No. After an investment of two years toward research and development of a solar-powered Landscape Lighting Column, we finally arrived at a unit that could provide solid and acceptable illumination even during the length of a New England winter. But, alas, we ran into a roadblock with securing the preferred solar panels from the Argentinian manufacturer. Their inventory was being gobbled up by the German Government. So we gave up and moved ahead with this product, offered as a hard-wired unit requiring low-voltage wiring for an LED fixture rated at 70,000 hours. Had it been the States gobbling up the Argentinians inventory, we would have felt much better. But America appears no more capable of conservation and alternative-minded options than a barnyard cow could be expected to recite poetry. It seems we’re heading backward from our last responsible energy policy way back in the Carter Administration (In the first week of Reagan’s administration, Carter’s solar panels on the White House were summarily removed). Doesn’t it ever occur to you how obscene it is that the notion of poles and wires outside your home have not changed, have not been improved or advanced since Edison wired J.P. Morgan’s home in NYC? By golly it’s time for a change in the national sentiment, away from an oil-based imported energy consumption, away from the minimum nutrition of fast food outlets, from the fertilizers and steroid-fed livestock and GMO vegetables and while we’re at it, from the chain box stores that have homogenized our choices and robbed us of the once healthy, thriving downtowns? It’s scary how this dilemma is not even recognized by so many Americans as a dilemma at all. Why, in Kentucky they are proud of their fast food options and their Wall Marts, while turning a blind eye to the rampant decimation of their once thriving little villages, boarded up for twenty years now.
This was illustrated in the summer of 2005 during a road trip through Kentucky that had Charles experiencing six county seats that had not one sit-down eatery. Not a breakfast diner, nor a restaurant with waited staff. When asked, Charles was proudly directed up to their Commerce Blvd., littered with an endless string of fast food outlets. “Pretty much anything you want, we got down there on Commerce Boulevard” But back to solar: It is not uncommon that a site will utilize existing solar panels to power their lighted columns instead of a low-voltage source drawn from their local utility provider. As technology advances, we will revisit the potential for solar power. But as of 2016, the columns, as with most city street lights, are equipped with hard-wired LED fixtures as a low energy option with excellent illumination.
Standard Disclaimer: The above rambling rant is an opinionated offering by Adlai Means and does not necessarily represent the views of the incorporated entity of Prowell Woodworks.