In the 36th installment of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous open with a quick check-in: a producer from CBC’s Quirks & Quarks reached out after reading their piece in The Conversation, and Michael’s law-school interview season is underway. Then Michael brings fieldwork, door-to-door solar interviews in Castle Rock, Colorado. They compare an earlier, higher-priced install with big credits and a long payback; a newer, leaner system that slashes monthly bills; and a recent install with low financing that brings costs down further. Along the way they map how the economics hinge on installer markups versus DIY labor, financing, realistic lifetimes, hail/insurance, and the policy plumbing behind net-metering, helpful when it exists, painful when it shifts. They close by zooming out to Colorado’s mix and a pragmatic path to decarbonization, retire coal first, keep standardized nuclear on the table, then reassess gas versus renewables. Tune in for a candid tour of on-the-ground solar economics, behavioral finance, and grid-policy risk.