Riverwood

I woke up to about three inches of snow on the ground this morning, and the groaning realization that I had a freelance writing assignment that required that I bicycle to a local golf course/bowling alley called Riverwood Resort.

The ride out, as can be expected during the year's first snow, was atrocious. People don't understand how to drive around bicycles as it is, and when you combine the general lack of long-term memory when it comes to driving on snow (for some folks, the first snow of the year is always the first time they've driven on it, no matter how Michigan winters they've endured).

A couple hundred feet away from the clubhouse, I could see the reason for my trip. Sticking out from above the clubhouse was a windmill, its blades spinning in the wind.

The story was ostensibly about the windmill that the place uses to help generate electricity, but I found that the most interesting elements were actually the way the place is heated, the mechanic who keeps the place up, and the potential for Segway use next summer.

First things first ... the windmill. Three blades, made of wood and coated with copper. I've always heard that one of the knocks on windmills is that they're difficult to maintain, and suffer from equipment failures. Not this one. The reason, I guess, is that back when they decided to build it, they invested in good equipment from the get-go. Every few years, they need to change the six quarts of oil, and the maintenance guy recently stripped down the blades pretty well and recoated them with copper. A few years back, based on the numbers they gave me, and because they got some tax incentives when they installed it, the thing finally paid itself off and now represents a positive investment.

What really caught my attention was how Dick Figg, the business owner, heats his bowling alley.

The entire time we're walking around his place, he's shutting doors that are open. "I try to be green by shutting doors," he kept saying. The obvious first thing on his mind, it was obvious, was efficient use of energy. A good way to go. Once, he pointed to an open door, and said, that's a stick of wood right there.

What's that mean? Very simple. The golf course, like almost every Michigan golf course, has a lot of trees on it. Enough that every year a couple fall over in big storms. Limbs fall down. Trees get old or diseased and die.

So, Riverwood takes its dead trees, cuts them up, and then burns them for heat. Not a wood stove, but to heat water in a boiler -- between 600-800 gallons -- which is circulated through insulated pipes (so as not to lose heat) to big radiators in heat transfer units. A fan blows across the radiators, which disperse heat into the bowling alley concourse. When the place is open and full, body heat from active patrons adds a couple of degrees and the place stays a cozy 70 degrees all winter from burning fallen trees. In fact, scattered around his property, he said he's got about three years worth of wood.

He said this'll pay for itself in less than four years.

The guy who maintains both is an expert on green energy, but because he genuinely appears interested in finding new ways to power things ... not because of political belief. Back in the 70s, he built an electric car and also windmills to provide power for it -- wind-powered transportation, if you will.

Next up? Segways for the golf course, which the literature claims require about a 10th the electricity as a single-rider golf cart (or one-fifth the electricity of a two-rider golf cart).

Human storage units

Used to be, about a year ago, that I had a conversation with a dude about this place. We thought it would make a much better Waffle House than a party store. I’m sure they move volume in beer through the place, because it’s right down in the middle of the student ghetto, but I can’t imagine how much money the owner of a greasy spoon might make there … he’d probably have to hire dump trucks to haul it out.

I don’t know that selling hard liquor out of the place is such a good idea … because the students who live there are transient residents – most will live there maybe two or three years at the most – they tend to treat the place poorly. A ride through there on most Sundays after a decent evening turns up an incredible amount of garbage and debris littering the yards, the gutters, and the road (broken glass in the road is a fairly common sight, ‘round these parts). This, in turn, encourages future students to assume they’re living in a ghetto, so they treat it accordingly. I don’t know that giving them easier access to liquor is such a hot idea.But, there is a kernel of sense there … like why are we keeping separate the places where we live and where we shop? The party store fulfills a definite purpose there – it provides college students with easy access to cheap beer – but I wonder if the thing could get built today, given how hard nosed we are about keeping things separated.

This is planning, circa 2007, which isn’t really planning but looking at a map and deciding how best to isolate elements of life from each other. This quote in particular stands out:

“The purpose of a residential neighborhood hasn't changed,” he said. “People eat, sleep, study and relax. Extending the hours of operation is in direct conflict with what defines a residential neighborhood.”

Getting away from the fact that this is a party store in a neighborhood populated chiefly by college students, one can see in this statement why neighborhoods in general have declined … we see them as places where people can seek refuge from other people. Livable neighborhoods include places where people can shop, work, and recreate. They aren’t just human storage units.

Water policy

We, as Americans, have been trained to hate the word socialism. It is, to us, an even more baleful denigration than liberal, which itself is these days practically akin to insulting someone’s mother.

One marvels, naturally, at how quickly some will bend and yield to the ideas of socialism once life gets a little difficult. We hear endless horror tales about distributing wealth when it comes to things like money, health care and food; but for reasons that are probably very obvious, these stories really depend on which side of the redistribution you sit. If you’re sitting in parched New Mexico, and are faced with the intractable problem of a population growing too fast and beyond the local water resources … you naturally go looking for someone else’s water to take.

A national water policy, with associated bureaucracy, was first proposed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson last month. The solution to the West, where skepticism of big government and intrusive bureaucrats is practically a religion? Create a bureaucracy to go get them water. How did historian Don Worster describe this in “Dustbowl?” I wish I had a copy of it on me.

Only where growth itself is considered an unqualified good does this make any sense whatsoever. In any other endeavor, we’d look at it and cringe at the complexities of a solution to a very simple problem.

A smarter people would go the more efficient, simpler route and encourage people to move out of the desert. Smart, efficient, and wholly unAmerican. We tell ourselves that we’re not a nation of quitters, and that we love a winner. Who do we adore? The guy who stands bloody and triumphant over his crushed and battered opponent, even when that opponent is our own human habitat.

Development plans go down in flames

I see that instead of a mix of family and student housing we don't need, we'll just get more student housing we don't need. At least that's been the threat we've been issued by the developers. Given the housing market, anyone moving forward on building new homes or apartments, especially in this part of the state with the economy in the shape that it is ought to have his head examined.

But, whatever, this is America. The only questinos we ask are whether there's money to be made. In the end, the success of failure of the thing will be more determined by whether the developer can get rich, and not whether it makes any sense. That includes whether it contributes to the further deterioration of the downtown area or leaves new housing developments in other parts of the county as empty as a poet's pantry.

Fuel efficiency...

Oil prices hit a new record high, and what do we get from our presidential candidates? Demands that the automakers increase their fuel efficiency rates ... this time to 40 mpg. This is, I assume, part of the ongoing auction for the green vote. Right up until Election Day, I assume we'll see greater and more complex schemes to lower our greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time guaranteeing that someone -- probably a donor to the second Clinton presidency -- gets to make a hefty wheelbarrow full of bucks.

The sad truth is that we're headed for permanent high prices, and that will be enough to drive up fuel efficiency rates. Once Detroit gets done glad-handing itself over its new labor contracts, it'll hopefully get to the business of making cars people will want to drive, and planning product lines that people will want to drive in 5 years, when a gallon of gas will be nearly as expensive as a movie ticket. We won't need phony-baloney CAFE increases, because demand for the product will push the automakers in ways more singularly painful than anything Washington could hope to devise.

As for Hillary's plan ... what to say of it? As can be expected, it's very much the product of modern American politics -- a promise that we can continue to get something for nothing. We need less of this, but we'll get more. The auction has opened up, and luckily no one's expecting the high bidder to come up with the dough.