Dave Brown sits in the solarium of his Fulton Township home. The room incorporates a passive solar system that keeps it between 55 and 75 degrees all year. Brown went ‘green’ in his home in 2001 and will speak at a seminar, telling people about renewable-energy techniques and systems. photo by Dan Lassiter dlassiter@gazettextra.com

Dave Brown understands renewable-energy technologies. He is passionate about their future. And he explains them well.
    Now the green apostle is eager to spread the good word.
    On the same day President-elect Barack Obama is expected to announce ambitious plans for a new energy economy, Dave will give his own pep talk on building green.
    The Fulton Township man and his wife, Kathie, constructed a 2,000-square-foot house, which is almost energy independent.
    Dave has learned so much since building the home in 2001 that he will share his know-how in a free Janesville seminar Tuesday, Jan. 20.
    His talk focuses on renewable energy systems at work in southern Wisconsin. He will spotlight active and passive solar systems, windmills, geothermal heat pumps, burning biomass for heat and planting prairies and rain gardens.
    “We are entering into a debate,” Dave says, full of excitement because people are finally talking seriously about green energy. “It used to be just the hippie tree-huggers who were interested. Now, it is cool to be green.”
    Dave is retired from the UW-Madison School of Business in instructional technology. He believes so much in renewable energy that he has taught a course for retirees at Beloit College and offers free seminars to interested groups. The Browns also have opened their home to visitors.
    “If I can be a good teacher about one of the most important things we are facing— The Green Revolution—then I am happy to do it,” Dave explains.
    His house has:
    18 solar panels on the roof with the capacity to produce 3.15 kilowatts.
    16 deep-cycle batteries to store electricity.
    A geothermal heating and cooling system.
    An outdoor furnace that burns wood and prairie-grass pellets.
    A solarium that stays between 55 and 75 degrees all year with the sun as its only heat source.
    “This house is one big experiment,” Kathie says. “People are beginning to know about Dave. He gets calls and Internet contacts from many with questions.”
    She smiles when she says her husband, a self-described geek, goes off to the “Oz Room” daily. Kathie refers to a small space, where a computer monitors the home’s electrical system. At any time, Dave can check how much energy the home’s solar panels are producing.
    Dave has definite ideas about how communities can reduce greenhouse gases. One surefire method would be to install only white roofs. White roofs throw solar energy back into space instead of absorbing sunlight and releasing a kind of radiation that gets trapped by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
    Dave is hoping that President-elect Obama will approach a new energy economy with the same commitment of President John F. Kennedy, when he announced the United States would put a man on the moon.
    Like Obama, Dave believes sustainable-energy technologies will be critical to an economic turnaround in the housing and small business markets.
    He is happy to be a green pioneer, blazing the way for others.
    “We are walking the walk,” he says.
    “We’re using these technologies and finding that some work better than others.”