Brattleboro, Vermont is fortunate to have a long history with solar water heating. When I moved to the area in 1980, the company Solar Applications had been installing solar hot water systems for five years, and a spin-off company, Solar Alternatives, was manufacturing quality flat-plate solar collectors--many of which are still in use in the area. While Solar Alternatives closed down in the 1980s with falling energy prices and the end of solar tax credits, Solar Applications, has continued to install and service solar water heating systems for more than thirty years.

No wonder you're having trouble keeping up. From the video Shift Happens:

Should we prosecute this type of illegal public improvement? Or participate in it? (The correct answer is the latter.) In this clip, ringleader Richard Reynolds incites rogue acts of civic delight:

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Following the first energy crisis in 1973 there was a rush to heat homes with the sun. It was a tinkerer's paradise, with all manner of solar heating systems migrating from garage workshops to commercialization. Patent offices were working overtime.

I moved to Brattleboro, Vermont 28 years ago to work for an organization that was all about promoting solar energy--an industry that blossomed out of the energy crisis in the 1970s. When the problem is dependence on an energy source that's non-renewable, that comes from far away and sucks money out of our local economy, that pollutes our air when we burn it, and that contributes to global warming, it makes a lot of sense to look for an alternative that's renewable, available locally, and environmentally safe. Solar energy is just such a solution.