Article by Mason Adams
In a community where renewables have provoked backlash, expo offered a showcase for clean energy entrepreneurs, advocates.
Renewable energy is still a controversial topic in Floyd County, Virginia, but solar-baked chocolate chip cookies? Not so much.
Children huddled around Alex Haney, a project manager for Affordable Energy Concepts, as he slid a spatula into a black box ringed with reflective panels and scooped out a perfectly baked chocolate-chip cookie.
“The light from the sun heats up this black box, and the heat cannot get back through the glass cover, so it just heats up like your car does with the windows rolled up,” Haney said. “Some people ask, how long does it take that to charge? There’s no electricity in that.”