Updates to:

Raven Rocks: The Place and the Idea
. . . ten . . .

We bought Raven Rocks in 1970, so today, in 2001, we have spent more than 30 years happily at work here.

Warren Stetzel will be happy to send you a copy of School for the Young. Since the time of its original publication, Warren has made SFTY available on a contribution basis. We have posted a few brief quotes from the book to give a flavor.You may e-mail your request to Warren.

For ten years or so, we have planting a reduced number of trees each spring. Don Hartley estimates we now have 25,000 to 30,000 trees growing. We recently reached the decision that, due to changing circumstances-- chief among them the aging of our group--the trees we planted in the spring of 2000 will be our last. Even so, the present plantings will last nine more years.

Raven Rocks, Inc. now owns 1,052 acres.

In the 20 years since this short essay was written there have been a number of major changes here. Tim Starbuck, our chiropractor, draftsman, builder, mechanic, partner left an unfillable hole when he died suddenly in 1995 from a brain infection. In July of 1999, Rich and Mary Sidwell left Raven Rocks Concrete (RRC) so Rich could become Business Manager at a revitalized Olney Friends School in Barnesville. Mary works in Olney's admissions office. In the spring of 2000, after 26 years of operation, Raven Rocks Concrete, Inc., was sold to Hudson Hardware and Concrete here in Beallsville. Wanda Rockwell, who had been in charge of the front office at Olney, left that post and worked for 14 years as a legal secretary. She has now resumed her post (and then some!) at the "new Olney." Her husband, John, in 1987 left his post as Watt Car and Wheel's chief engineer to start his own home-based engineering/design business. In 1986 Herb Smith also left Watt, bought a tractor/trailer and, in 1987, took on the task of hauling the cement powder for RRC. Herb continues to provide this service for Hudsons. John Morgan now operates Raven Rocks Press which was started in 1983. The folks who once lived at Celo, NC, are no longer members, though they remain very supportive of Raven Rocks.

The alternative energy dreams and plans that we have nurtured more than twenty years have come true in almost unbelievable form and degree. Within the near future, two modern wind machines will be installed here, each a prototype that will test a different approach to harvesting the energy available in winds over the full range from poor, as ours are, to high quality. Each of these innovative designs is expected to bring significant improvements in cost, maintenance and productivity. Because the sun often shines when the wind isn't blowing, photovoltaic panels (PV) that convert sunlight into electricity can complement the wind machines. We are presently near completion of the first of four large solar arrays, each utilizing 26 panels to achieve an array size of 13 x 16 feet. In order to improve their productivity, by 40% in fact, the arrays will be equipped with state-of-the-art trackers that will keep them facing the sun from the time it rises to 15 degrees altitude in the morning till it falls below that level in the evening. Most exciting, perhaps because it has for so long eluded the grasp of persons who recognized its remarkable qualities, we are already deeply engaged in work that will equip us with the capacity to produce and to utilize hydrogen. We have made ourselves available—our site, our alternative energy systems, and ourselves—as a working lab to Proton Energy Systems for their development of hydrogen technologies as a means to store the excess electricity from the wind and PV. We are owners—proud owners—of a Hogen 30 electrolyzer, made by Proton, which splits the water molecule, using electricity, into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen, stored in high pressure tanks, will be available at those times when insufficient electricity is available from the PV or wind turbines. It appears now that we are only a hop, skip and a jump away from use of this energy to move our cars. For whatever application, a fuel cell, using a chemical process, will recombine the stored hydrogen with oxygen from the air, creating electricity again! And the byproduct of this electrochemical magic? Water. Only water!

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