d say
you’d have to stand behind a tree to
bait your hook and in doing so that way
the fish wouldn’t jump out of the water
and grab the bait out of your hand while
that may have been a bit of a fish story
the point remain fishing used to be
better and as I grew up I had a better
understanding of what that meant and in
fact not all the fish are is safe to eat
nowadays is what they used to be and
that’s the beginning of how my love of
fishing led to my career in clean energy
you see some large predatory fish like
bass gar catfish tuna and yes sharks
consume smaller prey and accumulate in
mercury there are mercury consumption
advisories all across this country in
various waterways and the number one
source of mercury contamination comes
from coal-fired power plants my fishing
interests reached an apex in college
when I started taking biology courses on
stream ecology macro invertebrates and
entomology that’s bugs and it was right
around this same time that I was so
close to some of the best fly-fishing
waters in the Ozarks
just an hour away and for a part-time
job I even worked at the granddaddy of
all the outdoor stores Bass Pro Shops in
Springfield Missouri and at that exact
same time my local electric company
announced plans to build another
coal-fired power plant and I knew that
that coal-fired power plant would have
negative effects on the waterways that I
love that’s when I had a light bulb
moment I realized if I wanted to protect
the waterways I loved and keep them
healthy I had to do something but I knew
that those spirally little light bulbs
installed at my home we’re going to be
enough to stop this coal-fired power
plant and I had not a clue how my
electric company even operated so after
some research I found out that wind
power and energy efficiency are low cost
alternatives at the time solar power and
natural gas were a little too expensive
but they too were alternatives after
several years of work and research my
city and electric company decided to
build the coal-fired power plant anyway
I thought powerless so how do you begin
to make your electric company better
I’ve got a little secret the shed
most electric companies are government
approved monopolies have you ever
wondered why there’s an electric company
on the Monopoly board game electric
companies aren’t like grocery stores you
can’t pick and choose which ones you
want see at the beginning of the 19th
century the primary model in developing
electric companies was reliant on heavy
expenditures and cities could only
withstand so many competing power lines
Criss crossing over streets and tearing
up sidewalks so the power companies
began to consolidate and create natural
monopolies in many cases there was
little to no competition but in return
they were meant to be regulated by
someone that’s someone
but someone who’s supposed to protect
the public a ratepayer the customer is
different depending on what type of
electric company you see in the late
1890s large for-profit power companies
found that cities were the places to
make the most profit leaving smaller
towns in the dust those larger
for-profit power companies are usually
regulated by things called public
service Commission’s visionary city
leaders would often announce plans to
create their own not-for-profit
municipal but government-run electric
companies these not-for-profit smaller
electric companies are usually run by
city councils and mayor’s in 1896 a
small southern Louisiana town decided
that they needed their own electric
company after a citywide vote approving
the government-run company Lafayette
Louisiana developed Lafayette entities
system let’s think about this for a
moment this is a time and a place in
history where these people had never
seen electricity they weren’t experts
they didn’t know how electricity was
even generated but they had a vision and
that vision is a very powerful thing
these people are called
power adapters they see a better future
and work for it today at that time
virtually no one in the country had
electricity in fact in 1896 there were
no toasters no vacuum sweepers
there was no rotary telephone the
primary mode of transportation was still
the horse and buggy at that time in
history Thomas Edison you know the guy
with the light bulb he was fighting with
Nikola Tesla about what type of
electricity would be best Thomas
Edison’s direct current power DC power
or Nikola Tesla’s alternating current or
AC power this fight between Edison’s DC
power and Tesla’s AC power is
current wars see at the time a lot of
people thought Tesla’s AC power was too
dangerous to use but that didn’t scare
Lafayette
in fact Lafayette had electricity nearly
40 years before President Roosevelt’s
New Deal helped electrify the nation
meanwhile Lafayette Louisiana gets to
hang our hats long sidings powerful
power adapters you see we still live
with the impacts of those power adapters
today Thomas Edison created a number of
power companies including Consolidated
Edison in New York he also created the
General Electric Company Nikola Tesla
won the current Wars so the power flown
through your house and this building is
alternating current Elon Musk one of
today’s power adapters is paying tribute
to Nikola Tesla with his Tesla Motor
Company an all electric car company and
President Roosevelt’s New Deal created
the Tennessee Valley Authority which
generated the power necessary to build
the world’s first atomic bonds and put
an end to World War two his New Deal
also created my favorite lake Grand Lake
of the Cherokees in northeastern
Oklahoma meanwhile Lafayette Louisiana
that’s the hang its hat on history as
well nowadays southern Louisiana is
better known as being at the heart of
the oil and gas industry but in this
century
Lafayette again flexed its power adapter
muscles this time it was with fiber
internet you see very few cities had
gigabit internet service and the very
large for-profit private companies
didn’t see Lafayette as a valuable
customer base so in 2004 the citizens of
Lafayette Louisiana banded together to
launch lus Bible this is at a time when
there weren’t iPhones there was no
YouTube in 2004 there was this thing
called America Online AOL they had 25
million subscribers on dial-up intern
nowadays you know we can see that
dial-up internet is dead
AOL used to be a power adapter but now
they’re a punchline in a TEDx talk so
what happens when a former power adapter
unplugs for many of us we take for
granted that the future is going to
arrive on time under budget and without
controversy that’s not always the case
when my family moved to lafayette in
2011 we were pretty excited to move to a
place that we thought was looking
forward and we bought a house that was
built in the 1980s we immediately
noticed how high our electric bills were
so we started make the house making the
house more energy-efficient and in 2012
we installed solar panels on that house
pretty soon we saw our electric bills go
from $200 a month all the way down to
six dollars per month you see solar
families like mine rely on a policy
called net metering whereby your panels
over generate power during the day and
your electric meter spins backwards the
power flows to your neighbors and your
utility gets to claim that power as
their own as they sell it to your
neighbors at the end of the month
everything’s netted up and then you get
your six dollar electric bill we rely on
those common and fair policies in order
to make decisions on what type of
investments we make for our own homes
but in October of 2016 I discovered that
my local electric company had changed
its net NATO policy buried in a 60 page
ordinance was a small section changing
the net meter policy for Lafayette
utilities system and it didn’t spell out
the word solar and it didn’t tell about
the implications to solar families like
mine not to get too deep into the
details the new solar change was going
to Alevi over $200 in additional fees to
my family every single
for folks that were considering
installing solar panels of their own
they effectively would have never paid
for themselves because of the new fees I
was so shocked I immediately began
getting plugged in I worked with another
number of solar homeowners nearby and
solar panel install our companies and we
started telling the story of what had
happened we dubbed it the solar tax
because after all my government approved
monopoly utility was setting these new
fees on solar homeowners we wrote a blog
describing the issue that blog got
picked up in local news media and then
it went viral on social media probably
hundreds of thousands of people all
across the country were similarly
shocked by the solar packs we started
having people contact our City Council
asking that something be done and within
a week it was announced that the solar
tax would be rescinded we had one but as
a fisherman you don’t go home after you
catch one small fish and as a power
adapter you don’t rest on your laurels
and be satisfied with the bare minimum
keep in mind the victory over the solar
tax should never have had to happen in
the first place this is the 21st century
we need to be rewarding innovation not
punishing it and looking forward to the
next big thing
and many communities are doing just that
communities like Lincoln Nebraska where
they’re getting 48 percent of their
electricity today from renewable energy
resources or Eastern Kentucky Power
Cooperative where residents can rent
solar panels and reduce their electric
bills remotely or Kansas City Missouri
where they’re actually paying people and
offering incentives to buy electric
vehicles for Austin Texas where they’ve
avoided building several massive power
plants just by being more energy
efficient and Springfield Missouri
remember that first town that got me
fired up about energy issues even though
Springfield went ahead and built that
coal-fired power plant today they’re
also buying wind power and solar power
at a lower cost than that new coal unit
and they just recently announced that
they are shutting down one of their
older coal-fired power plants those
communities are planning for their
future and your community can too so
what’s the next big thing here we are at
the beginning of the 21st century we’re
in a new energy era communities all
across the country are facing a
crossroads do we want to become the next
Tesla or rail up power plants are 30 to
50 year investments the decisions we
make today will affect our children’s
children maybe this is your light bulb
moment and you’re thinking I should
really do something but I’m not an
expert and I don’t even know where my
power comes from well that’s okay
in 1896 Lafayette didn’t have a clue
either but they did have a vision and
that’s a very powerful thing we are more
empowered to make positive changes in
our community and electric companies
than we may realize it’s time for
everyone to become power adapters and
get plugged in sure you may need to
learn who your City Council members are
and what the public service Commission’s
do but those people are elected to serve
you contact them give them your vision
light their way and if you’ll indulge
one final pun join me let’s flip the
switch for our community and move into
the future
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