Green Coach

"Once every available cent goes to food, drugs and energy, it will be too late."

by Bruce Schimmel

When Harold Finigan gets talking about the looming energy crisis, he becomes the coach from hell.

"We are a country of bullshitters," Finigan told a conference of greenistas, sponsored by Habit for Humanity at Philadelphia University recently. "We substitute talk for action.

"Every day our disposable income goes down, as our energy costs go up. And once every available cent you have goes to food, drugs and energy, it will be too late."

But in his other career, as an Olympic-class rowing coach, Finigan is also inspiring. "A perfect coach," remarks one of his rowers.

A perfect coach, who does more than cajole. Because Finigan has recently gotten into the energy game himself, having invented a cheap solar heater that's especially suited for typical Philadelphia row homes. (More on this in a minute.)

What's keeping most Americans from taking action, says Finigan, is that we've had it too good for so long. "The problem in this country has been cheap energy."

It's a problem that's about to go away — and sooner than most people imagine. In a recent week, Finigan remarked, the price of crude oil hit new peaks on four out of five days, topping $111 a barrel. By fall, he predicts that a barrel will fetch more than $200.

And, "for the first time ever," he said, "oil companies have reported that their oil reserves are lower than last year."

How this will affect the price we pay is a matter of simple economics, he says. Having less to sell, oil companies must charge more at the pump.

But what's less obvious, and deeply insidious, he says, is how this country's mortgage meltdown is speeding up the collapse of our energy markets. As the Feds lower interest rates, dollars are cheaper to "buy," which helps banks with bad loans stay afloat. But the flip side of cheap money is that dollars have less value on the world market.

Put another way, as the dollar becomes worth less, we have to spend more for imported oil.

Now, according to Finigan, that's not so terrible, at least for now. Because at the moment, major oil producers continue to set the price of oil in dollars. "But," he warned, "when OPEC stops taking dollars and demands Euros for oil, we'll get into trouble from which we'll never recover."

Accelerating energy costs have sped up the countdown on going green. Finigan says we all need to do something now. And so, this coach has taken to the field.

Finigan — along with Ashok Kumar of the University of Delaware — recently invented a solar heater. It's easy to build and simple to install on a typical Philadelphia row home. And it's cheap: less than $650, including labor. The solar heater is basically a big black box of air baffles, built with materials available at any home center. (Plans are available at ecasavesenergy.org/pdfs/SolarAirHeater.pdf.)

Currently the state subsidizes the rising bills of low-income homeowners. Finigan, instead, wants to provide heaters that cost nearly nothing to operate.

What's more, by building these heaters locally, we could also create a valuable new industry. Chicago launched a new green industry when city government started giving away hundreds of homegrown solar-powered water heaters to health clubs, laundromats, affordable housing units and other businesses that use a lot of hot water.

According to Finigan, it's now past time for Philadelphia to get into the game.

"We're in the ninth inning, and we're down 17 to 4. We've got three outs to go, and we need to get our rally caps on."

(bruce@schimmel.com)