If there's something on your mind regarding issues that affect our community that you would like to discuss, here's the place to do it. Maybe you've heard something about water quality, road construction or anything you think may be of interest to others, please feel free to post your thoughts.

If you've seen a bear nearby or know someone who has, please share that information here. There were a couple of sightings this summer and several reports of bear problems in Genoa in September.

This is in response to questions some of the members have concerning ways to reduce their electric bill. Anyone wishing to learn more about installing solar photovoltaics, wind power or thermal solar (hot water - best bang for your buck) to help offset their utility bill is welcome to contact me directly for a free site survey to find out if it would make sense. You can start by organizing your electric bills first. It's good to have a years worth of data available to determine optimal system size. Any size system will reduce your bill however costs for installation are less when amortized for a large vs. small system. Right now there is a 30% Federal Tax Credit available as well as rebates from NV energy that can take a large chunk out of the costs. The time it takes to completely pay for a system varies and depends a lot on the future costs of energy.

Look around your property and see where a solar array or thermal panels can go. Look for somewhere with an excellent southern exposure that gets minimal shading for the whole year. The angle of the Sun changes quite a bit over the year so what may look like a good spot now may get shaded out in the summer. Also, how far is it to your electric meter? The closer the better. Ground mounted systems work well and are easier to clear off snow or remove dust than roof mounts but roof mounts in general offer a better exposure if land is limited.

Lastly, if you've gotten an electric bill lately you probably received a little piece of paper that states where the sources of the energy we receive comes from. Coal is by far the leader and supplies almost 4 million mega watt hours annually (that's 4 million million watts) of power and, on page 2, states that every mega watt hour puts 1,356 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere per MW hour or 2,634,258 TONS per year! You may have heard there's this little issue called global warming that's happening and the main culprit is CO2. I can honestly say from experience you can get a little satisfaction knowing you're part of the solution and not the problem.

Welcome to the Official AVEPOA blog. Here you can easily share your thoughts, comments and ideas on matters important to all of us, or just plain fun.