These past few weeks have been both exhaust­ing and exhil­i­rat­ing for me wind­ing through the myr­iad ben­e­fits and bizarre reg­u­la­tory bar­ri­ers to wide scale dis­trib­uted energy and ulti­mately local sus­tain­abil­ity. As win­ter approaches and the price of oil con­tin­ues to rise renew­able energy is fast becom­ing the new “tech indus­try” and none too soon. From the Wall Street Journal

In New Hamp­shire, which along with Iowa and South Car­olina will host an early nom­i­nat­ing con­test, prices for home heat­ing oil are at record highs — 26% above last year. But the state has 25% less fed­eral aid than it did last year to help fam­i­lies at or below the poverty level pay their heat­ing bills. “We know that won’t serve everyone’s needs,” explained Celeste Lovett, pro­gram man­ager for the state’s energy and plan­ning office.

In Iowa and much of the Mid­west, where it is com­mon to drive long dis­tances and where farm­ers rely on propane for heat­ing, politi­cians will have to answer repeated ques­tions about soar­ing prices for gaso­line and propane, which rise and fall along with inter­na­tion­ally set crude oil prices.

Ore­gon is enhanc­ing Busi­ness Energy Tax Cred­its and mak­ing renew­able energy even more afford­able. Low pro­file wind tur­bine tech­nol­ogy and enhanced PV sys­tems, co-generation sys­tems are now pen­cilling out faster than ever before. Most impor­tantly, this is all really being dri­ven from the grass­roots level and here in Coos Curry coun­ties an ener­getic group of cit­i­zens are devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing a model of sus­tain­abil­ity which will pro­duce local jobs and enhance edu­ca­tional sys­tems for our youth.