Saving Green

Home Automation and Being Green

2013-10-03T18:16:00.000-05:00

I was flipping through Time Magazine today (The August 26/September 2, 2013 issue). I came across a one page article in the Tech Section titled Home, Smart Home. I've had a soft spot for home automation for a decade or so now. I was among the "early adopters" when I started playing around with X-10 modules which would allow you turn on and off lights with your TV remote. I'm telling you ten years ago that was mind blowing stuff! Especially when you used it to turn on and off the Christmas lights!

It was all kind of cool, but in it early days was a bit unreliable. And while it was cool to turn on and off lights without getting up it was more parlor trick then actually useful to be honest. So after a year or so of messing around with home automation stuff I kind of forget about it.

So this article reminded me of the coolness of it all again. And apparently in the last ten years things have really improved. Especially because we all now carry little wi-fi connected computers in our pockets called smart phones. Most of the technology for controlling and tracking all these new cool devices are in our pocket all ready. This makes adopting home automation cheaper and easier to learn as we are all ready familiar with the interface known as our phone.

One cool item the author (Harry McCracken) mentioned was a new door lock which you could install on your entry door and could be operated with your phone. It works with bluetooth on your phone and automatically unlocks the door when you arrive home. You can also grant temporary access to friends who you want to access your house. It of course makes me thing of the possible security issues should you lose your phone on the subway, but that aside you can't argue with the coolness or convenience of the idea!

He also mentions the Nest thermostat which is available in stores now (I saw it on an end cap in Lowes a couple of weeks ago). Apparently this new gizmo starts to keep track of when you are home and not and figures out patterns of when to raise and lower the temperature in your home to minimize your heating/cooling energy use. Sounds pretty cool. I don't know the exact price, but I think it's hundreds though. I tend to be really conscious of my energy use, and very rarely forget to turn down the thermostat when I got to bed or leave for work. I haven't done the math, but I feel like since I tend to be good about turning it down anyway, it would take quite a while before I recouped the cost of the the Nest thermostat in energy savings. With that said it looks cool, and that is what a lot of tech is all about really. So at some point I'm really going to look into it closely, do the math, and will likely write a post here as well.

All of this got me to thinking about the tie in between home automation and energy savings. Being green and Saving Green! In fairness much of home automation is more focused on the cool of technology. Changing the color or lights in different rooms to create mood settings (cool but in practice, you'll never use it). Changing the radio station that is playing through out your house from a touch screen which is located in the kitchen, living room, and upstairs hallway. All of that is definitely cool, but likely is only going to use more electricity then you would have otherwise.

The stuff that I'm thinking about are the gizmos whose main function is to use less energy. The Nest thermostat is a great example of that. Whether or not it would pay for itself installed in my house, it's main purpose is to save you money. So sure it took ten years to pay for itself, but in the mean time you were using less fossil fuels and where there for saving the planet, even if it did come out of your pocket. I'd love to see home automation devices which would serve a similar purpose for your hot water tank. Or maybe something that would open and close your blinds depending on the time of day, amount of sun, and time of year, to help warm your house or keep it cooler. These are the kinds of items which can pay for themselves and help save the planet.

So I'll be checking out the Nest, and I'll be on the look out for other items which can be installed to save energy. Additionally I'll be checking out these items to see what the potential payoff would be. In other words home long do they have to be installed before they save you enough money in energy usage to cover their cost of purchase and installation.

More Proof of Climate Change

2013-09-27T10:07:00.001-05:00

It seems amazing in a way that this is even newsworthy. Yet when scientific issues become political issues the actual facts always get skewed toward whoever has the money.

However when you talk to people with the knowledge and education to understand climate change and don't have vast amounts of money on the line, they almost unanimously agree that climate change is real and represent a grave risk to the planet and our way of life.

From USA TODAY Guilty: Man at heart of climate's change Landmark U.N. report says it is 'extremely likely' man is to blame for warming climate. http://usat.ly/1ftK6bq Get USA TODAY on your mobile device: http://www.usatoday.com/mobile-apps

Green Loans

2013-09-22T22:07:00.001-05:00

On one of my other blogs I talk mainly about loans. Mortgages, auto loans, personal loans, etc. As part of that whole endeavor I found an affiliate which I've included ads for on that site to increase revenue. They are a peer to peer online lender/investor. Basically they connect folks that are looking to borrow money with folks that have extra money they'd be willing to lend. The borrowers get the cash they need, and the lenders make some interest on the cash that wasn't doing much for them right now anyway. The site tracks all this and keep a small fee and everyone wins.

What I found really interesting about this site is one specific category of lending that they offer as something to focus on. They have credit card refinancing, and auto loans, and home improvements. What interests me here though is a specific part of home improvement loans that they focus on. Green loans! They have a whole category of lending for Green Home Improvements! While I'm sure there are many banks out there offering loans for home improvements which you could choose to use for green improvements, I don't think I've seen ads before focused specifically on lending for green projects!

Maybe there really is hope out there that we can save this planet after all. I mean there are lots of folks talking about the fact that we need to do something. And there are plenty of places you can go to find out the kind of things you can do to start turning things around to save the planet. But really until you see the business world focusing on it, it's not really happening. At least not on a large scale.

That's basically the point of this whole blog, savings green. Sure everyone wants to do the right thing if you ask them. But really until the better alternative actually costs less then the easy alternative, then people aren't going to start doing the right in on a large scale. Now that I've seen a bank taking interest I have some amount of renewed hope though. I mean they obviously did a little homework and found that this is a category that they could make a little money with. Once there are ads out there it'll get people thinking, and maybe then actually doing.

So come on board big business and large banks. Let's save the Earth, and Save Some Green!

Gas Mileage And my Truck Tailgate

2013-09-19T20:24:00.000-05:00

For about two years now I have been driving around with my truck tailgate down all the time. The only time I put it up is if I have something in the bed of the truck that I don't want to fall out. Why have I been doing this you ask?

Great question! I had heard that doing this would improve my gas mileage. I had heard it from multiple places and it made a lot of sense. Thinking about the wind that was flowing of my truck into the bed of the truck and then smacking into the close tailgate seems like a no brainer that it was slowing me up. With the tailgate down the wind doesn't need to hit anything and I can roll along and save some mpg's.

So the other night I was leaving my sons soccer practice and a friend was by the back of my truck. He offered to close the tailgate, and I said, no leave it down. I do it to save on gas. He said you are actually burning more gas that way. I said, no way, and was sure he was nuts.

Then he mentioned he saw it on an episode of Myth Buster. Man, that is probably one of the only things he could have said that would have convinced me. I love that show and they guys really seem to be on the ball with their experiments. So he was saying that basically the wind curls back and creates a ball in the back of the truck. Which definitely is true whether the tailgate is up or down, but small misc stuff always collects in the bed of my truck up near the cab. But further that the wind then starts to slide over this air ball and over the tailgate. With the tailgate down the wind actually pushes down on the tailgate and you get worse gas mileage. This really rocked my world!

So I got home and did some googling. It turns out the boys over at Myth Busters did indeed do an episode on this exact subject. And the myth that driving with your tailgate down saves gas mileage was...BUSTED! Ugh!

I did see in the comments from online readers some push back. They only tested it once. They had two different drivers. Etc. I do feel like those guys over at Myth Busters are pretty smart though.

So I've decided to put it to a test myself. I'm going to track my mileage with my tailgate up for the next three gas fill ups. Then I'll do the same with the tailgate down for three fill ups. I'll average both and see if I can find a difference. Now, my idea has some flaws as well because I'm just doing about a week of driving. Most of it is back and forth to work, but there isn't anything saying that I'm driving the same exact route for all my driving for the week, and at the same times, etc. But I guess I gotta go by something.

For the moment I'm assuming that the Myth Busters guys are right, but I think it's worth testing out for myself with my own truck.

I'll report back.

Saving Money With a Clothes Line

2013-08-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

You know this one is so basic and obvious it pains me to admit that I wasn't all ready doing it. I always turn off lights when I leave a room, I never run the dishwasher until it's full, and I use CFL light bulbs. But when it comes to to doing laundry it finally hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. I'm still drying every single load in the dryer.

It's late summer and we've been living in this house for a 2 years now (we used to have a clothes line in our old house). I guess it's one of those things that I meant to get set up right away when we moved in and then the drum beat of life kind of distracted me and I never got back to it.

We go camping about 5 times a year with the boys and I almost always tie a rope between some trees so we can dry bathing suits and towels after swimming. We just got back from camping and I was putting things away when I thought, wait, why don't I have one at home?

Now they make some fancy clothes drying apparatus which are nice for your back yard. At our old house I had one that would coil up into a gizmo. Then when you were going to use it, you would just pull it out and hook it on a tree or something. That way when you were drying clothes you wouldn't even see it.

I however this time decided to go with the very basic of options. I tied the green rope that I use when we are camping between two trees in our back yard. Now I did this last night about dust. Kinda late to try it out for this first time because I think it's not great to put out clothes to dry at that hour because the dew will set into them. Then I worked all day today so again I haven't tried it. I'm hoping to soon. I'm off tomorrow so I'm thinking that'll be a really great chance to try it.

Even if I don't use it for every load it's still a big gain for each cycle my dryer doesn't have to run!

So why is clothes line drying to green you ask?

Well that is for one reason in the winter and two really great reasons in the summer. First, all year round the dryer is expensive to run. Basically anything that creates heat is using a good amount of energy to do it. In my case we have an electric dryer so it's sucking up electricity and raising my power bill. So this is the best kind of green change. It's not that I'm finding a slightly more efficient way to do something. It's that I'm finding a way to completely remove the appliance from the equation. Each time I dry the clothes on the line I'm not just reducing the power I need to dry that load, I'm making it zero. That is saving the earth and saving my wallet. Like I always say here at Saving Green, some folks will make a change to help the Earth, but EVERYONE like to save money!

The other reason that a clothes line is a green change this time of year is because it is summer time and it's hot. I have a couple window AC units that I use as sparingly as possible. But I am paying money and using power to cool the house. When I run the dryer I'm heating up the house which means I may be paying even more to run the AC's and cool it back down again. Its a vicious cycle. So when I use the clothes line I am not only saving the money and power I would have used to dry the clothes, but I am also saving the money and power that it would have taken to cool the house back down! Now that is what I call SAVING GREEN!

Wasted Light

2013-08-12T16:26:00.003-05:00

This morning I had a doctors appointment. I parked, and on my walk into the office, I noticed one of my biggest pet peeves. The parking lot lights were on. There was four lamp posts around the perimeter of the parking lot and they were all on. My appointment was at 9 AM, so there was plenty of light from the sun!

I was impressed to see that at least one of them had a CFL bulb in it (at least one of the others didn't though). It was one of the biggest CFL's I've ever seen! I would guess based on the size of it, it had to be at least 150 - 200 watts. Maybe more. So kudos for having the energy saving bulbs.

Now it is possible that the doctors (or building management) have done the math and based on the cost of leaving them on all day, just don't care about the additional price. When considered against the overall price of running a building like that, I suppose it is a small percentage. However if you do the math and see what it costs of a year, I'm sure they would rather have the money rather then just completely wasting it!

The best thing they could do it put it on a photocell switch. When it's dark out the lights will come on. Then when the sun comes up they'll go off. If the intention is to keep the lights on during dark all the time, they'll never be wrong. Nobody has to remember to turn them on when it gets dark (safety issue), and nobody can forget to turn them off when it gets light out (energy savings). Granted there is an upfront cost for having a timer like this installed but it will pay for itself over time with the energy savings.

Now don't take me the wrong way. I'm not perfect. I'm not saying there is never a chance you could drive past my house one day in the middle of the afternoon and see my porch light on. It would really bother me if that did happen, but I'm sure it does. I have two small kids that I like to blame things on, but either way, people forget things. So while nobody is perfect, I'm sure we could all do a little better.

So...turn off those lights during the day! And don't get my started on how my kids leave the lights on in rooms they aren't occupying!

Just Use Less Energy!

2013-07-24T20:18:00.001-05:00

Just Use Less Energy, sounds simple right? So often everyone is thinking about way to cut down on their energy use, whether it be electricity, gas, oil, etc. That is great and necessary. The trick is I was thinking about this over all the other day. Most often I am always focused on new technology, or a new gizmo, or a new procedure, which will allow me to do what I always do, and use less energy in the process. For example a more fuel efficient car so I can drive the same miles and use less gas. Or a more efficient light bulb that will allow me to light the same room with less electricity.

Both of those are great examples of ways to save money and the planet, and I'm by no means saying that they aren't great ideas. The trick is I get so focused on being more efficient in that way, that I lose sight of the one more obvious option. Just plain using less. So instead of just getting a more fuel efficient car, I should try to find way to just plain drive less miles. And while getting a new LED bulb is great, but making sure to turn off that light when nobody is in the room is a win every time!

A big one that I'm a huge culprit of is the long hot shower. I'm not going to lie, I LOVE taking long hot showers! I've certainly put lots of thought over the years into the ways to get the most hot water for the least energy. And of course wrapping my hot water tank in more insulation is great. But if I would couple that with taking shorter showers then I am really onto something! And yes I love taking the long hot showers, and thinking about taking really quick showers is hard to digest at first. But when I think, "Could I take a shower that is 1 minute less?", that doesn't really sound that bad at all. So maybe for a month or two I'll shoot for that. Then I can keep whittling it down, until it's as quick as can be over time. I'll save quite a bit in the use of less water, and the energy that would have been used to heat it. Then if I can still strive to more efficient with the water I am using, I'm getting a nice double dip.

Air conditioning is a big one too. Many of us, me included, have gotten to the point where it's an expectation in our lives to have air conditioning. Both at work, at home, and in our car. It wasn't really all that long ago that air conditioning was considered a luxury. Many, many fewer homes has AC. You just toughed it out for the couple of months of hot weather. Even affluent folks in the 50's, 60's, 70's would forgo air conditioning as a waste of money. Oh how the times have changed. Every late spring I lug out the three window units that we use in our small house. One for each of the bedrooms, and one for the downstairs living area. I do try to use them as little as possible, but once they are in the windows they are all to easy to use. One quick push of the button and relief from the heat is on it's way! I guess I'll keep working on that, as we should use them less, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to give them up all together :(

The easiest way to save energy is to turn things off

So the moral of the story is that less is more when it comes to saving energy. It's more a way of thinking then anything else. I just am going to keep working on incorporating it into my thinking in my day to day decisions. Yes I'm going to continue to make things as efficient as I can around the house. But, if I can realistically just use energy less overall, that will make a nice dent in my power bills (and help the planet) as well!

Basic Solar Light for the Front Door

2013-07-14T18:44:00.001-05:00

So for some time now my wife has been complaining that when we get home there is no light at our front door. Well actually that isn't true. There is a light there, but it's not on a motion sensor, so it doesn't come on automatically. And being the green guy that I am I don't like to leave it on when we leave the house.

Of course I have a CFL in there so it's only drawing watts in the teens, instead of 60+, but I still don't like wasting electricity. Less electricity is good, but none is better. Why light up my front step for 6 hours, when I really only need it to be lit up for the 20 seconds I'm out there looking for my house key?

The trick is that the light fixture that is installed out front is basic and doesn't lend itself well to a motion sensor. I actually totally agreed with my wife that we need a light. The trick is that I need to run a line through the walls, install a switch, etc. That isn't a 10 min project. It's not terrible expensive (probably $10-$30 worth of materials). It's just that it's going to take a number of hours to do it. And depending on how I find a path to run the lines through the wall, I may have to cut some holes. Then I have to putty, and it'll take a day to dry. Then I have to paint over the putty. Now this whole thing is really sounding like work. It's all stuff I know how to do, I just didn't feel like doing it, so I procrastinated for quite some time.

Then one day I was walking through Home Depot with my sons and found the solution. I tend to be in Home Depot quite a bit. If I'm not in a total rush I'll usually make a quite walk through the main aisles of the store to see if anything is on sale. I've found some really crazy deals doing this. Sometimes they are just looking to get things off the shelves.

So I see on sale, an exterior solar powered LED flood light. It comes with a small solar panel to mount on the roof (or anywhere that will catch the sun with in the 10 feet or so of wire that came with it). Inside the light unit there was 4 rechargeable AA batteries. I really liked that they were basic rechargeable AA batteries. At some point they are going to wear out and they will be very easy to replace.

$44.97 - Not bad!

So out my sons went to install the light. The whole thing to about 20 mins (keep in mind my sons are 7 and 6, so if I had done it myself it might have taken 10 mins :). With three screws I installed the solar panel on the edge of the roof, and pointed it to the sun. Then I put the batteries in the light and installed it up under the eve, and pointed the light down. Bingo.

The only pitfall I ran into was the first night I came home the light came on but was VERY dim. At first I was thinking that that was as bright as it was going to be and it had been a waste of time. Then I realized that since I had the motion sensitivity turned all the way up it was going on every time a car went by the house. It was doing this as soon as it got dark and was draining the batteries. I adjusted the sensitivity so it just came on when I stepped onto the front step. The next night the light was great!

It's called a flood light, but it shouldn't be confused with a halogen floor light like you would like up a large area with. It's just not that kind of bright, but what do you expect from four AA batteries right. It is however, plenty bright for finding you key and opening the front door. The whole thing cost be about $40, and 20 mins. My wife is happy and so and I ;)

Small Solar Panel Facing the Sun

Light Installed to Cover Area When we are looking for house key

The best part is that it doesn't use any electricity from the grid. All the power is created from the sun. Some day I'd like to save up and cover my roof in solar panels. But until that happens, this is a great start and great example of what can be done.

Business Electricity

2011-12-15T22:53:00.001-05:00

Most often on this blog I am talking about using less energy. That can be propane, natural gas, coal, wood, oil, and electricity (among others). More often then not though I am talking about things you can do in your home to reduce you consumption of energy. Not sure why I thought of it today, but I got to thinking about ways that businesses could reduce their use of electricity. Lots of business use electricity and plenty of it. From small home based businesses to large industrial operations there are lots of places to save.

Common Ways to Save Electricity

Many of the common household ways that I mention on this blog will also apply to businesses as well. A great example is a small retail store (or even a large one for that matter) which lights their store with incandescent bulbs. Not only are they wasting their business electricity by using inefficient bulbs but they are going to feel it more then at home because typically a store is going to leave their lights on 24 hours a day. The first thing they need to think about it spending the upfront money to get CFL's or even LED's. Yeah they will spend a little now (which is going to be a tax deduction) but they are going to save much more then that over the life of the bulbs! The next thing they need to think about is whether or not they really need to leave the lights on 24 hours a day. The argument usually is during the day they want to light their products better and therefore hopefully translate that into more sales, and during the night it is for security reasons. Well it might be worth doing some testing to see if they really need the lights on during the day. Or maybe turn off the lights near windows on sunny days and turn them on when the sun goes down. You could even consider posting a sign at the front door mentioning how you are going green and have turned off some lighting, and can potentially increase sales to people like me. Then for the nighttime security, maybe you could leave on half the lights you normally do. Or turn them off except for a few small ones, and install motion detectors so that if anyone should come into the store the lights will come on.

Systematic Ways to Save Business Electricity

Another way to reduce you electrical consumption at a business is to work to change your whole business culture. Have training sessions with you employee discussing ways to reduce electrical consumption in their day to day work, and emphasize how important it is. You might even consider holding a contest asking for employees to submit ways to save electricity. Make a big deal of awarding the winner and implementing their idea. Not only will you save with what you do on that one idea, but hopefully you'll be reinforcing how committed you are to saving electricity and therefore the planet and encourage people to save even if it's not part of the contest.

The Age of Stupid - Great Climate Change Documentary

2011-12-14T21:09:00.000-05:00

Today I saw a really great climate change documentary. It was called The Age of Stupid and was directed by Franny Armstrong. It was set in the future 2055 to be exact. The premise is that the one guy is basically the last, or one of the last, human on Earth. He is reflecting on how stupid humans were to have ruined the climate and become extinct even though they clearly saw it coming and could have stopped. The great line from the movie went something like this, "Humans certainly aren't the first species to kill themselves off, but they are the first to do it when they saw it coming". He goes on to compare what happened to suicide, which really fits quite well when you think about it.

It is basically a montage of news clips which were real, except for the ones from the future of course. One of the really interesting concepts I took away from the movie is a great way to look at the whole climate change issue. Essentially it all breaks down to how much land is needed to support the number of people in the world. This includes the land for trees to create lumber and paper, the land for stream for us to drink, etc etc etc. It all comes down to how much resources this planet has to offer and how much we are using. Clearly right now we are using more then are replenished by Earth year after year. That is working for now because this planet has so many resources, but it is quickly starting to catch up with is for two reasons.

Reason #1 what we are doing isn't sustainable

First we can't sustain what we are doing now because there are just so many of us and the number is growing. This is what it all comes down to for me. I keep going back to the fact that there are just too many of us. Like it seems no matter how basically we decide to live our lives when there are 9-10 billion of us, it just isn't going to matter. With that many people we are just going to use more then the planet can replenish every year. This means were are going to be dipping into the planet's reserves of resources every year, and at some point there just won't be any left. It's just like a financial budget. You can spend more then you make for a while, but eventually it just catches up with you. Even if you have money in the bank, if you keep dipping into it each year eventually it is going to be gone, and then it's game over.

Reason #2 what we are doing isn't sustainable

The other issue with people is the amount of energy we use every year. Not matter the form we are essentially using energy. Whether it be the food we eat, the paper we write on, the clothes we wear, the house we live in, it all consumes energy in one form or the other. It's this energy which is the resources that I'm talking about. Not only are there so many of us living our lives that we are using more energy then is created by the sun shining on the planet each year, we are also using more and more of it each year. American specifically are the worst. We have be industrialized the longest I guess so we've just gotten used to being consumers. The goal of consumerism is to keep getting people to buy more then they did last year, and it works great until you realize that the resources are finite and there is just no way around the fact that you are going to eventually run out of resources.

A really interesting fact from the movie is that if all people on the planet right now lived the way that the average American does we would actually need 5 planet Earths to sustain it all! So with the amount of people alive now, living like we do in America, we would need more land to create all those resources each year. How much more? 5 times what we have now!!! And just think with climate change speeding up the caps are going to melts and there is going to be even less usable land as time goes by. It's like a train with no breaks going down hill!

Peak Oil Crisis in Chesterfield, UK?

2011-12-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

So I was doing a little internet research about the looming peak oil crisis today. And interesting search term kept coming up, "Peak Oil Chesterfield". It kept catching my eye even though I didn't know what it was. It sounded something like it was a specific location in the world where peak oil was really coming to a head. I decided I needed to look into this further as it might be the canary in the coal mine, at least so I thought.

It turns out though that "Peak Oil Chesterfield" has nothing specific to do with the peak oil crisis. The location is in Chesterfield in the United Kingdom. It is a local oil delivery company which has chosen for it's name, Peak Oil. I mean it's almost laughable if it wasn't so sad, right? I assume this particular area of the UK is mountainous and is at the peak of this mountain and hence the name. They say they have been in business for over 35 years and, assuming they have had the name that whole time, I'm sure they chose the name based on the topography having no idea of what peak oil would mean to you and I.

Don't get me wrong I'm sure they are a small to medium sized family business that delivery oil just like all the oil delivery companies here in the US. They are just families trying to make a buck, and until we as consumers stop calling for deliveries they are crazy not to continue this business. They could have chosen a name which was their last name, or any other multitudes of options that you see on the sides of oil trucks around making their deliveries. Put they chose peak oil. It is just a head shaker like no other!

Peak oil to me of course means the phenomenon where once you take out half of the oil out of the ground from a reserve then it is going to get harder each year to take out the same amount. It'll get more and more expensive and soon will get to the point where the amount you can sell it for isn't worth the cost to get it out of the ground. That is what happened here in the US in the 70 and lead to the infamous gas shortages and rationing. This is also what is speculated is either all ready happened or just about to happen world wide. We forgot about all the pain of the 70's because we quickly found a cheap alternative in the Middle East for cheap oil. But as we are hitting the peak oil there as well we are going to be reminded of that pain as well. The trick is this has become a global market and there aren't other cheap sources of oil to be found once these are gone!

Christmas Trees Are Green But Are They Green

2011-12-11T22:42:00.001-05:00

So we made the annual family trek to get the Christmas Tree today. Mission accomplished. I even have it in the stand and strung with lights (LED's of course). I saw an interesting sign at the tree farm this year though. It ready something like, "Breath Deep - the trees naturally collect carbon dioxide and let off oxygen. If you don't cut them down we can't plant more. So get your tree and do you part for the environment".

Now I guess you could call getting a Christmas Tree a guilty pleasure for me. I mean the gas we use on the way to and from is a waste, and the whole process of growing the tree and running the business I'm sure has a big carbon foot print. I do still do it though, I think some traditions are necessary, as long as you try to keep it limited to some extent. In fairness we carpooled to the tree farm and like I said I light the tree with LED's, so at least that's something.

Anyway, the sign keeps sticking with me. It just feels like the string of half truths that normally the crazy climate change disbelievers put out. Yeah trees do suck up CO2, so that part is good. But once you cut them down you have killed them and therefore begun the decomposition process which is going to release that CO2. Trees are like CO2 storage compartments. They do indeed suck it up and pull it out of the atmosphere, but once they die or are burned they release that back into the air again. So yes planting new trees is what will then capture the CO2 that was released from a older trees breaking down. But we as Christmas Tree consumers would really only be helping if we were cutting down trees that were about to die and making room for new ones. The trees we are cutting down are in fine shape, that is why we chose them. I'm not sure what the total life expectancy of a Christmas Tree is but I know when I walk though the woods most of them on 40-100 feet tall. The one I put in my living room is less then 8 feet, so there was a lot of life left in that tree if it was just left alone.

So don't get me wrong, we all need to live a little as long as we stay conscious of what is happening to this planet and work to get it back on the right track. So you and I don't have to beat ourselves up because we partake in a old tradition with our family. It just bothers me that these kind of statements are made so that people are thinking they are really helping the planet when they are actually hurting it. You gotta do what you gotta do, but at least know what it is that you are doing!

What is Green Tech?

2011-12-09T21:40:00.001-05:00

These days I seem to hear the term "Green Tech" more and more, which is a good thing! I kind of thing of Green Tech and two things but really the definition that most people think of when the say it means the invention of new technology which will reduce green house gases and be good (or better) for the environment.

Examples of Green Tech

So what is green technology? An example of green technology would be a new light bulb with puts out the same amount of light with less energy usage. So the new invention is going to use less energy and therefore less CO2 is going to get released to power that light bulb.

Green technology doesn't have to be what we typically think of as technology though. Even if something isn't electronics or science it could still be considered green tech, at least according to my green technology definition. New green technology could be something as mundane as a new sponge that somehow required less soap to wash the same amount of dishes. This would help the environment because the company wouldn't have to make as much soap, so the the energy involved in the manufacture and delivery of bottles of soap would be reduced.

More typically though green tech is associated with clean energy though. So a new solar panel would be a great example of what most people associate with green tech. Or lets say a wind turbine which can get more energy out of the same amount of wind would be a nice fit as well.

My other meaning of Green Tech

So for me the other meaning for green tech has more to do with fixing the issues we have caused with the environment. So the planet is dirty with oil spills, the air is full of small particles from industry, and the atmosphere is full of green house gasses. Another meaning of green technology for me is a new invention which would directly remove this mess from our environment. So maybe a machine that would fly around and filter out the particles from the air, that would be great. Or something that would extract the CO2 from the atmosphere and store it some where.

The key difference to me between the two is that one is something that reduces the impact of what we do to the planet and the other cleans up the effects of what we do to the planet. Both are very important and likely necessary if we are going to save the day before we ruin Earth for all of us!

Oil Pricing And How Soon We Are Going To Run Out Of It

2011-12-07T21:30:00.001-05:00

I heard a really interesting news story on the radio this morning. They were talking about oil pricing and why even though US demand is down overall the price at the pump remains high. Typically when demand goes down the price should be going down as well. For the time of year (gas is usually cheaper in the winter time) gasoline and diesel are are historically high national averages.

Lower Demand

So it turns out that the demand for oil is down in the US because of two main factors. The first is that the economy is still bad and many folks are still unemployed. Because there are many fewer people driving back and forth to work every day we are buying less gas. Also because people have less money in their pocket because of the bad economy they are thinking twice about spending at the pump. The other main factor is that, on average, the cars on the road in the US are getting more and more fuel efficient. Pruis, Volt, and Leaf and others are major contributors to this reduced need for gas. But all newer cars in general are getting better and better gas mileage which is having a real effect on the amount of gas we are all buying.

Why is the price saying so high then?

Well it turns out that the oil refiners here in the states started to realize they were ending up with a surplus. They also realized that the emerging nations are needing more and more gas and diesel, so our refiners are actually exporting it to other nations. This is a time when the overall economy being so global is bad for us. Normally give the existing conditions and reduced demand we would see a nice drop in the price at the pump. But because US oil refiners have found a market to still be able to sell that surplus the price is staying as high as ever. Ouch.

Craziness!

So let's think about this. Oil is pumped out of the ground in the Middle East. It is them put in oil tankers and shipped across oceans to the US. US oil refiners in NJ, Louisiana, and other coastal states then refine this oil into it's elements (gasoline, diesel, etc). Most of that is then trucked in tanker trucks to the gas stations all over the US for us to buy. But increasingly some of that gasoline and diesel is being put back into oil tankers and shipped back over oceans to developing countries where demand for oil products is increasing rapidly. The inefficiency of that whole process just boggles my mind!! The energy that it takes to create oil which we use to create energy is staggering!

When are we going to run out?

So just in case you never thought about it before, oil is a finite resource. That means there is an exact amount of it underground on Earth and no more. Once it's gone it's gone. It's been so plentiful for so many years that for a long time nobody put any thought into running out of it. But it is indeed going to happen and really is all ready happening.

The key really isn't so much when we suck the last drop out of the ground, because we are never as a planet ever going to see the last drop extracted at all. The key is when it becomes too expensive to pull oil out of the ground to make it worth doing. This is oversimplified but basically once you take out half of the oil in a given reserve it becomes harder and therefore more expensive to get the remaining half (peak oil). It increases exponentially as you get past the halfway point. So each year past the midway point of removing oil from the ground you are going to end up getting less then the year before and it will cost you more. As we reach that midway point as a planet (which many argue we just recently did or are just about to) oil is going to become more and more expensive. This is why sites that were historically not worth bothering with are becoming financially viable, like oil tar sands. Many of these new sites seem to take more energy to get the oil then that oil can produce. But because oil is become scarce it is becoming financially viable so it's being done.

The trick is that yes it seems that because of some key factors (the economy and better fuel efficiency in automobiles) the US is reducing it's over all oil demand. However many emerging countries are just hitting their stride like we in the US did as we industrialized. These are countries like China and India which have much larger populations then we do here in the US. Because these countries have such large populations they have the potential to dwarf our oil demand in future years. So if we aren't all ready at the midpoint of oil then we are racing there VERY quickly!

Global Warming or Global Warning?

2011-12-06T23:18:00.001-05:00

When I hear people talk about the environmental issues I have heard this term used almost interchangeably. Well not by the same people it's just that it seems half of the people think the term they are looking for is Global Warming and the other half think it's Global Warning. In most cases what the people are talking about when they use both terms is the same. It's just an unfortunate twist of the English language that they sound the same. The terms are indeed related to the same topic, but they are not synonyms.

Global Warming

The term that most all people that use either term are looking for is indeed Global Warming. This is the green house effect which is caused by greenhouse gasses (most commonly CO2 and methane) which is causing the average temperature of the planet to rise, hence Global warming. The globe is getting hotter.

Part of the reason that it's an issue, and there is still debate about whether it's happening (BTW its happening!), is because it is warming relatively slowly. It is slow global warming in that its only a small percentage of a degree per year and year to year it is impossible to FEEL the difference. However scientifically you can measure it and see year after year, decade to decade the planet is warming. You can also see evidence around the globe. The most common example is the melting ice caps. Also keep in mind this is the average temperature. One degree of average global temperature rise is enough to have significant effects. So even if each year is only a part of a degree rise, how many years does it take to make a degree and really start effecting out lives in a major way?

Global Warning

Global warning is really just a term talking about the overall concern about global warming. In other words, the melting of the ice caps is a global warning about global warming. I think global warning was even the name of a movie about global warming, and has been used many times in movies for the same reason. Like I say, they are related terms for sure but they indeed have different meanings. It's because they sound so much alike that there is confusion. It only take a handful of people to get confused to start spreading the word.

So now you know, the correct term for the effect of greenhouse gasses is Global Warming. All the tangible results of greenhouse gasses warming out planet should be taken as strong Global Warnings.

Saving Hot Water - A Small Tip For Today

2011-12-05T11:07:00.001-05:00

So there are big ideals which will save millions of tons of carbon in the atmosphere and there are smaller tips which will just put a tiny dent in the CO2 levels. However these small tips if done by everyone can really add up as well.

The suggestion today has to do when you are doing something at the sink which you would normally use hot water for. This would including washing your hands or rinsing your toothbrush, etc. First you should think about whether you really need to use hot water at all. Like do you really need to rinse your brush with hot water? Probably not, so you can just turn the handle all the way to cold and rinse it quick. Yes you are still going to use the same amount of water, but you aren't going to use any hot water. This will save all the energy that was needed to heat up that amount of water you ran off to rinse your brush. As an energy cost the amount needed to heat the water is much more then was is required to pump it and get it to you.

If you would like to still use hot water for a task, think about how often you never get hot water because you are done with your water task before the hot water actually starts coming out. This occurs because your hot water tank is far away from you in the basement. So when you run the hot water it has to travel all the way through the pipes to your sink before you get it. So if you are waiting for hot water then you are wasting all the water that filled the pipes and has cooled down. If you have to have hot water for your task then so be it. If you are like me though I'll just wash my hands while I'm waiting and end up being done before it gets there. If that is the case then what is the point? I mean I indeed just washed my hands with cold water. But in doing so I ran the hot water out of the tank and into the pipes, just not all the way to the sink I was at. So that hot water that I didn't even use is going to sit in the pipes and get cold and it'll happen again when I wash my hands. My point in all this is if you are going to end up just using cold water then just use the cold water from the tap. Don't waste the hot water by running into the pipes and not using it.

The do make a pump that you can install near you hot water tank which will circulate the hot water though the house so that it gets to your tap right away. I had one in my old house and it worked great. I don't think it cost much more then $30-$40 and it only took a 30 mins or so to install. The downside is that the pump was electric so I was using energy to save the energy. They manufacturer has of course thought of this, so there was a timer build into the pump. So I would set it to come on in the morning when we woke up for work, shut off for the day, and the come on again about the time we came home from work until bed time. It really worked great. I think I'm going to look into getting one for the new house. Especially for the upstairs bathroom which takes forever to get hot water!

Paperless Billing - Going Green

2011-12-04T22:45:00.001-05:00

Everyone should be going green! The environment needs it and our future needs it. We are all going to have to change the way we live in a big way sooner or later. The question is what we do in the mean time before it all ready hits out lives and changes things forever. What we do now has the potential to set up for a soft landing when that necessary changes comes. Or we can choose to do nothing, pretend everything is fine, and try to survive the hard landing that will inevitably come.

So if you are trying to figure out what you should be doing to help the best bet is to start thinking of small things that you can be doing to get the ball rolling. Hopefully these small steps will eventually lead to big steps. And even if they stay as small steps if we all start doing them, then can actually add up to have a major beneficial impact!

Paperless Billing

It's one of the easiest things that we can all start doing today and very few of us, as a percentage, do it. I'm actually guilty of this as well. I have just always gotten paper statements in the mail and I'm a bit afraid that without them I'll forget to pay a bill. I do have a few bills that come electronically and I never forget them so really I don't know what I'm worried about. I just need to set up a routine so that whatever reminds me to pay my bills doesn't have to come in my mailbox. Whether it be the email reminder that they send or if it's a remind that I get thought an online financial site like Mint.

So I'm going to make a pledge right now that I hope you will make as well. From now on whenever I am online looking at my billing statements, and the little notice pops up about how I can change to paperless billing, I am going to do it. Every time! I mean if I/you really need the hard copy you can always click through a screen or two and just print it out. I would suggest that you don't ever really need that since you can always access it online, but it's start either way.

How it Helps

There are a lot of ways that going to paperless billing helps. For one, obviously there is way less paper that would be needed each month if all your bills were electronic. Just think how many less trees (which suck up CO2) would have to be cut down if we all went to paperless billing!

Next is the shipping cost. In dollars this is the price of the stamp for the company to mail you the bill. You might argue that you don't care about that because it's not costing you anything. But be assured that anything that costs a company something is getting passed onto the customer. So if we all went paperless it would reduce the cost for the company sending that bill, and potentially they could pass the savings along to us in the form of cheaper prices. Also if you are still mailing a check back to them for payment then you can save the cost of that stamp for yourself too. There is also the carbon footprint involved with the mailing of the hard copies back and forth. There is gas for the truck to drive that letter to you and your payment back. It might not sound like a lot because it's one letter on a truck that was going to make the trip anyway. But even just the weight of one bill is something. And if we all did it then it would really add up. Think of the weight of one piece of paper. It's basically nothing. But then think of the weight of a box of printer paper you get from the office supply store. Now that is something. It wouldn't really take that many people switching to paperless bills to save that much paper a month. I'm thinking maybe 100 people switching would save that!

So the next time the little window pops up, or you see it on your hard copy statement, just click the box and start going paperless!

Green Design - From the Start!

2011-12-01T09:08:00.001-05:00

With all that is going on with the environment and global warming these days it should be obvious that we have a problem and need to get something done about it. In fairness I know this is kind of wishful thinking, and there are crazy people out there that actually think nothing is wrong, but at least there are more and more people that understand the truth these days.

Anyway, with that said I know we aren't going to realistically drop what we are doing as a society and just start tomorrow with a carbon neutral society, even if we were all on the same page and really wanted to. The trick I think is to understand that something is wrong and at least start making steps in that direction. At least when the climate crashes to a point where it has a serious impact on our lives, or more realistically when we run out of affordable oil and it impacts our life seriously, then the landing can be softer!

Green Design

I think one big thing we could easily start doing is making products right from the beginning with green design in mind. So right when someone is conceptualizing a product, it should be part of our culture that we factor in green design. How could it use the least amount of power possible, and how could you have it make the least amount of impact on the environment (both during operation and in disposal)?

So if you are thinking about producing a new lawn mower then of course you are going to think about all the things that a person would want a lawn mower to do well. But then, right from the original planning stage, you also need to factor in how you could design it to use the least about of power (gas or electricity) during it's useful life. Next you should also be factoring in how you could design it to make the least impact on the environment when it's disposed of when that useful life is over. So maybe that means you are going to use as many parts as possible that can be recycles easily into some new product. Or maybe it means that you are going to use parts that will decompose more quickly with a lower impact on the environment. Or maybe some other totally new factor that would help with it's impact on the environment because that is the type of thought process and breakthrough that would likely extend to all products and really give us the leap forward that we need!

Existing Products

Of course we should always be trying to improve the design of existing products so that newly manufactured ones can have a lower over impact on the environment then the ones products last year. If that was a solid part of the process for all products then we could really make strides on global warming and hopefully start to turn things around.

What keeps this green design from happening more?

The major issue is that for the most part it isn't profitable for companies to incorporate these types of design factors. They have no real cost when you decide to throw our their product and for the most part they don't care how much energy you burn when using it. The exception is in a case like cars where they can use it as a selling point to get you to buy more. But that is the point after all. If the consumers don't require it then it won't ever happen. Green design factors are only going to hit the companies bottom line when consumers start including green thought into their buying decisions. I promise you companies will always respond to consumer needs and wants. If not they would stop selling their product and go out of business.

So maybe the next time you are making a buying decision, whether it be something small as part of you weekly grocery shopping or something big like a new TV or new car, try to factor in the green aspects of the product. I promise you start doing this whenever you buy something, then manufactures will too! Then we'll all be in a better place!

Affordable Short Range Electric Vehicle

2011-11-30T21:08:00.001-05:00

From Ecogeek.com

Yet another really interesting article on Ecogeek this week. There is going to be a new short range electric vehicle on the market soon that sells for less the $7,000! Wow. Now that is really something. I mean $7,000 is quite affordable for anyone, especially if you were to put it on a 5 year auto loan! There are a few less exciting details but over all it's still a great concept!

Batteries

The $7,000 doesn't include the batteries which would have to be leased separately. Its a cool idea that the batteries are going to be a lease. I mean you know they are going to go bad and start taking less of a charge, so why not lease them and get new ones right away when it's time. The proof however is in the pudding. The question as to how cool the idea of leasing the batteries is how much they are going to cost! Time will tell at this point.

Short Range

So apparently for this vehicle, short range is going to mean 25 miles. Now depending on how far your daily work commute is this could really be great for you. If you are within 25 miles round trip (or one way if you can plug in at work) then you are now going to be able to buy a brand new electric vehicle for under $7,000 and it could really be your main car.

For me my daily round trip is more like 30 miles. That's more then the max even when the batteries are brand new. Since I don't have the option of plugging in at work this it's not going to work for my daily commute. I'm trying to think if I make enough around town trips to justify a $7,000 investment. I mean there are certainly trips to the store, or to friends houses that are within the 25 miles, I just am thinking there I don't do enough of that to make the $7,000 worth it. However, for $7,000 it might be cool enough and cheap enough to buy as a toy.

Top Speed

I've seen short range electric vehicles in the past and they seemed more like glorified golf carts. Their top speed was like 30 mph and you had to keep them on the back roads and away from highways. The great thing about this new short range vehicle is that has a realistic top speed. They are talking 74 mph! So you can go no the highway without any worry of getting run over by and 18 wheeler!

That makes the short daily work commute even more realistic. Lots of folks have short commutes, let's say 10 miles or less, but that does include a short trip on the highway. Which means unless you can get safely get up to 65 mph or more, it still isn't viable. But at 74 mph you are in business.

Chevy Volt vs. Nissan Leaf

2011-11-29T21:08:00.001-05:00

I admit there are many other competitions out there when it comes to green vehicles (namely the Prius) but these are the two that I'm really thinking about when it comes time for my next new car. They both have the advantages and disadvantages.

Nissan Leaf

The Leaf a a true electric vehicle. There is no gas or other fuel that you put in it other then electricity which is stored in batteries. This is a great. I mean, just like any other electric vehicle, how green it is really depends on where you get the electricity from. Ideally you have solar panels or wind turbines and it's totally zero emissions. But if you plug it in you wall then coal or natural gas (maybe nuclear) is being burned to get those batteries filled. It is still going to cost you much less per mile then gas though.

The trick is that depending on the weather it sounds like the Leaf can go 80-120 miles per charge on new batteries. For most people in America this will definitely take care of their daily commute which is great. You can plug in every night and just run off the batteries to get to work and back and you are set. The trick is if you want to take it on vacation you are not going to make it. You are still going to need a back up gas car for something like that, unless you have a series of friends 100 miles apart along your route to the beach that will allow you to plug your car in overnight!

Chevy Volt

The Volt is also an electric car but it can burn gas as well. The difference between the Volt and the Prius model though is that the gas is used to generate electricity to run the electric motor, which the Prius is a true Hybrid of gas engines and electric motors. Basically the Volt will go about 40 miles on a full charge and then switch over to the gas and give you average gas mileage. It's range is shorter then the Leaf mainly because it has the added weight of the gas engine. It's a give and a take.

Even the 40 miles is enough for many American's round trip commute. Even if it isn't most people will only use a very little bit of gas for the end of their trip each day. The other perk is that you can take the Volt on long road trips if you like. You'll drive the first 40 miles on the battery charge and then change over to gas. Then it's just like a gas engine vehicle for the rest of your long road trip. But you have the option of long trips and don't need a back up vehicle with the Volt.

So it's a give and take depending on how long your daily commute is and if you need to use it as your only car and would be stuck having to rent a car if you wanted to go on a long trip. I'm really torn and don't know which I'll choose. My wife and I both need a car so we would have the option of buying a Leaf and having the other car be a gas engine which we'd take on long trips. I also don't have solar panels or a wind turbine at the rental home we have now so that is a concern for me as well. But realistically if you compare the coal/natural gas electricity to the gas from the pump the impact is still bad. At least with the electric car we've have the option of finding a zero emission source where with gas there is no such thing. In a couple years when we buy a new home I am planning to incorporate solar panels so hopefully it'll be a non issue then.

I'm excited with either option really but I'm really torn. As I think of it maybe I would go with the Leaf first, and then when it's time for the 2nd car to be replaced go with the Volt. Then which ever of us that has the shorter commute could drive the Volt and the Leaf would go for the longer commutes (either way the Leaf would be enough for either of out daily commutes). Then when we want to drive on a longer trip for vacation or work we would just take the Volt.

Great Stuff Pic

2011-11-28T22:06:00.001-05:00

An example of a gap in my basement around a water pipe filled with Great Stuff...

Great Stuff - Sealing Up Your Home

2011-11-28T21:47:00.001-05:00

You know some of the simplest ways to save money around your home are often the ones you over look. I'm not sure why this is, but is always seems to be the case at my house. I'll be thinking and planning and doing larger projects, all the while little stuff is just sucking money out of my pocket and energy is wasting away!

My most recent example of this is in the basement of the house we just started renting this summer. I remember noticing a few cracks here and there in the foundation and some spots that could get sealed up around pipes and other openings to the outside. I noticed this in the first week or so of moving in. It was summer time and I wasn't so conscious of it because I wasn't constantly thinking about the level of the fuel oil in the tank like I am now.

Well I happened to be doing stuff in the basement the other day with the kids during the day and looked at one spot where I could actually see daylight! Yikes! That was it. It was time for Great Stuff. Great stuff is my favorite thing ever! Partially because it does such a good job so easily sealing up crack and partially because I think it the most genius name for a product ever! I mean seriously, how did I not think of calling a product Great Stuff before they did right? I mean you can't not buy something that is called Great Stuff! How good is this stuff? It's GREAT STUFF! lol.

Anyway, I got a one can for about 5 bucks from Home Depot and it filled all the cracks I had and some were sizable. I even have about a half a can left, but I'm sure it'll be all dried up when I got to use it the next time. It's my own fault because if you clean out the straw and seal the top of the car it'll stay, but I never do. Next time I see a crack I'll go spend $5 and do it again.

So do yourself a favor and the go spend $5 and seal up the cracks in your basement. Just go along the foundation where it meets the house and look for any place where something go through the outside wall. Seal around it. Also look for cracks in the foundation of good size that should be filled as well (not just a hairline crack below ground).

Amazon.com Widgets

Rio 20 - Another Conference

2011-11-27T20:15:00.001-05:00

Rio 20 - June 2012

It seems like every year or so there is some big conference of nations that is supposed to be the beginning of saving the world. They usually start with a few letter and followed buy a number. G8, G20, Rio 20, etc. Rio 20 is the next of these types of conferences. The interesting twist with the Rio 20 is that it focuses not just on the environment but on sustainable development. It seems idea is that they world is going to grow in population (we just hit 7 Billion and 8 Billion is probably just a little more then a decade away). Much of this population growth seems to be in developing nations. So if we as a planet can get involved and try to get this development to happen in a green way right from the start we can at least stem some of the bad effects that developed nations went through.

Will it end in Disappointment?

Like I mentioned it seems that most of these conferences just end in disappointment. Part of the problem though is that they come in with such lofty goals. Like they are hoping that the leaders will come to some kind of conclusive decision on some key point. They really want it to go their way because it will really set the world in motion to being greener, even though they know all the folks with money who back all the campaigns of all these leaders are against it. What do you think is going to happen right? It seems like every time the leaders make it look like it was really close and they say they really wanted to but they just couldn't agree to some small issue and it all fell apart. What a surprise!

So far I haven't heard of any such lofty goals for the Rio 20. So from that stand point it appears its more of just a meeting without specific goals so it would be hard to classify anything as a failure. They really just are saying they are trying to launch a global conversation. Now, don't get me wrong I'm all for this, but at the same time without some kind of concrete goal it hard to see them really getting anything does except for collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points. I sincerely wish them luck though and hope they succeed. We as a planet really need to shift our thinking and begin to change our actions. We are going to run out of oil and it is going to dynamically change how we live, especially because there are just too many people in the world to sustain without oil energy! The only real question is how early we as a population really realize we are close to this kind of crash. The early we start acting the softer the landing is going to be. If we wait until we just can't afford gas for our car anymore it's going to be a really rough go!

So for Rio 20, and any other conference with some letters and numbers for that matter. I wish you luck but then again its not folks like me you have to convince, it's the folks with all the money that pay for election campaigns!

Doing Your Dishes Green

2011-11-26T20:13:00.001-05:00

So a few months ago I moved with my family to a different house which doesn't have a dishwasher. It's been a real adjustment since we moved in to taking the time each night (and often throughout the day to hand wash all the dishes). Yesterday my wife came back from the market with new dish sponges that were supposed to be a green product. It got me to thinking about the whole dirty dish process in our house and the environment.

Are the sponges really "Green"?

The first question I thought about was if the sponges were really green. The problem with green products is that the word "Green" is relative. I mean the definition of green is that it is good for the environment. But really what the heck do I know about sponges anyway? So for all I know they could actually have a worse environmental impact the the regular sponges we had been using. But since they say "Green" on the label my wife and I was assuming they are better for the planet.

How much better? Who really knows? That the other problem with Green being a relative term. So say they are just a very tiny amount better for the environment. Like so little that it really makes no impact as far as saving the planet. But I'll still pay an extra dollar for two of them because I feel like I'm doing my part. There are products out there that I know a good amount about and can make an educated decision as far as their impact but when it comes to sponges I guess I'm just counting on the label. I wish there was some kind of standard or rating system that you know know for sure how much good you are doing.

Hand washing dishes vs. a Dishwasher

The next thing I got thinking about is what impact am I having on the planet by hand washing my dishes now compared to a dishwater? I mean there is the electrical and water cost to running a dishwasher. But when I do them by hand I'm going to guess that I'm really using more water then what a new modern dishwasher would use. I'm also thinking that any electricity used by the dishwasher would be compensated for buy the efficiency of the dishwasher over hand washing.

Now like all appliances not all dishwashers are made the same. You need to look for the Energy Star label and then look for the best Energy Start appliance you can afford. But assuming you have a really efficient model I'm thinking I'm using more energy (not even including my own) but hand washing. And a dishwasher is going to really wash them better and remove more germs in it's process.

So I guess that's it. I need to get out dishwasher shopping and start saving money and time (and not to mention my feet and back!). Good thing my wife bought those Green sponges!

Solar Power Airships - Awesome!

2011-11-25T13:45:00.001-05:00

Jetsons here we come! Ecogeek his a home run again in their latest email. If you don't all ready get the email update, get signed up! Among the interesting stories in this weeks email was one about a new technology concept that deals with airships.

EcoGeek.com - Solar Ship is Half Airship and Half Flying Wing

Solar Airships

The idea is basically there would be a light airship which would be made even lighter with a pocket of helium. It would then take much less energy to lift off and fly. The great part is that while it is filled with helium it isn't burning it or using it in anyway, so you never have to refill it unless there is a leak of some kind.

Even better is that the top of the airship is covered with solar panels which it appears could produce enough energy to fly the airship. What that means is that it would have an indefinite flying range. Once it took off the solar panels would power it to where ever you want to go for as long as you want to go!

The trick there is that in order for the solar panel to produce all the power you need then the cargo weight is going to have to be very light. If you want to carry heavier items and deliver them far away then you are going to need some kind of fuel. In this case you are talking about a hybrid of some kind. So like a Chevy Volt, the solar panel's produced electricity would take you as far as it could and then when depleted the fuel would kick in and power the airship.

Cheaper then Trucks?

I guess someone has done some research and is knocking in the ideal of airships in general, even if powered by solar or other cheaper hybrid means. Essentially their argument is that when you compare the cost involved with these airships would still be cheaper to transfer goods and cargo in general by 18 wheelers.

The article on Ecogeek made a really good point though. That cheaper truck cost assumes there are all ready maintained roads available to drive on. It would be kind of hard for a truck to travel across a forest, where an airship could take off and land for the same cost whether it was traveling over the forest or a populated area. So because of these these airships are getting additional attention for their lower cost to travel to remote areas. Places like the Arctic and more general areas that are currently considered too remote for delivery of items.

For me I think a concept like this is great for two reasons. One it obviously will serve a need that isn't currently being served so it's a great invention. Imagine if you have a sick child in a remote area that is saved because these airships exist!! The other great thing that comes to mind is that this is a great example of energy efficiency being built in right from the concept level of a new invention/product!

Typically when there is a new invention it's all about the idea. I mean this makes sense. The idea is lets get this thing working and then when we perfect it, if the public yells for it we'll try to figure out how to make it more energy efficient. In this case right from the beginning the makers seem to understand that we as a population are going to have to live with less energy. So everything we create is going to have to use less energy. So instead of coming up with an idea and running with it before looking at the impacts, this time it's part of the invention process itself!