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Our world is no stranger to renewable energy, from the power of moving water that turns water wheels to power machinery to early windmills in the Netherlands, to realizing the world's first solar energy system in 1860 in France. That led to generating electricity just 16 years later. We've come a long way!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, you can't drive across our beautiful country without seeing giant, massive wind turbines and solar panels. Appropriately enough, it was a beautiful sunny day when we met Nick on location at the MREA headquarters, a beautiful setting located among the rolling hills of Custer, just five minutes east of Stevens Point.

 

The MREA incorporated in Wisconsin in 1990, and currently has about 20 staff and a growing roster of over 15 instructors. They provide training to over 800 individuals a year, mostly solar professional training: design, installation, operation, maintenance of solar and energy storage systems. That's one leg of their solar nonprofit organization, so when it comes to their mission, it's promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable living through education and demonstration. They try to make training as accessible and affordable as possible.

 

The MREA also uses collective purchasing programs to help municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals, homes, and businesses get the most advantageous solar system for them, one that's financially feasible and technically feasible. It’s a way to aggregate a bunch of people together to buy and decrease the costs. They work with contractors to get a competitive price for everybody involved in building projects, as well as manage a solar grants program for schools in Wisconsin. Currently, they have helped over 35 schools that have gone through the program and solar installations. That program is very popular because it provides long-term energy bill reduction for schools.

 

As an accredited institution, they teach to a third-party certification standard. More recently, the MREA was one of the leading members of a national group to establish a new industry certification for energy storage. As part of that, they have installed an energy storage demonstration facility on site in Custer with all the latest energy storage technology.

 

And we haven’t even mentioned the enormous Energy Fair they have been hosting annually for the past 33 years that features a competitive selection of workshops, demonstrations, exhibit booths and more.

 

Nick’s involvement actually started at the Energy Fair. He says, “So, I actually started as a volunteer at the Energy Fair. I was going to graduate school at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and I heard about this event. So, I came out here, and I volunteered on the garbage crew, and I just emptied trash all weekend. And then I'm the executive director!”

 

Even though it’s currently stationed in Custer, the first Energy Fair was held at the Amherst Fairgrounds. At the time, there was a magazine called Home Power, a DIY tinkerer's magazine about clean energy options. There were articles about micro-hydro, building your own wind turbine and solar, and using lead-acid batteries for energy storage. Subscribers were varied from weed growers in Northern California to remote oil field workers to back-to-the-landers.

 

In Wisconsin after the first Gulf War, there was an editorial in the magazine that called for local education in action about increasing our domestic energy sources, focused on renewable energy. Nick says, “A group of families got together and said, you know what, we're going to host an education event. And lo and behold, they did at the Amherst Fairgrounds, and the first event, 2,000 people came. And we've been doing it every year since.”

 

The Energy Fair focuses on education and demonstration to teach the general public and renewable energy enthusiasts about techniques, new technologies, and new ways of harnessing renewable energy. Official training and certification these days happens mostly online. But there’s a whole series of hands-on courses and continuing education taking place at the MREA’s world-class training facility in central Wisconsin, and they also train with a network of partners all throughout the Midwest.

 

They have mobile labs and a training van, but advanced energy storage hands-on training actually happens at the Custer facility. Depending on the field of renewable energy someone wants to get into, there are different types of training.

 

The entry-level PB Associate Credential is a minimum 32-40 hours of training and a third-party exam. That’s the beginning. The longer certification process involves documented work experience, a significant amount of training, and then a national board exam. And then you need to maintain that examination for a year or two.

 

Since much of the industry is supported by electricians, an electrical apprenticeship is really important since having electricians is important on a renewable energy job site. That apprenticeship and electrical apprenticeship is four years. The industry also has its own designers, salespeople, and other professionals who must be familiar with the processes and technology, so there's a technical sales certification, operation and maintenance certification, inspectors, and more.

 

With all the specialty education and certification, renewable energy is still energy. The people installing and inspecting these systems are still working with something we’re all familiar with: electricity. And this is where Nick switches into education mode, so we’ll try to keep up!

 

Solar panels produce direct current (DC) electricity, like you get from a regular battery or the end of a USB charging cable. The public power grid (and what you get from a wall outlet) is alternating current (AC) electricity. So solar panels need to feed into a power converter to integrate with the grid. Since 99% of all of the solar electric systems are grid integrated, the inverters require a grid signal for the system to operate.

 

Nick uses the room we’re recording the podcast in as an example:

 

“So, that inverter is 60 hertz grid, 120 watt, 120 volt AC electricity. And that is because the way that the system operates is: when the sun shines today, we're using [that] electricity, powering the podcast equipment, powering the lights. When the sun shines on a PV [PhotoVoltaic, or solar] panel, it goes to the inverter. And the first place the electricity goes is whatever electricity you're using.”

 

“So, it's kind of like thinking of [electricity] as water. It's going to the lowest spot first, right here, providing all of our electricity needs. But if it's producing more electricity than we need and we don't have any onsite energy storage, then it's going back to the grid. And to go back to the grid, it has to go through an inverter that matches with the grid's voltage, matches with the grid's hertz and frequency, and so that it can flow back out of the grid.”

 

Basically: Using solar power means that when the sun is out, you’re getting all your electricity right from the solar panels. Any electricity you don’t use – the overflow – gets pushed out into the general power grid.

 

Nick continues, “So, it goes to the utility meter. And that is generally a financial transaction called net metering. So, if we're paying 15 cents a kilowatt hour to the utility [company] to buy electricity and we're overproducing in a moment, then it's basically, ‘turning the meter backwards.’ But at the MREA here, we have all kinds of energy storage. So, depending on the time of day, we can use that energy storage to store electricity. So, if the grid power goes out, then we provide it for ourselves.”

 

When a facility is outfitted with solar panels, sunny days provide immediate power. Overflow depends on what other equipment that facility has: if they have a way to store the extra power, like batteries, that overflow is stored for a rainy day (literally). Without a means of storage, the overflow is sent into the general power grid and the facility is given a credit for the extra power it produces, which can then be used by other people on the grid. Either way you look at it, that’s quite a deal!

 

Of course, supply and demand is a thing. When there’s more demand for power, prices go up. So if your overflow is feeding back into the power grid for a credit, how do you account for the fluctuating prices? Nick says, “More and more, what's happening with energy storage is called ‘arbitrage.’ Early afternoon, going to late afternoon, everybody's office is still open. But [when] people are going home, using more electricity, prices get high.”

 

How high? “It can be double, triple, quadruple, ten times as much. And so, based on your utility tariff, if you have a peak rate, then what you can do is make sure that you're not purchasing any electricity when it's expensive. You're using your energy storage, so you're not purchasing, and then pushing your purchasing off-peak.” Smart! If you have the option to store the energy your solar panels generate, you can basically wait until the price is high based on demand, and then “sell” your overflow for a higher credit.

 

Nick says that method even helps the grid. “Since peak electricity is the most that we're using at any time, it's the highest cost, because the utilities [need to start] building new generation assets to provide that peak. So, if we can avoid the utility building new stuff, we pay all that back through rates. Most utilities are investor-owned, for-profit companies that have a monopoly over their service territory. And the way they make money is through capital expenditures: they build things, and they get paid back plus interest through electricity rates.”

 

If more people use solar power to counter spikes in demand, energy demands on the power grid will level off and power companies don’t have to build additional capacity additions just to handle a few peaks throughout the day. The less they spend on that, the lower everybody’s rates will stay. This is electrical teamwork: the more people you have working on a task, the easier that task is for everyone involved. And Nick says this is working all across the country, with energy storage as the key to regulating when the power is sent out into the general grid via the inverter.

 

For the most part, a solar-powered system operates at a 60-hertz, 120 volts, which is standard household power. Have you ever overloaded your home’s electrical system and tripped a circuit-breaker? You have to visit the breaker box and flip the breaker back to restore the connection and get your lights back on. In the olden days, you needed to replace a fuse.

 

For solar power, you have a circuit breaker dedicated to your solar electric system feed. When the solar energy system is producing electricity, it's just feeding your breaker panel through that circuit breaker. You're just reducing your need to purchase electricity from the utility company – and sometimes eliminating that need altogether. The MREA’s headquarters seeks to demonstrate all of this practically.

 

Rob mentions that when he passes by the MREA in the evening, he sees bright lights in front and asks Nick what’s up with those.

 

Nick says, “So, we were the first electric vehicle fast charger installed in the state of Wisconsin. In my mind, there are two types of nonprofit organizations. There are nonprofit organizations that fix problems that the for-profit system makes, right? Anti-poverty groups, you can think about environmental remediation. And then, there are other groups that are trying to help businesses do things today that aren't profitable but should be. And we've always been that latter type.”

 

He says that’s why the MREA focuses on education and demonstration. “So, for example, when the first energy fair happened, there was a vendor there, and they were selling solar systems for $80 a watt. Today, solar electric systems, home or business, are $2.50 a watt.” Because of increased awareness, continued training and certification, and constant refining of the technology involved, solar systems have dropped in price to the point where they’re becoming affordable to more and more people and businesses. And the MREA wants to keep ahead of the exciting new developments in renewable energy – so they installed the electric vehicle fast charger.

 

They saw the benefit of electric vehicles and electrification. Right now, traditional energy is relatively cheap because the infrastructure has existed for generations. But there are other costs involved that aren’t apparent. Nick mentions that a producer in Wisconsin doesn't have any in-state sources of fossil fuels, so they import all of that at a cost. But we have plenty of in-state wind, water, and sunshine – all self-sustainable resources that don’t need to be shipped in.

 

Nick says they are hardly a gas station, but anybody at any time can pull up to that fast charger and charge their vehicle. As part of that installation, they installed a solar canopy that is tied to the grid. Over the year, the canopy produces about as much energy as people use to charge their vehicles. Not too shabby!

 

So the bright lights Rob sees as he passes the MREA headquarters? Nick says, “We put lighting so that if somebody shows up at two in the morning, they're not pulling up in the dark and using the fast charger. Now, interestingly, and I'm sure we'll talk a little more about this, through the bipartisan infrastructure law, there is this national electric vehicle funding that's formula funding for all the states. In Wisconsin, that is about $76 million of funding that comes with requirements to standardize electric vehicle charging across the state. And so, some of this will change.”

 

These standardizations will undoubtedly be a topic of conversation during this month’s Energy Fair. The annual Energy Fair is usually split up into two groups: industry professionals, and the general public. The industry professionals are there to get continuing education training and do professional networking. As the renewable energy industry has grown significantly over the last few years, there's been more and more pros in attendance. The general public is there to see what’s on the cutting edge of energy technology and maybe learn some new tricks.

 

There’s an electric vehicle show that has hundreds of vehicles, an energy storage tour, and a solar company on premises to answer questions. This year, they made the split official: now each group can attend the day of their choice (or both, of course).

 

Friday is open to anybody who's interested, but mostly it's focused on industry professional development and demonstration. They’ll have all the latest and greatest in solar and energy storage, from large-scale to small-scale, and that's going to be all a bunch of professional development and industry topics.

 

Then on Saturday, it's going to be the typical fair with Lots of exhibits, workshops, family-friendly activities, bands, food, beer (this is Wisconsin, after all) the EV car show, and more. It's always free to members or a member association. They have over 2,000 members all across the Midwest. General admission is $25, and you can order tickets on their event website.

 

So, what sort of cool things are there to see at the Energy Fair? Nick says Northeast Wisconsin Technical College brings their microgrid trailer for a whole microgrid tour. Tiny houses has also been a big draw in recent years, so they have tiny house demonstrations. Food has been a big topic, so there’s always food tasting, gardening, and indoor greenhouse growing workshops.

 

This year, there’s been buzz around two federal programs for infrastructure and inflation. Nick breaks it down like this: “The way I think about the two is the bipartisan infrastructure law is like big stuff, big infrastructure. The Inflation Reduction Act is more home and business energy efficiency. And so, there is $150 million of incentives coming into the state that's right now working its way through the Public Service Commission targeted to residential households. This is on top of tax credits too, [for] home insulation, new windows and doors, furnace upgrades, cold climate heat pumps, electrical service upgrades, electric vehicle supply infrastructure. And so, it's kind of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help subsidize energy efficiency and reduce electricity bills across houses in Wisconsin.”

 

So they’re planning to host workshops detailing how these programs work, how to access them, exactly what they’re for, and more. This is important information, and one of the Inflation Reduction Act’s specific programs is designed specifically for homeowners at the area median income or below. The idea is that it will much fund 100% of your energy retrofits up to $14,000. So, you could get insulation, windows, air sealing, air source, cold climate heat pump. All of that would be 100% covered, and targeted specifically for the people who need it most.

 

That’s one of the big reasons the MREA hosts the Energy Fair: to make all this information accessible to everyone who needs it. Nick says that no matter why you’re interested in sustainable energy solutions – whether you want to be more self-sufficient, or you plan to live off the grid entirely, the same technology applies. And for different people, different sources of energy might fit better.

 

For example, there seems to be an assumption that while solar panels are accessible to the average member of the public, installing a massive wind turbine is not. Sure, there are some compelling positives about solar power: it’s modular, scalable, and with no moving parts, it’s relatively maintenance-free. It’s also been more widely adopted by commercial utilities. That leaves small scale wind power in its dust. The MREA does just as much wind training as solar, but mostly regarding large-scale wind instead of smaller home- and farm-sized wind.

 

When it comes to large-scale wind development, the Midwest is a hotspot. But Wisconsin, specifically, isn't. While Iowa gets over 57% of its electricity from wind as of 2022, Wisconsin is currently building more wind facilities in the Montford area, and it’s the first new development in Wisconsin in almost 20 years.

 

One of the challenges between Wisconsin and Iowa is that Wisconsin has this mosaic farm landscape. We don't have large farm fields like you see in Iowa and Illinois. Siting becomes much harder than it is in Iowa. We also haven't had a centralized drive for wind deployment like Iowa has, which also means that we've missed out on that economic development opportunity.

 

However, we’re not completely missing out. Remember how different people focus on different energy solutions? Wisconsin’s focus is on solar energy. Nick says we're getting some large-scale solar facilities coming in here, with Portage Solar starting construction of a new 2,500 acre, 450-megawatt facility south of Wisconsin Rapids, with a second one proposed nearby. If it’s greenlit, the second facility would cover almost 8,000 acres and produce 1.3 gigawatts (1,300 megawatts) of power. That’s enough to cover about 250,000 homes!

 

One of the hidden benefits of building such a massive facility is that in state law, any energy facility that's over 50 megawatts in size contributes energy tax revenue to the local jurisdiction in local county where it's based. There’s a whole formula used to calculate the taxes, but what is the real-world benefit? “I did the math,” Nick says.

 

“If this second facility gets approved,” he continues, “you have ported solar and then you have this Vista solar, so together they're over 1.7 gigawatts of solar [power]. That is going to represent a 10% budget increase for the county from just two facilities. And that is just general operating revenue [that] can be used for police, fire, roads, whatever is needed – [just] from these two farms. So the town of Grant and the town of Clover are also getting a large portion of revenue. It's a process called a joint development agreement where the local jurisdictions kind of negotiate with the developer before it goes to the Public Service Commission.”

 

Environmentally, there are some side benefits as well. One common benefit is just pollinator habitat under the facility. There's no spraying or mowing, so local plants thrive, which means local wildlife and bees get a kind of sanctuary there. Because pesticides aren’t used and livestock doesn’t graze there, water quality benefits from less runoff. The public comment period is starting for these projects, and there will be some heated discussion about habitat, losing possible farmland to the solar facility, and more.

 

However, wind and solar are approached at a commercial level the same way natural gas and other traditional energy sources are. Developers use the same companies to negotiate landowner agreements and property rights that do so for the fracking industry. That means local farmers can get, say, a 40-year land lease with high costs per acre. Not only is it a greater return than they’d get for corn or soy, but it’s not variable. Not a bad deal!

 

And since everything is handled at a local level, local utilities, planning and zoning, and other organizations will be involved. This means local jobs, and a strong voice for the people who live there. Projects can be directed in ways that better serve the local community, and those involved can be educated to more directly and effectively negotiate with the developer to get greater benefit out of these joint development agreements. This includes support for local schools and scholarships, a pollinator-friendly habitat, aesthetic screening, and anything that the jurisdiction is concerned about.

 

Of course, Nick says the MREA doesn’t deal with the big installations with all their political aspects, instead focusing their efforts on what he calls “the meter connected stuff”: homes, businesses, municipalities, universities, schools, and hospitals.

 

It’s like the energy equivalent of thinking globally and acting locally. To create a domestic energy economy, we need it all, the large facilities and the small, home-based solutions. Nick feels the most valuable electricity generation is at the point of use, because you're directly displacing an individual’s energy use and avoiding all of the transmission losses and other commercial concerns. You're just producing energy where you use it, and that's money you're not spending.

 

Of course, the Energy Fair will also have some educational opportunities regarding the larger commercial facilities so people have a better grasp on what to watch out for, what the local benefits can be, how much revenue they’ll bring into the county, and how helpful it can be for normal county operations. It also helps when people understand how these facilities actually work so they can adjust expectations or bust myths about what are still relatively unconventional sources of energy. The more we know, the better equipped we are to come to planning and zoning meetings with a good grasp on what’s being discussed and how we can make sure it benefits our community.

 

New developments in infrastructure are always exciting, and even if you’re not directly involved in renewable energy like the MREA is, you’ve no doubt seen more EV charging stations in parking lots. While it might not affect a lot of people now, these small changes signal a shift in how we approach energy use as a nation. Nick says that while he does own a Chevy Bolt, he’s not an early adopter. Like most of us, he plans to wait for the cost to come down a little before diving into electric vehicles. He is, however, very interested in the policies and impacts surrounding this change, as well as consumer expectations and sentiment.

 

He mentions the last big sociopolitical shift we had in the 1930s, when we were just coming out of the great depression, and the New Deal was put into effect. This included rural electrification. During that time, we built infrastructure in this country faster than it's ever been built before. This created a regulated industry for electrical infrastructure, with the lure of a good return on investment for the businesses involved.

 

“It has a pretty simple economic development premise,” Nick says. “If you put [your money] in this investor-owned utility, we're going to protect your rate of return at upwards of 10 to 15%. So every dollar you put in there, you're going to get $1.15 back. If you want to attract investment, then you guarantee rates of return. That's how we've operated our utility infrastructure.”

 

That system has allowed power utilities to meet demand even in rural areas where they might not turn a profit. It has continued to spur growth in the energy sector, but at the same time, we’ve become more efficient with our energy demands. This means that current facilities can meet demands with little new development…until now.

 

Nick says, “In general, we don't have a challenge in this country with how to build new electrical infrastructure. So let me just say feasibly, we can build it tomorrow because the money is there to do it. The capacity is there to do it. The knowledge is there to do it. Everything's there to do it. The question becomes, can we do it affordably? If you had a choice of having someone do it that is going to get a 10 to 15% rate of return on every dollar they put in, they're going to want to do it all day.”

 

So how long before everyone is driving an electric vehicle? Nick is pretty sure that reality is at least 12 years away, and probably much longer.

 

“We're just not there,” he says. “One of the major limitations in electrification is battery materials. So as far as the infrastructure to switch to electric charging, I think we can build that without a problem on the utility side. I think the actual materials to build an electric vehicle requires about five times more critical minerals than a conventional vehicle. And those critical minerals don't just appear overnight. If we were going to transition the fleet in five years, that would be the fastest industrial build-out in world history.”

 

So even if we fast-track the development of infrastructure that supports electric vehicles, the vehicles themselves won’t replace traditional gas or hybrid vehicles any time soon. And because of the low adoption rates, prices won’t go down quickly. It’s a chicken and egg situation.

 

Nick elaborates: “So you have the F-150 Lightning, and you have the whole new series like the Cadillac and the truck from Chevy, but they're also expensive. And I think there's just a consumer resistance to spending a premium when they're still not quite [mature]. Like ‘how do I charge it, and where? I can't just go to the gas station.’ It's still something of the unknown. So I think we're in this early adopter plateau, where it's really up to the auto companies to figure out how [to] work with the American auto consumer to recognize the level-up that an electric vehicle is?”

 

The level-up here is, of course, using EVs together with renewable energy. Nick plugs in his Chevy Bolt at home to charge it during off-peak hours to take advantage of the lower rates. He says it charges for about 6 cents a kilowatt hour at night and is fully charged every morning. It’s that easy. And the ease of use extends to general car maintenance as well. Nick says, “When we bought the car, the guy's like, ‘Okay, well, let me show you around the car.’ And you open the hood and he's like, ‘Well, yeah, you change the wiper fluid.’ That's all you do. There's nothing else you do to this car. You know, it doesn't get oil changes.”

 

The challenge is, of course, charging when you’re away from home. That’s where Tesla has a head start, as they invested first in their charging infrastructure – it’s very easy to find a Tesla charger when travelling. The charging solution for everyone else is currently being addressed by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund, which subsidizes a nationwide charging network that has uniform and open platform pay requirements, uptime requirements, and maintenance requirements for all new facilities. That will help ensure that EV owners can find chargers easily on longer trips.

 

Of course, another concern is: What happens with these batteries? The Ford Mustang battery is $25,000. What’s its shelf life? How do you safely dispose of it?

 

Nick says that the high cost of the battery materials (nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium) means that from a practical standpoint they will not end up in a landfill. The materials will be recycled, and that recycling process is important to actually making batteries profitable. There is an industry interest in recapturing that value. For example, Nick says, “Go to Riverfront Rendezvous Sunday morning. There's garbage there. But I'll tell you what isn't there: aluminum cans. Cause somebody has gone through and collected all those cans and got all their recycling money for them.”

 

Leading that recycling effort is none other than the man behind Tesla – not Elon Musk, he’s the wallet. The man who actually invented the technology is a Wisconsinite! J.B. Straubel grew up in Egg Harbor and started rewiring golf carts and batteries. He got his engineering degree at Stanford and pitched the idea of an electric airplane to Elon Musk. Musk was more interested in cars, so they went in that direction, with Straubel as the chief technology officer, managing the first three Tesla models before he left to found Redwood Materials.

 

Redwood is the largest national battery recycling company, and Straubel started it specifically because he saw the need for establishing a viable recycling solution for EV batteries. Nick says he even spoke at the Energy Fair one year. 😊

 

So environmentally, things are taken care of. But what’s the experience on the consumer side? What happens if something goes wrong with the battery? The average consumer isn’t going to know where to take it. Nick answers that from his own experience with his Bolt: “They had a manufacturing flaw from the LG Chem facility in a lot of their batteries. [General Motors]’s battery has a 100,000-mile warranty. So when we bought our Bolt, it had 16,000 miles on it. It was coming off a three-year lease from somewhere in California. We bought in Minnesota, and they replaced that battery for free after we had put another 10,000 miles on and gave it another 100,000-mile warranty. Because they want to convince consumers that they have their best interests in mind. They didn't want [a customer’s] first electric vehicle to be like a black eye. So it was great to us. I was like, okay, I'll buy another Chevy. You've convinced me, you know. You've taken care of us.”

 

But the other side of that is still a concern. “I think it really is an interesting question for a car owner to be like, am I prepared now to buy this car and 100,000 miles from now, if I have a battery problem, understand that that's going to cost me $25,000 to fully replace that battery? That's today's cost. I think that’ll come down as time goes on. That's the hope and expectation. And that's, in some ways, why it's like an early adopter market.”

 

Interestingly, the Chinese company BYD has a different take on charging infrastructure and battery replacement: battery as a service. Nick says that while here you would have to find a charging station on the road, with the latest BYD electric car, you don’t own the battery and there won’t be a charging station. Instead, you pull into the service station, and they replace your battery with a fully charged battery in less than a minute. That completely removes any concern about the most expensive part of the car. It doesn’t matter if it’s flawed or discharged. Just swap it out and hit the road!

 

So there are definitely more than one way to address battery questions, and with time, a standard will emerge. One concern for Wisconsinites might be a little harder to address: cold weather performance. How do EVs fare in a harsh Wisconsin winter? In colder weather, your range of travel will take a little hit. That’s not bad if you just need to go into town, but longer trips in the middle of winter aren’t viable. Yet.

 

With each generation of battery and each new iteration of electric vehicles, they keep getting better. Soon they’ll get close to traditional combustion engines with a combination of increased range, more efficient charging, and more accessible public charging stations across the nation. The environmental impact will improve as well.

 

People assume since electric vehicles are “cleaner” that they’re the obvious choice for an environmentally conscious driver. Nick says yes, but also no. Electric vehicles are better over time, but they have a higher “embodied” energy cost, meaning they are not as environmentally friendly to produce. They’re heavier, full of critical materials, and they currently take more energy to produce than a normal vehicle. However, they are cleaner to drive, so over time they make up for that gap.

 

It was fascinating talking to Nick about renewable energy, electric cars, and all the other topics we covered – there wasn’t enough space in this blog to write about them, but you can listen to our discussion on Spotify (or embedded at the beginning of this very blog!). We’re excited to see what’s in store for the future of electric vehicles and are currently trying to figure out when our service centers will include battery recycling – or swapping! – services on top of our tradition of great auto service.

 

Road Trip: Taliesin

 

Located near Spring Green in Wisconsin’s Driftless area, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 37,000 square foot home on an 800-acre estate is a National Historic Landmark and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We mentioned this road trip and Bryan perked up – turns out he’s a massive Frank Lloyd Wright fan!

 

Frank Lloyd Wright was ahead-of-his-time, blazing new design trails as an architect. His structures are unique, even by today’s standards. Taliesin had a huge design studio in it, and they used to have a design architect school right there to teach everybody about Wright’s way of designing.

 

You might have heard the term “form over function,” meaning something is pretty but not very useful. Wright’s philosophy was form AND function. You can have both, and his designs were groundbreaking.

 

Taliesin, Welsch for “Shining Brow,” refers to the building’s position on a hill – not at the top of the hill, but specifically designed to be part of the landscape. It was built in 1957…technically. It was a massive project that took several years to complete.

 

Taliesin is one of 43 Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Wisconsin, and his designs exist all across the nation, with some of the higher-profile homes in Arizona and Pennsylvania, where you can find the famous Fallingwater home.

 

Closer to home – very close to Schierl Tire & Auto Service’s hometown, is the Iber House in Plover, WI. Like most of Wright’s designs, it’s also on the National and State Register of Historic Places. Another Wisconsin home designed by Wright is the Kinney House in Lancaster. While it’s privately owned, the Kinney House is available as a vacation rental via PlansMatter.com and AirBnB. The center of the building is a hexagon, with wings coming off the center for bedrooms and other family rooms. Most of his designs included harmonious combination of stone and wood.

 

Taliesin, while not available as a vacation rental, is accessible by tours, some of which can run as long as two hours if you’re a massive fan like Bryan. There is a lot to see – Bryan and Rob point out that 37,000 square feet is almost 30 normal houses put together. If you lived there with one other person, the two of you might never even meet.

 

Bryan, ever the optimist, wants to record the next All About the Car podcast at Taliesin. And honestly, we’re tempted to see if he can make that work!