Green Sexy

Saving Energy in Schools

Today the lights went out in the hallways in my school at 11 a.m.  Students and teachers alike peered into the hallways, wondering what malfunction had occurred.  Students everywhere buzzed about the possibility of school being let out early due to a power failure.  However, once I checked my email, I learned that the hall lights were turned off from 11-12 a.m. in an effort to save energy costs.  This decree was handed down from one of the powers that be in Albany.  Oddly enough, a follow-up email from my administrator made it seem like this would be an isolated event.  So, what would be the actual savings if they made this a daiy event in all school districts in New York state?  It's hard to tell, but let's take a look at some Minnesota schools to see what they're doing to save on their energy costs.

In some Minnesota school districts, students, teachers, administrators and custodians have taken the initiative to turn off lights in rooms that are empty, turn off computers when they're not in use, and to turn their thermostats down to 68 degrees in an effort to save energy and money.  According to the Southwestern Review News, "The costs of lighting, heating and cooling schools are so vast in school districts that the cost of energy is second only to staff salaries, and exceeds the cost of supplies and books." 

Many Minnesota schools have implimented the SEE Program (Schools for Efficient Energy), which focuses "on low and no-cost energy efficient strategies, the districts enrolled in this program strive to reduce their energy use by 10 percent and achieve 'Energy Star' status. The 'Energy Star' award program is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. District 197 received 'Energy Star' status in 2004; it was the first to receive this award in Minnesota and the 10th in the nation."

By following the guidelines of the SEE program, "the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan district has saved $330,000 in energy costs. This past spring, the district saved $34,000 in a single quarter, of which $10,000 came just from Heritage Elementary."  Sounds like a pretty bright idea.

China's Green Olympics

For years we've been hearing a lot about the air pollution in Chinese cities and the dangers this pollution poses to its cities' residents.  Lately the discussion of Beijing's air quality has shifted to how it will affect the Olympic athletes' performance.  Some endurance athletes have gone as far as pulling out of certain events for fear that their health and their careers will be compromised by the polluted air.

On the flip side, China has been doing all it can to try to make the 2008 Olympic Games the greenest games yet.  How are they planning on achieving this?  According to an August 5th, 2008 press release from the United Nations Environment Programme  (UNEP),  the Chinese government has taken the following environmentally-friendly measures to green up their Olympic venues:

• Solar power is being used to light lawns, courtyards and streets at several venues including the Olympic Village. The National Stadium, where events such as athletics and football will be held, is being lit by a 130 KW photovoltaic system.
• At the 400,000 square metre Olympic Village, reclaimed water from the Qinghe sewage treatment plant is being used for heating and cooling systems – around 60 per cent in electrical savings is anticipated.
• Translucent membranes in the ceilings and walls of the National Aquatics Centre or 'Water Cube' allow in natural light, and specially designed 'beam-pipes' funnel sunlight into corridors, toilets and car parks at venues including the Olympic Green.
  
• In the Olympic Media Village, at least 3,000 cubic metres of rainwater can be captured using water permeable bricks, pipes and wells installed on roofs, roads and green areas.
• The organizers have set a target of achieving a 50 per cent recycling of waste including paper, metals and plastics at venues. A test run, carried out during the 11th World Softball Championships held last year, achieved a nearly 90 per cent recycling.

In addition, the Chinese government has been cleaning up waterways, moving factories from city centers (or even closing some altogether), planting trees to reduce desertification, and moving towards greener energy, like wind power. 

How much of this change is just window-dressing and how much of is a lasting commitment of the Chinese government to its people and its land?  Only time will tell; but at least the Olympics have given China the impetus to change for the greener!

Natural Gas & The Pickens Plan: A Solution or A Scam?

So, you may or may not have heard of T. Boone Pickens before, but basically he's a former oil man worth $3 billion dollars who is now throwing his weight behind the green energy movement.  His plan, aptly named "The Pickens Plan", involves building massive windmill farms in the Midwestern states, effectively supplying 20% of the nation's power, thus freeing up the 22% of power normally derived from natural gas, and using this natural gas to fuel a good portion of our transportation.  This way, Pickens claims that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by one-third.

Sounds good to me---sign me up!  But wait---before we get all carried away, buoyed up on a wave of emotion, let's look at the two main components of his plan:  wind and natural gas. 

First of all, building all of these windmills and the infrastructure to support them will cost (according to Pickens) an estimated $1+ trillion dollars!  Now, that is obviously a lot of money, but wind energy is a renewable resource, so once the parts are in place, it is the gift that will keep on giving.

Natural gas, on the other hand, is ike the much-bedeviled maligned oil, a nonrenewable resource.  Granted natural gas burns much cleaner, and is far more abundant in North America than is oil, but its reserves will eventually run out.  According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), there are 1,190.62 Trillion Cubic Feet of technically recoverable natural gas in the United States.  By "technically recoverable", that means the figure includes natural gas that is "undiscovered, unproved, and unconventional natural gas."  So, while that number seems like a lot, not all of it is "technically" there.  Also, according to the Oil and Gas Journal, World Natural Gas Reserves by Region as of December of 2006 has the amount of technically recoverable natural gas in the world at 6,183 Trillion Cubic Feet, which leaves the United States with only 3% of the world's store.  And guess which region has the most natural gas?  Why, it's the Middle East, of course, with our good buddies Russia in close second!  So, in the end, won't the United States still be dependent on the Middle East for its transportation fuel?  Now also understand, T. Boone Pickens has long been a champion of natural gas as a preferred fuel source because his company, Clean Energy Fuels, Inc., owns and operates many natural gas fueling stations in the West and Midwest and is the nation's largest supplier of natural gas for transportation purposes.   Let's just say that Mr. Pickens won't be walking away from this deal empty-handed.

Now, with all of that said, I am still very excited about the prospect of having such an influential man on the green side for once, but I am a bit skeptical of the natural gas angle.  While I think natural gas vehicles are a great innovation, and certainly less polluting, how viable is natural gas as a fuel source?  By replacing a good amount of oil with natural gas as a transportation fuel, one has to ask how far that will get us?  I see this as a very temporary fix, as neither oil nor natural gas will be around forever.  In any case, Pickens has already purchased over 600 windmills from General Electric, so I am very optimistic that he already has begun to have a positive impact on our nation's energy crisis.

BP Is Gettin' Greener With Solar Energy!

While driving through Maryland on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., we noticed a BP Solar plant being built right off the side of the highway.  This was a glorious sight to see, and upon returning home, I promptly rushed to the computer to try to learn more about this exciting development.  On its website, BP claims that  "To date BP Solar modules installed worldwide will offset more than 14 million metric tons of CO2 during their lifetime.  That's the equivalent of planting more than five million acres of trees!"  BP also is involved in other alternative energies such as wind and hydroelectric power.   

It is evident that oil companies are desperately trying to rework their image around the world, as the world around them has gained a better environmental focus.  I know that BP has been revamping its advertising campaign to herald its foray into a greener world, from its redesigned logo, which was inspired by a sunflower, to its attribution of the words "Beyond Petroleum" to its acronym "BP".  BP has also "brightened up" its gas stations, making sure the primary colors you see are green and white, and the stations are very well-lit.  Also, BP has replaced its plastic bags with paper bags.

In any case, it is good to know that BP's transformation is not purely cosmetic, but has some true substance behind it.  Yes, maybe someday we can all move "beyond petroleum", and companies like BP might be leading the way!

We May Lack the Infrastructure for Wind Power

To me, wind power is the greatest thing since sliced bread (or at least since flat screen televisions)!  My wife and I get 100% of our electricity from wind power through New Wind Energy, a product of Community Energy, Inc.  I bought myself and my wife windmill t-shirts this Valentine's Day!  I have a windmill decal on my car window.  Yeah, you could say that I've got windmills on the brain.

Then came the disheartening news---the headline of a recent USA Today article read: "Wind energy confronts shortage of transmission lines."  I immediately dove into the article to discover that the meteoric rise in wind farm construction is beginning to outstrip the capacity of high voltage lines to transfer the energy to cities; cites which are often times hundreds of miles away from the wind farms.  This shortage of adequate power line capacity is sure to slow wind power's advancement and could inhibit some states' renewable energy mandates.  You may say, "Let's string some new wires and get moving, folks!"  Unfortunately, it's easier said than done.  As stated in the aforementioned article:  "Wind developers won't go ahead with projects until transmission lines are in place, and utilities are loath to build the lines until they're sure the developers won't back out."   So often times, it becomes kind of a waiting game where the players may be more apt to fold than play their hands.  And unfortunately, folks, while a wind farm can go up in as little as 18 months, a transmission line can take from 5 to 10 years to get going. 

I'm not sure what the solutions are, but all I know is that with wind power presently supplying only 1% of our country's energy, if it is to become our future energy savior, then we'd better figure something out!

Invention Nation

Discovery Channel, Discovery Health, HD Theater, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, The Military Channel, and The Science Channel---sometimes I feel as if I've learned more from watching the Discovery Channel and its offshoots than I did in all of my science classes in high school.  Watching these channels negates somewhat the guilt of watching television because you are actually expanding your knowledge base on a variety of scientific topics.

Imagine my delight when I came across a show called "Invention Nation" that airs at 10 p.m. on Monday nights (Eastern Time) on the Science Channel.  What's so great about this show?  Well, the show is all about inventors of green technologies and what means they used to make their ideas a reality.  The show is "hosted" by three like-minded friends---Nobu, Chris, and Micah---who decided to follow their green convictions and modified a van so that it ran on used vegetable oil.  Then they drove that van from New York to California in search of green inventors.  And they've found some winners!  In one episode, they visited a plant that converted construction site waste to energy.  In another episode they met two ladies who want to install energy-harnessing revolving doors in high-traffic office buildings.  I read on the Invention Nation website that one inventor created solar panels from used CDs?  Now, I must've missed that one, but I'm dying to see it!

You've got to check out this show!  Go to the Discovery Channel Website and check out this and other awesome shows that I'm sure to blog about in the future!

Legalize it, dude! Reefer Madness!!!

The once golden luster of corn-based ethanol has now dulled, as has the nation's enthusiasm for this once-heralded savior of our fuel needs.  According to Craig Cox from the July/August issue of Ode Magazine, it turns out that corn ethanol "takes 30 percent more energy to grow and process than it produces as fuel."  Not only that, but it hardly reduces carbon-dioxide emissions, and causes food prices to rise.  With the demand for corn ethanol, we are creating a struggle between using corn for food for humans and livestock, or using it for fuel to feed the machines we depend upon.  Either way, the corn lobby and large-scale farmers are more than happy to receive federal subsidies to grow corn---and only corn!  Is it going to come to the point where we're going to start importing vegetables that we used to grow here in the states because farmers are too concerned with growing corn for ethanol?  Sounds alarmist, but if the government keeps holding hands with the corn lobby, it could become a partial reality. 

So, what to do?  Well, there are other sources of plant-based fuel that are easier to grow, take less energy to process, and don't detract from our food supply.  It appears that so much more biodiesel can be produced per acre from less obvious sources than almost every ethanol crop.  One such alternative would be switchgrass, which produces 1,150 gallons of biodiesel  per acre (compared with the 354 gallons of ethanol that corn produces).  How about algae?  That wonderful green stuff you see floating on the surface of ponds can produce 5,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre!

Okay---get out your hacky sacks and crank up the Grateful Dead: HEMP can produce 1,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre!  Well, if algae can produce so much more biodiesel, then what's so great about hemp?  The thing about algae is that the growing conditions have to be just right to attain maximum yield, and it is often influenced by evaporation and the invasion of less effective algae populations.  Hemp, on the other hand, grows like a...um, weed... and would be very easy to grow and cultivate.  Also, hemp has many wonderful uses, such as in textiles, soaps and body lotions, food-grade cooking oils, ropes, and many, many other ingenious uses.  Maybe you could think of some of your own, perhaps? 

It seems that corn-based ethanol is to national fuel independence, as the H-4 Hercules Flying Boat was to Howard Hughes:  the government dropped a whole bunch of money on it, but then realized it just couldn't really fly.  Sorry, but corn-based ethanol just seems a bit, well...corny.      

New Green Dryer

When I think if a green dryer my first thought jumps to those olive green appliances from the early '70s. I know the 70s are in but this is not the green I am talking about.  There is a Parade of Homes in Texas that is featuring green home design and no doubt those homes have green dryers in them--they are probably white or maybe even those dryers in new fashion colors you see on commercials. Of course it is so important to have a laundry room decked out in the latest fashion colors, maybe there is even a lovely shade of green. I digress, surely the laundry equipment in these homes will be of the Energy Star variety. All good. But MY new dryer is even greener and prettier than the latest colors.

For $7 I got my new dryer and... installed it myself.  I love it!  I have a clothesline now. I am all about using technology to create a greener tomorrow but sometimes new technology is not necessary. I turned to classic technology to get my clothes and linens dry.

You may have seen my post(and more to come) about the wind energy proposals for my area, well I am harvesting some wind energy for myself.  I hang my clothes they dry in the breeze, I fold them as I take them down.  That deserves a replay--I FOLD THEM AS I TAKE THEM DOWN.  This is a big deal.  I am notorious for emptying the electric drier into a basket not to be folded for a few days or so.  So I have wrinkly clothes to then deal with. So for $7 dollars I got my clothes line, the hardware to put it up and the pins to hold items in place.  In return I get crisp air dried clothing that gets folded right away and I don't use my dryer or my iron.  Sweet!  After my initial investment it is free.  Why pay for a bunch of hot air when I got it blowing all over my back yard! Free, tax-free, energy.

Oh! and here is a shout out to GE and Kenmore and their  fashionable colored washers and dryers...YOU'VE GOT NOTHING ON MY DRYER--HOW BEAUTIFUL IS THIS!?!?!'