First Snow

Last Saturday we drove to Endicott to visit our daughter. From Canton to around Dekalb Jct. it had snowed during the night, just a light dusting, but it reflected the early light of dawn making the world brighter than it otherwise would have been at that hour.

This isn't my usual type of landscape. I'm often annoyed by power and phone lines that obstruct an otherwise beautiful scene. The large tower here is the 765KV line that cuts across our area and was the subject of considerable protest when it was built to carry power downstate. There are at least two other sets of lines in the photo for regional and local delivery of power. While the big tower does have an industrial/engineering sort of beauty about it I can't help thinking how serene this view would be without all the poles and wires.

Recently I've had hope for such a future. The Solar Highways project could eliminate all those wires because in addition to generating power it would become the power grid. It is projected that converting our road system to solar generation could replace not only our current electric generation (no more dammed rivers), it could also replace oil, gas and coal. If we replaced all the asphalt with solar panels it would generate more than twice the total energy we now use. Another reason I need to live to be 100, to see that day.