Archive for November, 2008
November 9, 2008 at 5:48 am
· Filed under Event ·Tagged Electric Vehicle, EV, Go Green Expo, Life Time Building Supply, Miles, Mt Ararat, ReVision Energy, Sustainability Now, Topsham, USM, WGME 13
The Miles all electric truck has a range of 50-60 miles at 25mph for about 2 cents per mile of electricity.
Despite what Kermit the frog says, it’s not easy being green. If it was easy to be green, we all would be green. Being green in an un-green world is especially hard and takes constant attention. If it were easy to be green I would certainly be greener than I am. You may call me a hypocrite but I don’t have an electric car, I don’t compost, and I don’t have solar panels on my roof. I’m not as green as I could be yet but I’m on my way.
Now before we start beating ourselves up for not being green enough, its worth pointing out that the whole point of being green is to be as green as you can, when you can. The point is not to be as green as someone else. You can’t measure yourself by another person’s green ruler or you’ll just never measure up.
That said, the Go Green Expo today in the Mt. Ararat high school gym in Topsham was all about teaching people how to get started on their own green path. The focus of the expo was on goods and services for you and your home. There were vendors at the expo today ranging from green contractors that could build your house to green home products that can help you live in your house, and everything in between. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 7, 2008 at 4:02 am
· Filed under Event ·Tagged Denmark, Energy, Portland Museum of Art, Renewable Energy, Samso, Soren Hermarsen, Sustainability, Turbine, USM, Wind
50 Meter tall wind turbines off the coast of Samso Island, Denmark. (Photographer Unknown)
Soren Hermansen approaches the stage. He is a tall, middle aged man with a European accent that slightly resembles Steve Jobs. He begins his lecture by telling us a little about his Island in the middle of Denmark called Samso Island. He also pointed out that his name in Danish is Søren, where in the ‘ø’ is the single letter in Danish which means island. He is here in Maine to talk about sustainable energy in island communities. If you think your electric bill is rough, island residents in Maine pay between 2 and 4 times the main land rate. The point that Soren is trying to drive home is that islands make a great location to harvest abundant sustained winds and by doing so, Maine island residents could not only generate all of their own power but also sell some back to the main land to create a negative carbon footprint. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 6, 2008 at 10:05 pm
· Filed under Event ·Tagged bioneers, Green Drinks, Maine Rock Gym, Portland, Ted Regan, USM
Portland Green Drinks will be making its monthly meeting on Tuesday November 11 from 5:30-8:00 at the Maine Rock Gym. This will be my first Green Drinks event but from what I saw at the Bioneers conference, it should be great. The Bioneers conference and Green Drinks both have something to do with Ted Regan who I’m hoping to get a chance to meet at Green Drinks.
A start up group I am involved in called Sustainability Now will be having a get together at a location to be announced, before the event to discuss, introduce, and generally shmooze about sustainability so we are all warmed up and pre-gamed for the big event. We are planning on meeting at USM around 4 and then walking to the TBA bar before we walk to Maine Rock Gym. If you’re interested, leave a comment.
If you can’t make it, no worries. I’m bringing my camera and iPod to take notes so I can report back on the site.
To find out more from the official website <a href=”http://portlandgreendrinks.com/Portland,_ME_Greendrinks/Home.html”>Click Here</a>.
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November 6, 2008 at 2:58 pm
· Filed under Big Idea
One thing Ive always wondered about is using a micro-hydro turbine tocapture the potential energy of rain.
is there even enough potential energy in rain worth collecting? I have never seen such a system or crunched any numbers but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that if you had a tall enough building with a large roof in an area with a high annual precipitation, you could generate a decent amount of power.
The reason why I was thinking of this is because a while ago I sat in an an interesting lecture by Dr. Rucgard Komp where in he said that in some more rural countries they use electric pumps and solar panels to pump water. it made me wonder why more rural areas don’t use water storage as a sort of potential energy battery rather than lead acid as a chemical energy battery.
picture the following situation. Manuel is a goat farmer in a small village of Mexico. He comes accross a solar powered pump. its able to pump more water than they need during the day but none at night because the sun is down. So Manuel decides to put a 10,000 gallon pond at the top of a small hill. during the day, the pump fills the pond which is also filled by rain once in a while. at night, Manuel regulates the release of water to a lower tank and uses the pump to harvest the gravity based stored potential energy as useful electricity and water.
can this work? How high, wide, and deep would the pond need to be? it would be interesting to find out someday.
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November 1, 2008 at 5:20 pm
· Filed under Big Idea ·Tagged On Demand, Tankless, Water Heater
I remember when i was working at the Home Depot there was an instant hot water display that for some reason never really caught on.
Instant water heaters or tankless heaters are either electric or gas water heaters that have no tank and heat water on demand by passing it through a spiral like heated exchanger.
The heaters aren’t rates by storage capacity like traditional heaters, they are ranked by the speed in which they can heat an amount of water from one temperature to another. If you have cold norther ground water at 45 degrees and like to take scalding hot showers with two water heads then we would suggest ordering the top of the line gas heater.
The display gathered a lot of dusk because of this fact. The gas heaters were expensive and the electric heaters were said to be under powered. I never realized at the time one great way two mix the traditional tank heaters and the tankless to create a powerful hybrid system.
If you have a traditional tank heater, to supply your shower water you probably have it set to 120 – 160 degrees. However, if you installed an inexpensive electric tankless heater near your shower it would allow you to turn your tank down to maybe 60-70 degrees and heat your water partially on demand.
The savings would be significant over time and well worth the $129 for the instant heater.
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November 1, 2008 at 2:19 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
I was thinking today about a radio show that I heard this summer that was really interesting. They were talking about Geothermal Energy on NPR. Its clear that Geothermal Energy is one of the most underutilized sources of home energy avaialable.
There has been a large popular misconception that Geothermal energy can only captured if you have a well drilled thousands of feet into the earth’s crust reaching soil at 800 degrees. This is simply not true. Below the six foot frost line there is soil that stays naturally between 50 and 60 degrees.
That doesn’t sound very impressive but you have to understand that a large mass at 55 degrees has a lot of energy and the ability to absorb a lot of energy.
By using a heat pump you can either push or pull geothermal energy in a big way.
NPR says it a lot better that I can. Listen to the story below.
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=93636624&m=93636616
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