Ahh…Montana. You have always captured my imagination and been somewhere I have wanted to visit…big skies, big ranches, big mountains and wide open spaces. Sounded beautiful. And so I have spent the first week of the trip thinking of how lucky I am to be seeing it at last, and to be seeing it from such a unique perspective…over the top of a set of handlebars, and powered (not so quickly) by my own two legs. I can now think of no better way to see this beautiful state as the slower pace of a bike affords extraordinary views of the big sky country Montana is famous for. You also feel more connected to the countryside you ride through without a windshield to sever the connection.
Today we were particularly “connected”. Connected to the wind, the rain, and every last one of those 54 miles. We have also been fortunate enough to connect with come of the wonderful people of rural Montana. We got up this morning at the home of the Wallace’s to be served a complete cooked breakfast by our wonderful hosts. Country hospitality is alive and well. We had class in their living room, under the natural light that their well – designed house affords. Last night we had eaten under the light of compact fluorescent light bulbs which were not only using a quarter of the energy of regular light bulbs, but in this case were powered by the very sun and wind we have been riding through. Our class today focused on the possibilities of renewable energy. The example of the Wallace’s house provided a perfect example of how people living in rural areas have a unique opportunity to harness renewable energy directly, bypassing the grid system.
Ben Peterson, whose ranch we were so hospitably accommodated at that night, also hopes to install a couple of wind turbines to provide energy to their 7,000 acres ranch. Unfortunately, Ben said, their local rural power co-operative won’t allow their continued access to the grid if they install their own turbines. So because of this, at this stage the turbines are simply unfeasible. Power is one of their biggest costs though, so the Peterson’s are keen to investigate these possibilities. The Peterson’s strive to “do as much in – house as (they) can”, so supplying their own power is in keeping with the aims of their ranching operation. Farmers and ranchers are typically “takers” in a market dominated by external factors. Supplying their own power is thus an exciting possibility for those on the land to decrease their reliance on external power whose costs are only going to rise.
Another exciting application of renewable energy technology exists in the third world. 40 million roof top solar water heaters have recently been installed in China, some in villages that previously had no access to electricity. This by – passing of a grid system allows these people to go straight to self – sufficiency and provides opportunities for the rural poor that would be unavailable if they were to wait for a national electricity provider to get to them. In exporting our technologies to a rapidly industrializing developing world, it is critical that we are exporting our solutions, not merely including them in our problems. Renewable, localized energy technologies could provide a large part of this solution.
Today’s 54 mile journey ended up taking the best part of 9.5 hours. Flat tyres, loose panniers and the strange phenomenon that no matter how far we pedaled that afternoon we always seemed to have “20 miles to go” left us exhausted, wet, cold and hungry, however despite all this it was one of the best days riding we have had thus far. The scenery could only be described as epic and as we rolled into the Peterson’s at 9.30pm we were welcomed once again by the amazing hospitality of rural Montana. After Ben fed all 11 of us and pointed us in the direction of the showers, I fell asleep in a bed (yes, BED) pondering my thoughts from the day. Montana is indeed a beautiful state. The big sky and the big hearts of the people make this a truly special place. As the western states of the US are set to be most affected by climate change it struck me just how much this state had to offer, and just how much it was set to lose should the impacts of climate change become apparent due to our lack of action now.
–Felicity Anderson, University of Queensland
