June 30 AEA meeting at Earth Connection

The 2nd quarter 2003 AEA meeting was held at Earth Connection (EC) 6-9pm on Monday, June 30. There were 11 total attendees, including one new member (Claudia ) and four new visitors. AEA members in attendance included Stu Brin, Paula Gonzalez, Tom Harrison, Jeanette Raichyk, John Robbins, Tim Tenhundfeld and new member Claudia Hilligoss, a Boone County KY homeowner and one of the leaders of the NKY Sierra Club. The four visitors were brought by two who had recently heard about AEA during presentations at the GEO conference on solar and wind power at the Cincinnati Zoo last Saturday, June 28.

The meeting started with Paula giving a tour of EC, especially forks who hadn't been there before. Longer-standing AEA members know EarthConnection as one of its more common meeting locations, an environmental learning center in a superinsulated passive solar structure with nice daylighting, active solar water heating and passive annual heat storage. Paula ended her tour with a presentation on EC's new grid-tied solar electric system. Earth Connection photo by John Robbins!

Over dinner we discussed future dwindling availability and rising cost of energy. Claudia's solar-cooked cookies were the tasty dessert! Several AEA business items were discussed after dinner, including the solar cookout shared with NKY Sierra Club at John Robbins' house on Sat. Aug. 9 (rainday Aug. 10) and the October 4 solar and energy efficient hometour traditionally held in cahoots with ASES' (The American Solar Energy Society) National Tour of Solar Homes. Nothing was finalized about either event.

Finally, John Robbins presented a brief summary with overhead transparencies of his 2002 TriState Household Energy Survey which compared local costs, energy use and environmental impacts. His survey showed total household energy expenses for 2002 ranged from a low of $537 to a high of $3162. The 2002 household which placed first in Robbins' survey ratings had very low energy costs of only 35 cents per square foot of conditioned floor area and $210 per person!

Submitted by John Robbins
jrobbins@queencity.com

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