I hate to kick a man while he's down.But Tiger Woods has made me really mad.
Not his accident/affairs--his roof.
One thing we know about Tiger (from all the photos of his house) is that he's got a lot of roof. Enough for a couple of big-box stores, with an elementary school or two thrown in.
And what isn't on those acres and acres of roof? A single solar panel, that's what.
Woods lives near Orlando, in the Sunshine State. Orlando's tourist site advertises that it gets 300 days of sunshine a year. All that sunlight could be turning Tiger's roof into a clean, silent, efficient power plant.
Compare this to a home by David Wilson, an architect who lives in Stinson Beach, near San Francisco. Wilson's house is only 1,400 square feet -- he has, at most, one-tenth as much roof as Tiger Woods. Plus, Stinson gets a lot of fog.
But Wilson installed about 400 feet of solar panels on his roof. (They're also known as PV, or photovoltaic, panels.)
Those panels provide enough electricity to run Wilson's entire house. "We're zeroed out," Wilson told me. Some days, he even sells electricity back to the power company.
The panels cost Wilson about $40,000, which is a lot of money. He figures it will take him 10 to 15 years to make back the cost of the panels.
Those up-front costs are a problem for some people -- but not for Tiger Woods (who has reportedly spent up to $100 million on real estate in the last few years).
Right now, there are no laws requiring solar panels. But when you've got that much roof, and not a single PV panel, it's a crying shame.
Frankly, I wish he'd hold a press conference about solar power.
What happened in his house is his business; what happens ON his house is everybody's business.
