Jim DiPeso joined the River Falls Rotary club earlier this year. He had previously been a Rotarian before he moved to River Falls. Jim was born in California, went through the California public schools and university system, and he has a communications degree from California State Polytechnic University. He started as a newspaper reporter and lived near Lake Tahoe. Later, he worked in communications for non-profit organizations.
Jim said that he and his wife are “digital nomads”. He lives in River Falls but writes for organizations based in Seattle. During the day he writes for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and in the evenings he writes for Energy News Data. He also manages and edits their website. Energy News Data covers federal energy policy for the west coast. He obtains policy information by watching government meetings on Zoom. Now that he lives in Wisconsin, his editor gets his articles two hours earlier!
Jim decided to move to River Falls when a chemistry professor friend of his at the UWRF showed him the cost of houses in River Falls. They moved here in August 2022.
Jim also writes for fun. He writes short stories and historical fiction, mainly about World War II. Jim is currently working on a memoir about his newspaper career.
Jim has been married to his wife Wendy for 42 years. Wendy was born in Minnesota, raised in Hawaii. They have lived in Nevada, Washington state and now Wisconsin.
Since Jim and his wife are digital nomads, strong internet is very important. They are served by Swift Current from Pierce Pepin Cooperative Services out of Ellsworth. At one point his boss back in California had an internet disruption for a couple of days and Jim’s internet in the middle of the Wisconsin woods was better than his boss’s internet in the middle of the city.
During the question period at the end of Jim’s talk he was asked about the future of renewable energy. He said that wind and solar will continue to get cheaper but that both are intermittent because of the weather and that better long-term energy storage is needed to realize the full potential of renewables.