Drink rainwater to boost solar power

AUSTIN (KXAN) - David Schraub got sick and tired of people dissing his ideas.

"I used to go to solar meetings all around and everybody says, 'It can't be done.' Well, I don't like to hear it can't be done," he said.

Schraub spent 23 years as a semi-conductor engineer for companies like AMD, Sony, Motorola and Freescale. Along the way, he got himself a small ranch in Bastrop County, just like several of his engineer friends had done. They all used to gripe among themselves about how hard it was to keep from losing money on the ranching operations.

Schraub got an idea. Why not put solar energy panels on several acres of his ranch. He could produce energy for his own needs and sell the rest to the LCRA for distribution to area power customers.

Then he got an even better idea. Why not catch rainwater falling off those panels. He could use the water on his land and bottle the rest to sell to the public. It didn't take long, however, to realize all that was an expensive proposition. So, he and his buddies decided to build what they think is the world's largest fixed rainwater collection facility at an existing industrial complex near Smithville.

Last fall, they formed Texas Rainwater and started capturing, filtering, bottling and selling rain. The idea is to build a demand for the product, sell it far and wide, and use the money to help cut the cost of installing solar systems. A separate company Schraub owns, Natural Renewable Energy, would do the installations.

The ideas kept coming. Texas Rainwater offers rebates to it's retail customers. They can use that money to help pay for solar projects on their own buildings.

"They can also donate it to schools; they can donate it to a non-profit," Schraub said. "They can do whatever they want. It's their money to direct where they want to do it; they just have to spend it on a solar installation or a renewable energy project.”

The water at the plant goes into plastic bottles, normally an environmental drawback. But Schraub’s bottles are unlike most others.

“The bottles break down in one to five years in a landfill with microbes, whereas a regular PET bottle takes upwards of 1000 years to break down, he said. “And then, they're fully recyclable; they're the only biodegradable bottles that are fully recyclable, as well.”

The next step is the addition of a solar energy installation at the Smithville site, along with a series of small wind turbines to help educate people about what can actually be done these days.

Looking around his creation, Schraub recalls some earlier days, a time when he helped lobby the Texas Legislature for help with solar power. When a decade passed without results, though, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Now he points those same hands at his growing energy empire off State Highway 71 and beams like a ray of sunshine.

“It’s a solar incentive for Texas.”