Solar Power, going green dilemma

I always wanted a set of nice and shiny solar power panels on top of my roof, I think as far as going green goes, this it the ultimate thing, means you are serious and committed to cutting pollution. I wanted to do something that will really make a difference, but...is going green in this case really going green? Sadly...no...

While shopping in Selden Home Depot, my son Ben picked up a flyer with information on upcoming solar power seminar, which I decided to attend. Of course going anywhere means taking my two boys with me, which is extremely distracting, but I figured, I will manage it somehow, even if I have to cut the seminar short.

I was expecting a crowd when I got to the store, but turned out to be the only person who showed up. The man from GP Solar Power, explained how the system works, mentioned all requirements and figured out, which system would work best for the size of our house. The regular price of the system came up to whopping $60,000, which made me say "Wow!", but after all the discounts from LIPA, The Home Depot, state and federal government, total cost of the system would be only about $8,000. I figured it's worth considering, even though it's still a big number, but as it turned out, we would have to make some drastic changes to our property in order to go ahead with this project, which are absolutely out of the question. Each individual panel is linked to the system in such way, that if any of them happens to be shaded, the whole system is not working and isn't producing power. We would have to chop down at least four of our beautiful large oak trees growing on the edge of our property before installing solar panel system.

I love my oaks, and can't even imagine making this decision. In our case, if I have to choose between clean solar energy and oak trees, I choose oak trees!!