So, ok…it’s not Debbie. But how about Larry Hagman being the newest spokesman for solar energy? Go Larry! Could this be an indication that more solar power is coming to America?
I had really never thought about where the electricity that I use on a daily basis comes from until just a few years ago. I had never really connected the dots between those hunks of black rock, those red and white-striped smokestacks and the plugs on my wall. Am I the only one?
I have learned a lot about solar power and am excited about this alternative for coal and oil. The image I had stuck in my head of the solar panels on my house as a kid and asking my mom if we were making “homemade hot water.”
Now, solar energy is more visible and there are several different types. I’m sure you have seen the PV panels on people’s rooftops. You also may have heard about concentrating solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to reflect the sunlight on a certain focal point, either a tube filled with liquid or a point on a tower. Both PV and CSP use sunlight to produce clean energy. Yes, no byproducts…no carbon greenhouse gas emissions…just clean power.
I had the pleasure of visiting this solar plant outside of Seville, Spain last year. Solar installations, residential and commercial, are commonplace in Europe.
CSP plants like this one pictured here are planned for the West and Southwest of the United States. It is all powered by sunlight and mirrors.
Why have we not seen more solar here in the U.S.?
There are many factors. First, coal and oil are cheap and pretty plentiful. Also, there are many more tax incentives for the fossil fuel industry that are not there to help the renewable energy companies. Things are starting to change, though, and development is well underway.
Other obstacles that face the solar industry are environmental concerns with land use, and also the amount of water used to cool these plants. Ways these obstacles can be circumvented are by using land that had already been used for something else, thus is not “pristine,” and by using a dry cooling system. Both are more expensive routes, so the solar companies are doing the best they can to make their product more cost effective so that the American people can have clean energy like a lot of the rest of the world already does…
Check out the great video with J.R., and “shine, baby, shine!”
I must say I was attracted to the new Campbell’s Select Harvest soup because it was only 50 calories a serving (ok, that’s 100 calories if you eat the whole can like most people do). Once I got it home, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could read and understand all the ingrediants, the label was printed with soy ink on paper that is 75% recycled content, and they encourage the recycling of the can.
Now, we all know that if I had grown the ingredients and made my own soup that would have been “more perfecter, ” but for a canned soup from a regular grocery store, Campbell’s you are doing M’m! M’m! Good!
Do you want to travel more sustainably? I sure do.I do significant travel for work and my work usually requires that I fly and rent a car, so I am always looking for simple things to do to reduce my waste while on the road?
I start by packing a few small items in my suitcase that reduces my need for disposable items. In fact, I keep them in my suitcase once I return so it is easy to find them for my next trip!
I bring a plastic container with a lid that I use for cereal at the hotel.Sometimes I bring my own food, or sometimes I eat at the free hotel breakfast buffet. This container can also be used for lunch or dinner leftovers. I bring a plastic spork/knife set that fits nicely in my plastic container and works amazingly well. http://www.guyotdesigns.com/microbites
I bring a compact reusable shopping bag that fits in my purse and is great for items I pick up at the convenience or grocery store. http://www.chicobag.com/
I also bring a small bottle of liquid castille soap http://www.drbronner.com/DBMS/LS.htm that has an infinite # of uses. I use it as body wash, face wash and to wash my dishes.Truth be told though, the advantage to containers and mugs with lids is that it makes for easy cleaning. I put a little bit of soap and water in the dish, put the lid on and shake it all around. When I open it back up, my dish is clean, amazing! If only washing dishes at home could be this easy.
I bring all my toiletries from home to avoid using the disposable products in the hotel. I often use the hotel’s bar of soap and then put it in a plastic bag when I’m done and leave it in my toiletry bag to re-use.
So far, these are the items I’ve found that I can bring from home to reduce the amount of waste I generate while traveling. What do you do?
So….slimmer, sleeker, thinner, higher definition…and cheaper! What more could you want in a new TV? Well, you might want to consider whether or not the manufacturer will take it back when you’re done with it! Do you have any old TVs already stored away in your closet? Well, now more and more companies are taking back their old products, and that is a good thing because if they have to deal with the old stuff, they’ll make it less toxic and easier to recycle.
How do you know if a company takes it back? Do they have a good recycling program? Check out the Electronics TakeBack Coalition’s TV Manufacturer Report Card here.
Earlier this week, a cellulosic ethanol start up, named Qteros, announced that they had received $25 million in financing.
So why is this important? And what does it have to do with bugs?
Cellulosic ethanol is fuel that is made from agricultural leftovers, like cornstalks, not corn that potentially could have been used for food. So, they are turning waste product into fuel.
Given the economic environment, it is hard for start-ups to get money, and often in times like these small companies disappear. So this support demonstrates a real confidence in their product.
The way that this ethanol is made, simply put is vegetation is chopped up and put into a big stainless steel tank, and a microbe, called the Q Microbe, is added. Then, presto, change-o, out comes fuel! (The presto and the change-o include these micro-bugs eating and digesting and something with enzymes).
So, when do you think you’ll be putting this bug juice into your gas tank?
Not at least for a couple of years…but then again, do you remember what you were doing two years ago? Time flies, and soon some of these alternative energy solutions will be everyday products.
Millions of new TVs are being purchased all the time, especially with the digital conversion coming up. Safe disposal of the old ones is not easy to find, and you can’t just throw these suckers away! They are toxic!
Wouldn’t it be nice if the TV manufacturers took back their old products and recycled them for FREE? Well, Sony, LG and Samsung do.
Check out this zany zombie video put out by the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. Sign the petition at the end to tell Panasonic and Sharp to take back my TV!
So, you know all of those batteries that you throw away on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis? Well, they’re bad for the environment. They pile up in landfills, and some of the leftover acid that is in them inevitably seeps into the ground and can poison plants and wildlife.
Sung Woo Park, a designer out of South Korea, recognized this and decided to do something about it by designing a street lamp prototype that runs exclusively off of old batteries. Here’s how it would work:
Instead of throwing your old batteries away, you would deposit them into one of these lamps, which have slots for various battery sizes (see the diagram above). As more and more people put their old batteries in them, they are stacked end-to-end. While one AA battery may not have enough power to keep your PSP working, several of them daisy-chained together can create more than enough power to keep an LED burning bright. Instantly, you have a green streetlight that costs absolutely nothing to operate! Not a bad idea, eh?
The thought of actually having to do something makes you want to stop in your tracks? No worries, just take your next free 5 minutes to help get you on your way.
1. Sign up for paperless statements from your bank, your insurance, your utilities, etc.
2. Set up your online banking account to pay your bills online. Not only do you save time and money (no stamp!), but paper, ghg emissions (remember, that bill travels by truck), water to that used to make the paper, etc.
3. Gather up that big wad of plastic grocery bags that you know you’ll never get to the bottom of, no matter how many you use for trash, your lunch , etc. Then, go put them in your car. How many times have you walked into the grocery store, seen that bin where you can leave your plastic bags, and thought to yourself, “gee, I should have brought my bags but I always forget!” If you forget them in your car when you go in, then turn around, and get them. This may be two 5 minute segments for some people, but the decluttering also feels good!
4. Take 3 or 4 paper bags with handles, fold them up and put them in your car. Why all the bags in the car? Well, this is for when you go to the grocery store, think to yourself, “I should have brought my own bag instead of having to get more.” Of course, the bags could also be string bags, cloth bags, etc.
5. Get up out of your chair, and check your thermostats in your house. Turn them down, even by only 2 degrees. Check for drafts. Check the temperature of your hot water heater. This may take you two 5 minute segments, but every little bit does help.
It’s very easy for all of us to fall into the trap of “what difference will just one person make?” Well, according to new statistics out by McKinsey & Co. (yes, that McKinsey…and these guys don’t fool around), American consumers have direct or indirect control over 65% of the country’s ghg emissions. 65%!!! (please note that the figure is 43% for the rest of the world). This requires a major shift in perception, given that we have all been told that the biggest gains in cutting emissions would have to come from the industry sector.
Well, we could go into the fact that the US has 5% of the world’s population and burns 23% of the world’s oil, but that’s a downward spiralling conversation. Instead, how about we look at the areas we have direct control over…
Cars – 17% of U.S. ghg emissions come from passenger cars. To make a difference in this area you could drive a more fuel efficient car, and/or drive less.
Air travel – 2% of US emissions. To make a difference you could fly less.
Housing and appliances – 17% of emissions. To make a difference here, you could make sure your house is well insulated, lower your thermostat, use energy efficient appliances, live in a smaller dwelling…
I have to say when I looked at the areas where individual consumers have “indirect” control, it all comes down to looking for alternatives. These are areas like sea transportation (1%), agricultural and livestock emissions (2%), landfill emissions (3%), commercial vehicles (9%), and commercial buildings and appliances (14%).
What kind of alternatives am I thinking about?
Buy locally
Buy from smaller stores, not big box retailers
Eat less meat
Buy American made products
Be careful about what you throw away
Support businesses that are creating green initiatives
The sticking point, one has to grapple with, is that you’re not always going to save green to be green…
Special thanks to Jeff Ball at the WSJ for writing “A Big Sum of Small Differences,” 2 Oct.2008 which brought this to my attention.
However much I hate to admit it…WalMart is creating many green initiatives.
See what WalMart and the Environmental Defense Fund announced at the Clinton Global Initiative conference that was held last week in NYC. This comes to us from Grist, thanks to the brilliant reporting of Kate Sheppard.
“Walmart and the Environmental Defense Fund just announced an initiative to reduce plastic bag waste one third by 2013, by encouraging the use of reusable bags. The company estimates that a one-third reduction would take 9.5 billion plastic shopping bags out of waste stream and eliminate 290,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year … taking 50,000 vehicles off the road.”
So, what can YOU and plastic bags have in common??
1. Don’t use them. Use a reuseable bag.
2. Choose a reuseable cotton bag, or one made of recycled products. Check out these beauties – they are made from cotton and one style is made from recycled bottles! Fashionable!!! (Many of those bags you see in stores are made from more plastic that will be in the landfill forever!)
3. If you do use them, recycle them. Recycle all those bags you have stored under the sink. Take the extra minute to bundle them up, put them in the trunk of your car, and put them in the recycle bins at the grocery store!
I must say I was attracted to the new Campbell’s Select Harvest soup because it was only 50 calories a serving (ok, that’s 100 calories if you eat the whole can like most people do). Once I got it home, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could read and understand all the ingrediants, the label was printed with soy ink on paper that is 75% recycled content, and they encourage the recycling of the can.
