The one take-away from last week's extended power failure following the massive storm that rolled through central Phoenix is this: if we ever buy this house (or any house, for that matter) Ben and I will be installing solar panels with a battery backup.
For the life of me, I still cannot understand why every roof in the southwest United States—and especially in Phoenix—is not covered with them.
Oh yeah…it's because the oil and gas industry is not going to relinquish control of energy production on that scale until the last drop of fossil fuel is sucked from the ground; and even then I'm sure they're going to find some way to impede the wide scale implementation of solar wherever they can.
Y'know, kind of like the way the rest of the civilized world has cheap, blazingly-fast internet and most the rural United States is still stuck with DSL and dialup.
'Murica! Exceptionalism!
Indeed.