BOULDER - A climbing gym is in Boulder is getting national attention, not for the two story climbing walls inside, but for what you see when you climb on top of the building.
Movement Climbing and Fitness installed 6,000 square feet of solar panels, paid for, in part, by a Federal stimulus grant. The panels, operators say, power the gym, make the business carbon-neutral, and actually kick power back into Boulder's power grid.
But the $157,000 grant also caught the attention of Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, who called it the second biggest waste of stimulus money in the country on his show.
"Aren't there a few mountains in Colorado where people can climb actual rocks?" Hannity asks.
But Anne-Worley Moelter, one of the owners of the gym, says Hannity is missing the point.
"We've created 50 jobs in the Boulder community, we've created a place where people can work out," Moelter said. "To be a net zero building, it feels great, it feels like doing the right thing."
Moelter said the solar panels were eligible for a 30 percent renewable energy tax credit, and the Federal grant was simply providing the funds up front. The gym picked up the other 70 percent of the panels' cost.
Movement Climbing and Fitness installed 6,000 square feet of solar panels, paid for, in part, by a Federal stimulus grant. The panels, operators say, power the gym, make the business carbon-neutral, and actually kick power back into Boulder's power grid.
But the $157,000 grant also caught the attention of Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, who called it the second biggest waste of stimulus money in the country on his show.
"Aren't there a few mountains in Colorado where people can climb actual rocks?" Hannity asks.
But Anne-Worley Moelter, one of the owners of the gym, says Hannity is missing the point.
"We've created 50 jobs in the Boulder community, we've created a place where people can work out," Moelter said. "To be a net zero building, it feels great, it feels like doing the right thing."
Moelter said the solar panels were eligible for a 30 percent renewable energy tax credit, and the Federal grant was simply providing the funds up front. The gym picked up the other 70 percent of the panels' cost.
