The typhoon has gone and the rains have stopped.Of course, this is good for many reasons but for us, one extra reason remains why this is important.Today we begin the final phase of our plan to save money and energy.I’ve mentioned before about various changes we made to our house, including stopping our use of propane gas for heating and cooking, getting a more energy-efficient water heater, and changing our cooking range.Our final phase, for now, involves getting solar panels put on our house.We’ve been interested in having solar panels for some time, but when we built our house we couldn’t afford it.Years later, we re-visited the idea when we met companies looking for new solar panel customers at our local supermarkets when we were shopping.Every time we had a company come to our house however, they would quickly tell us that the pitch of our house was too steep and that it would be impossible to do.My research on the internet seemed to show that their arguments made no sense, but unless we were going to install solar panels by ourselves we’d resigned ourselves to believe that we’d never find a company in Japan to help us in our quest to use solar panels.Stupidly I guess, we kept trying and this led this Spring to a visit from a company that said adding solar panels to our house was not a problem. Unfortunately, our talks with this company broke down when we asked too many questions about pricing and components.Fortunately, the knowledge that adding solar panels was possible led us to the idea of completely revamping our energy usage. A major component of the change was adding solar panels to our house. Yes, it would cost money, but we think that if we are going to depend almost entirely (remember that we use a wood stove in the winter to heat our home) on electricity for our utility needs that the energy should NOT come from nuclear power.I know that creating energy from nuclear sources can be extremely efficient, but it’s the problem of what to do with the various components after they have served their purpose. What do you do with the water that contains radiation? Where do you put the spent nuclear rods after they’ve been used in a nuclear facility? And what about accidents?Japan, in my opinion is not the best place, or better yet, is not a place for nuclear power.Japan is prone to earthquakes. Japan is prone to typhoons. Japan is prone to tsunamis. Japan is highly populated, yet extremely small as a country.For these reasons, I believe nuclear power should not be used in Japan.Because of my beliefs, I think that if I’m going to depend on electricity, I should help with the production of it. Hence, the idea of using solar panels.And so, today, with no rain, and no typhoon (this last one was slow, but fairly big) we could have a company come down and put up scaffolding around our house, in preparation for having the solar panels installed. Should the weather cooperate tomorrow, another company will come down and begin the installation of the solar panels.In the future, I hope that we can add one more component to our energy plan in the form of batteries for storing the solar power. As the battery technology improves, hopefully the price will come down and we can explore this option.For now, we hope for sunny skies and friendly faces. The future looks bright.