All Entries in the "Featured" Category

Want the Power Company to pay you to use electricity?

Photo courtesy Floyduk, Flickr

It isn’t a common occurrence, but if you live in certain part of the U.S. it does happen.  During the night in west Texas and Illinois, power plants that produce energy from the wind sometimes generate more electricity than their customers can use.  The result?  Well, if the power plants shut those turbines down they would lose the 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour tax credit for generating electricity, so shutting down isn’t an option.  Instead the customers are paid to use the electricity, which works as long as the customers are paid less than the power companies receive as a subsidy.  Essentially the power companies receive taxpayer money for generating energy from renewable sources which they then pass a portion of back to the taxpayers.

Operating at a negative isn’t feasible for extended periods of time.  After all, think of how much energy the average American household would use if they were being paid to use it!  Wind power companies are investigating different ways to harness and store wind energy as  compressed air that can be released during times of peak demand, or when the wind isn’t blowing.  Click here to read more about the storage process and the companies involved.

Reusable Sandwich Bags

Packing a lunch every day is a great way to save time and money and it lets you tote along healthy food choices.  But think about how many plastic bags are thrown away every day and what that does to the environment.  Fresh Snack Pack makes a reusable plastic bag that is smart, easy to clean, and made from PVC free EVA plastic.  You can fill it up and take it with you over and over again.  The envelope style pouch opens up with a tab to make food inside easy to get to, or you can fold it open flat and use the inside as a placemat.  It’s a great solution to an everyday dilemma.  Visit the site at www.freshsnackpack.com for more information.

Are you wearing your plastic bottle?

Have you ever wondered what happens to all those plastic bottles you put in the recycling bin?  Playback Clothing collects them, sorts them by color, and turns them into beautiful wearable T-shirts and sweatshirts!  Each T-shirt upcycles about 8.5 plastic bottles and 1/3 pound of textile scraps.  The colors of the garments come from the bottle colors so no dyes are necessary.  Most of the products are made from 100% recycled materials, and nothing the company manufactures is less than 70%. 

Visit www.playbackclothing.com to view more information about the product line and shop the store.

Maui sets goal of 95% renewable energy by 2020

When you think of places that are making great strides forward in utilization of renewable energy, Maui isn’t necessarily one of them.  But it should be. 

Right now Maui produces just over 15% of its energy needs from renewable sources.  Wind farms capture the South Pacific breezes and turn them into energy, while the left over product from sugar cane, bagasse, has been used by Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company to power steam generators since the early 1900s.  But is 95% renewable a realistic goal?   Absolutely.  Maui has great natural resources that, with efficient utilization, can provide an enormous amount of power.  Abundant sunshine and good winds make solar photovoltaic panels and wind farms viable.  By the end of this year Maui’s new wave platforms should be operational.  These platforms, located off the north shore, were built by Oceanlinx Limited, an Australian company, and are designed to operate by wave energy that displaces air and pushes a turbine located inside.  New wind farms are being built at various locations on the island to capture winds that blow from different directions seasonally. 

 A new biodiesel plant is under construction that will be one of the largest on the island.  Texas and Arizona developer BlueEarth Biofuels, is expected to produce 40 million gallons per year of biodiesel, eventually operating entirely from Hawaiian grown feed stock. 

One of the greatest, largely untapped, sources for renewable energy on the island is geothermal.  Utilizing this resource necessitates great care as it is an issue with tremendous cultural sensitivity. Volcanic areas hold spiritual significance for many indigenous Hawaiians who view excavation and construction in these areas as a desecration of the land.  Geothermal is a desirable energy source as the power supply doesn’t fluctuate like other sources, i.e. solar and wind that depend on sunshine and steady breezes.

The Renewable Resource Development Group has also recommended lifting the current cap on energy from solar installations that can be pumped back into the grid.  Lifting the cap would provide incentives for both homeowners and businesses to install additional PV panels, which would reduce the demand off the main power grid.  Maui is already one of the first places to require a solar hot water heater to be installed in every new home.  Arizona is also set to start mandating similar systems.  Building permits will not be issued to homes in Arizona unless they will be equipped with a solar hot water heater, starting in 2010.

Solar Forest charges your car

Vampire Energy. It’s sucking power out of your walls.

By now it seems that everyone has heard of Vampire Energy.  Sounds a little scary, but it’s really very simple.  All of the electronics and appliances in your home or office are using electricity all the time.  It doesn’t matter if youare watching the big flat-screen or not.  So what can we do about it? If you’re like most people you are cautious about turning off lights when you leave the room and turning off televisions when no-one is watching.  But do you really need to unplug them?  Cornell researchers say that the average house loses around $200 per year to energy that is used by idle electronics. I’m sure some of us lose a lot more money than that.  One solution is to plug devices into a power strip which is then turned off by the switch on the strip.  For computers and peripherals  there are a couple of companies that are making power strip devices that automatically sense when your computer is on standby.  Once your computer powers down it signals the device which then turns off all the other peripherals that are plugged into it. 

When designing a home from the ground up there is a much easier solution.  Make sure that all your outlets in each room have at least one outlet that is connected to a wall switch.  We’ve been doing this for many years in the homes we design.  Not only will you be able to eliminate the wasted energy from electronics, lamps, etc., you will also simplify turning things on in the morning or off in the evening.  I walk into my family room, flip a single switch, and all the lamps, television and electronics go off.  Another easy way to save on your electric bill is to install motion sensors on all incidental use rooms in your house.  Walk-in closets, hallways, pantries, etc.  All of the rooms that you go into less frequently should have motion sensor switches.  These devices are inexpensive and easy to install and you can set the delay timer that is built in to the switch based on how long you want the light to stay on.

Unique Modern Homes

If only this was my house.  This is the NISHIKIhouse, one of the new homes introduced by SUSTAIN house in their Modern Forest Series line.  The company is making headlines all over for their unique, small footprint homes that also happen to be energy efficient and green. What’s not to love.  The WILLOWhouse design (see photo below) entry path leads in over a reflecting pool — and yes, that is a waterfall coming out from the projection that shades the window.  Too many innovations to name.  SUSTAIN house is the new residential division of Barrett Design, and the brainchild of internationally acclaimed architect Johnna Barrett.  Rumor has it the new Mineral Series is being introduced before the end of the year.  Stay tuned.

Follow up note:  We just visited the new blogsite of SUSTAINhouse.  http://www.sustainhouseplans.com Very user friendly and there are some interesting excerpts about green building.

Are affordable green homes finally a reality?

We recently sent our team of writers on a web-quest to find new and innovative green home designs.  This one is a winner.  The firm is based in Atlanta, Georgia and they’ve recently introduced a series of plan packages called the Modern Forest series.  The image above is the ELMhouse.  All of the plans packages that the company offers are all-inclusive, meaning you won’t have to hire an architect or interior designer to work out the details after you purchase the plans. 

Do apartment renters want green?

Excerpted from an article by Johnathan Bartlett & Shyam Kannan, RCLCO

An overwhelming majority of renters are concerned about the environment, and almost half are willing to spend money to protect it.  Things like recycling are important to most people, but we can segment environmental benefits into two specific categories: those that impact health and/or pocketbooks (“me green”) and broader picture issues (“we green”). 

And you thought buttercups were yellow . . .

What a morning.  I thought I knew a thing or two about editing software.  But, sadly I’m not as informed as I thought I was.  Still, here I am, typing away at the computer and magically words are appearing that will be sent out all around the world.  Is that what I want?  What if I say something stupid, or irrelevant, or worse yet — what if I’m completely wrong?  Sigh.