By: Kyle Braun-Shirley

 

Research and development of renewable forms of energy continues to be a globally relevant issue. People all over the world are finding ways to decrease their dependency on fossil fuels and environmentally harmful forms of energy. One such person is Susan Ratzlaff. Ratzlaff has been living in Eugene for 27 years, runs a reading program at an elementary school and is a single mother of an 8-month-old adopted son. Ratzlaff says that renewable energy has always been an interest for her. “I’ve been a part of the wind energy program with EWEB (Eugene Water and Electric Board) and my dad has always been interested in conservation and renewable energy,” said Ratzlaff. Her parents own a 14-hundred acre ranch in Rosburg and all but the residential structures use solar power. “I’ve been a fairly active conservationist, so that was probably something she got from me,” said Susan’s father, Jim Ratzlaff.

 

Ratzlaff had Energy Design, a local electric contracting company, do a solar installation for her, but she wasn’t able to get the installation done until nature intervened by removing a pesky tree in her neighbor’s yard. “In February, 2014, the ice storm came,” said Ratzlaff. “My neighbor had a giant, very old bigleaf maple that was right on the southern side of my house, so I had no exposure for the solar, and the ice storm took care of that tree for me. That was my opening, so I contacted Energy Design and got the project moving. Nature made it happen.” The project wasn’t an inexpensive task for Ratzlaff to complete, but there were tax right offs and the solar installation pays for itself eventually. Despite obstacles like a giant maple tree and the expenses related to the project, Ratzlaff was able to get the solar installation done and increase the green footprint of her home.

 

Ratzlaff is looking forward to Summer when she won’t be dependant on her car for her travel needs. “I consolidate my trips into hopefully one trip a day, so I’m not driving around too much. During the Summer and the nice weather, my son and I are going to bike to a lot of places.” In terms of the future of renewable energy, Ratzlaff isn’t very optimistic “I would like to see wind energy and solar energy be a good basis, but it looks like we’re moving back to coal and pipelines,’ said Ratzlaff. “It’s going to be fun in the future taking my son and possibly my grandchildren for tours of our national pipelines rather than our national parks.” Ratzlaff believes that more people should care about renewable energy. “We’ve only got one planet. We have to sustain it. Raping it for all it has isn’t sustainable.”