The precise economic figure is dependent on how much you expect energy to rise in price and how much your money is worth in investment alternatives. For example, a hot water heater is one of the biggest consumers of energy in a home. You can spend your money now on a solar dish to provide hot water for the long term, or spend more and more over time to take a shower as you heat your water with increasingly expensive electricity or gas. In an ideal world, Wood believes clusters of solar dishes could be situated 20 miles outside major cities and the steam piped in for heating or hot water. However, solar planners are already skittish about central systems that supply remote communities, because Americans are unused to sharing communal resources that might require personal sacrifices at times, like not cranking up the hot tub so your neighbor can take a shower.
Wood has little patience for that mindset.
But I still can't get anybody to care. This is a society that lost its will to survive collectively. It's every dog for himself. Savvy Surplus Scrounger Doug Wood is nothing if not resourceful. He used a student loan to purchase seven acres on Fox Island in the 1970s.