It all began – I think, although I’m too dazed to really remember – back in November.  Whenever I arrive at the ranch, I check to make sure everything is okay.  By everything, I usually mean the alternative energy electrical system, and more specifically, the batteries.  I’m usually holding my breath as I open the closet where they’re kept – are they still working?  Or have they been drained silly, worthless massive hunks of plastic holding gallons of acid below proper voltage.  These batteries are sensitive creatures, and have to be kept pumped up and happy.  I have three ways of pumping them up: solar panels, a wind turbine, and if those two fail because it’s too cloudy and too calm – a propane generator, the old fossil fuel standby.
 
On that day, everything was great.  Happy batteries, happy ranch owner.  That is, until I turned on the faucet to get a glass of fresh pumped rainwater out of our fiberglass cistern, via two filters and an ultraviolet light.  The water came out all right, but about five seconds in, the running faucet suddenly stopped, then started again, and this cycle repeated over and over.  The pump was cutting in and out.  And while this was not nearly so bad as the pump simply cutting out and staying out, since at least I could get some water, it clearly couldn’t be left in that state.  I sighed.  Hear we go again – another relaxing weekend at the ranch about to turn into an extended troubleshooting and swearing session.  I tried to summon my best Zen game face.  “It’s okay,” I said to myself, “just walk the path.”
 
That path that day led me to call Richard Heinechen at Tank Town, Dripping Springs, TX just southwest of Austin and the center of one of that city’s suburban sprawl booms, white limestone subdivisions named after the very things they supplant and destroy: Cold Canyon Creek, Juniper Trace.  Tank Town, however, is very different, as is its owner.  Richard’s a happy, mumbling, zany absent-minded professor with a down-home water collection business who installed my rainwater collection system.  The many fiberglass tanks on his property are painted different pastel colors, some with turtles or ladybugs painted huge on them.  Richard’s also got some style, his offices are fashionable, even his packing line for bottled rainwater has stained concrete floors.  His wife writes for Texas Monthly, that self-appointed arbiter of Texas chic.  Richard took the broken pump, slapped it up on the workbench, replaced a part, plugged some hoses in, and let it rip.  Just like new.  I took my pump and drove the two hours back to the ranch, plugged it in, held my breath, turned on the faucet and…oooon – and…off and on and off and on and off.  My Zen face began to crumble, words, ugly ones, very ugly ones, began to form on my tongue and barge from my mouth, breaking the silence of the place.  Birds were stirred from trees.  Dogs howled in the distance.  I stared at the pump, and called Richard.  “The pump’s still under warranty,” he said, “just bring it back and I’ll give you another one.”  I smiled.  Money, the great salve, even when time is still an issue.  Two hours to Austin, two hours back, and one free pump later, problem solved.
 
In mid-January, our friend Lisa was in town and she wanted to see and stay at the ranch.  We left Houston under threatening skies and arrived in the dark evening to a cold and heavy downpour, the beginning of what would become two weeks of almost daily rain for our area.  It will be nice, I thought, to get inside and make a fire, get cozy, and relax.  Sitting in the car next to the house, waiting for the rain to ease, I decided to get everything inside, and start the lights and heat.  But first, of course, I checked the batteries.  Low.  No surprise there.  It had been overcast and not particularly windy enough, I would need to start the generator to charge up the batteries.  A few buttons later, I awaited the starter and engine that signify the huge foot-locker sized chassis coming to life.  This time, though, only a few clicks.  And then silence, except for the pouring rain.  “You’ve got to be kidding” I told my electric system.  A second try said no kidding.  Some clicks, and only the rain.  Expletives pouring from my mouth, mixing with the storm, some beggings for mercy too, all to no avail.  The generator wouldn’t start, and the batteries were getting low, and about to get lower since humans had arrived to use all manner of lights, faucets, and appliances.
 
I got the wife, the kid, the friend into the house, got the heat going, told them to conserve power, use some flashlights, no water use and so forth, and then I got to work.  Clad in my rainsuit, sloshing around mud in my boots, I tried this, then that, rain and dark all around, the beam of my flashlight checking this, then that.  8 pm.  The only place open on Saturday night in Colorado county that might have supplies – say a battery, oil, electric components, filters – closed in an hour.  After some more troubleshooting, I decided my best bet was to try and replace the battery at that place - Walmart.
 
Imagine the irony – my alternative energy system, on the fritz, and totally dependent for operation at this hour on…Walmart.  But there it is.  A 25 mile roundtripper to Walmart, a new battery, and we were back in business.  I put the battery in, the generator started, and we all cheered happily, turned on the lights, opened the faucets, and started the appliances.  Ain’t alternative off-grid living fun I mused.
 
I hoped that that ended the several weeks of problems.  But the next day – Sunday – I watched in horror as the generator spat out another series of problems, this time related to oil in the engine - too old, or not enough, or something.  And so there I was on Sunday – still raining – off to the only place open on that day – Walmart - to get another oil filter and some more oil for my alternative energy system.
 
At this point you’re probably thinking “Well clearly this guy is mechanically challenged and can’t do maintenance right on any of this stuff.”  In truth, I’m probably far from the best at that kind of thing, but I’m even farther from the worst.  I have a maintenance schedule posted and I more or less stick to it.  There are just a lot of parts on an alternative energy system.
 
One week ago I showed up at the ranch, and again, the generator wouldn’t start.  This time I called in the cavalry from Houston, and they determined that a main problem is that the generator, made by Generac to be especially quiet, has a battery, just like a car battery, that requires charging, and being off the grid, we would have to find a special way to charge this particular generator’s battery.  Another weekend spent dealing with how to charge an off grid battery.
 
Alternative energy is going to be hard, it’s going to take time, patience, and experimentation, I assure you, and I think I’m in a pretty good position to make that determination, certainly far better than most.  I’m a consumer running one of the most advanced alternative energy setups in the state, and I can tell you that new innovations in generators, batteries, inverters, panels, turbines, and many other things will be required.  Not just breakthrough innovations but simple ones that make products user-friendly.
 
In the midst of my agonies, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its landmark report in which vast hordes of the world’s best scientists placed a startlingly conclusive 90% probability on the question of climate change resulting from human activity.  And in response, Samuel Bodman, the current Secretary of Energy declared that he was “not going to experiment on the United States economy,” meaning he has no intention of responding meaningfully to the Panel’s findings, continuing the Bush Administration’s refusal to accept realities of almost any kind.
 
Here is Mr. Bodman’s resume:
 
He graduated in 1961 with a B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University. In 1965, he completed his ScD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the next six years he served as an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and began his work in the financial sector as Technical Director of the American Research and Development Corporation, a pioneer venture capital firm. He and his colleagues provided financial and managerial support to scores of new business enterprises located throughout the United States.
 
From there, Secretary Bodman went to Fidelity Venture Associates, a division of Fidelity Investments. In 1983 he was named President and Chief Operating Officer of Fidelity Investments and a Director of the Fidelity Group of Mutual Funds. In 1987, he joined Cabot Corporation, a Boston-based Fortune 300 company with global business activities in specialty chemicals and materials, where he served as Chairman, CEO, and a Director. Over the years, he has been a Director of many other publicly owned corporations.
 
Mr. Bodman’s resume reveals that he has been close to experimentation all of his entire education and adult life, as both an engineer and a financier of innovation.  And yet, as a member of the Bush Administration, experimentation is suddenly anathema to him, and experimentation with the US economy is taboo.
 
When I heard Bodman’s comment, that he would not experiment on the American economy, I thought of Thomas Edison persevering through 10,000 failures to create the light bulb, I thought of Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and the crew at Intel working feverishly in the 1960’s to find a way to embed a tiny conductor into a substrate that would open and close and thereby pave the way for the binary operations of the digital era; I even thought of the labs of chemical engineers in the middle of the last century, experimenting to find all of the myriad uses for petroleum and chemicals.  And I realized that the entire American economy is built on experimentation.  And I realized that President George W. Bush causes even accomplished experimenters to lose their nerve as soon as they join his cabinet.
 
Although not entirely.  This President and his supporters have been only too willing to experiment on the entire Iraqi nation; on the social security program; on the fiscal stability of our Treasury; and of course they are totally willing to experiment freely and without constraint on our planet’s atmosphere.  The only thing they say they are not willing to experiment on is the American economy, when the real truth is that through these other experiments, that is exactly what they have been doing.
 
If ever there was a time to declare experimental season open, it’s now.  We’ll need all of the dreamers, engineers, marketers, public policy experts, and even generator designers.  And, probably, while we’re at it, we might even want to look into experimenting with a new Chief Executive for the country. 
  
I’m Leo Gold.  This is the New Capital Show.