March 19, 2019 — With the Green New Deal in the national spotlight and a proposal to establish a county climate change advisory council on this week’s Board of Supervisors agenda, solar power is more relevant than ever.
On Sunday afternoon, the Now and Then Film Series at the Little Lake Grange hosted a well-attended showing of a film about the history of the solar industry. Solar Roots: The Pioneers of PV, features dozens of interviews with some of the first people in the country to popularize the technology of solar power and photovoltaics. Both filmmakers, Jeff Spies and Jason Vetterli, were on hand to tell the story about the story at the first non-industry showing of the new documentary.
I caught up with both men afterwards, to find out how a technology that was discovered in the 19th century, then funded by the military and NASA, came down to earth in back-country homesteads.