The average American home emits about 23,000 lbs of CO2 and spends over $1500
in utility bills yearly.

One man has a house that emits no CO2 and has not utility bills. It is the first
solar hydrogen fuel cell house in North America. Hydrogen is non-toxic,
non-polluting, and is less flammable than gasoline. Hydrogen has three times as much
energy as natural gas. With 10 storage tanks, which holds 19,000 cubic feet of
hydrogen, enough energy along with the solar and geo-thermal to power his house, his
cooking gas, heat gas and powers his vehicle for an entire year.

Mike makes all the hydrogen himself from ordinary tap water. A process in which an
electrolyzer takes water, runs it through a de-ionizing process and through reverse
osmosis feeds the chemically pure water into the electrolyzer, then a device splits
it off between hydrogen and oxygen. This process known as electrolysis uses
electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms from water molecules. The
electricity used for this process is created by solar power, of course.

He has enough solar panels to provide about 1,000 kw per month. The extra electricity
is converted into hydrogen in an endless green cycle.

He even built his own hydrogen fuel cell car that runs on the same hydrogen he
generates for the house. I want to call him “Mr.Greenjeans!”

This is what I call a going green hero!

You can catch Mike’s house on the Science Channel’s program called Eco-Tech and will
air Jun 03, 8:00 pm.

Our decision to go underground with the electrical was two fold:

1 – safety – nestled underground, no dangling wires for tree limbs, the wind, storms,
or nitwits to knock down. Just need to record the location, (nitwits are uncanny!)

2 – the view – one more time, – the view. All those who can’t wait for the day
that every stinking over-head wire goes underground, please raise your hands.

Going underground is by no means cheap. The power company will gladly do it for you, but,
get ready to give up your first born and a higher education for the rest.

Since we don’t have kids, this is the way we got around the expense:

We bought a “temp” pole for around $175. It comes with the weather head, meter box, and a large
circuit breaker box with double 100 amp main breakers, all installed. These are used for
mobile homes and new home construction sites (hense the name “temp” poles). We set the pole
in the NE corner of our property near the power pole with our transformer. So from main box
to RV breaker box is nearly a 100 foot run.

We dug a trench 2 feet deep to lay the electrical line. Paid $300 for 100 feet of 6 gauge
copper and that was cheap as they were out of 8 gauge. Threaded it through 1 inch pvc.
This was a rushed process, afraid to take a bathroom break, or God forbid, let dark catch
you half done. Because as sure as the sun will rise, that whole run would be unzipped and
nothing left but air in the trench. I can just imagine the little jerk, waiting in front of
the metal recycling place, sitting on my copper wire, sipping a hot cup of coffee, grinning!
Copper is so high now I swear they can smell it.

The whole time we were laying this expensive copper to hook up to an expensive power grid
the free wind was blowing the hats off of our heads and the free sunshine was still making
us squint through our sunglasses. We vowed to ourselves that if we ever get to the point
of getting the everyday necessities accomplished that we were going to build that wind-turbine.
That non-polluting energy generator and if we can ever find cheap solar panels, no roof on
this acre will be safe!

We vowed to get off of the grid or the grid will be paying us. Put that in your coal
burning power plants and smoke it.