popular logistics

The Gore Energy Challenge - 100% clean, renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years, can be described in 3 words. Reasonable, Achievable, Visionary. Here’s how:
40% Land Based Wind = 100 GW: $200 Billion.
40% Offshore Wind = 100 GW: $400 Billion.
20% Solar = 50 GW: $325 Billion.
100% Clean Energy = 250 GW: $925 Billion.
Save the Earth, and the Economy - Priceless.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And the age of fossil fuels is ending not because we have run out of fossil fuel, but because we have figured out how better technologies. Biofuels, Geothermal, Marine Kinetic, Solar, Wind, and of course, Conservation.

According to Truth and Progress, Al Gore’s renovations - delayed, apparently, because of zoning restrictions - are well  underway. JekyllnHyde on Gore’s improvements, initially quoting the Associated Press:

In an Associated Press interview, Gore responded to the phony attacks levelled against him a few months ago by a conservative think tank in Tennessee for consuming too much energy

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Al Gore, the environmental activist stung by criticism over his house’s energy efficiency, said Friday that renovations are nearly complete to make it a model “green” home.”This plan has been in the works for a long time,” the former vice president said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The only thing that has changed is that we’re more public about it because of the misleading attack by a global-warming denier group.”

Gore’s renovation project, which he said has been in the works for months, seeks to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Now, I’m no environmental guru (as I’m sure there are people here on Truth & Progress with far greater knowledge on the subject than me) but it seems to me that Gore is a man who practices what he preaches.  After his neighborhood council passed new zoning laws - ones that previously prohibited the installation of solar panels - Gore said that he’d be able to take the following additional steps

* install a geothermal system that will, among other things, drastically reduce the cost of heating his pool.
* upgrade windows and ductwork.
* install more energy-efficient light bulbs.
* create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

Al Gore’s “Green” Home Almost Ready. Is He?

We might say “the key to the future is a sustainable agricultural and economic system in which each member’s net negative carbon footprint, or their net incremental carbon cost is zero.”

Johnny Appleseed, on the other hand, would simply say just “Plant more trees, especially apple, grow more grains, vegetables, and roots like the groundnut.”

“And,” he might add, “do you really need to drive to the mall in a military transport vehicle?”

 

Mike Mercurio understands national security and knows the way to energy independence. He feels it with the cool breezes and the warm light of the sun outside his Long Beach Island, NJ home. He knows that clean energy stops global warming, enhances national security, and provides jobs.

He sees it on his electric bills – $9.50 per month – $114 per year – which reflect the clean power generated by the photovoltaic solar array on his roof. Without them the bill would be $150 in the winter, $350 in the summer - about $3,000 per year.

His neighbors can’t feel it, can’t see it, and have sued to stop him alleging that it is slightly louder than an air conditioner. What are they thinking? (Not in my backyard. Give me nuclear and give me death. Rad-Waste makes Teeth Shine.)

Photo curtesy The New York Times.

Send contributions to the Mike Mercurio Wind Power Defense Fund,

C/O X B ColdFingers, P. O. Box 202, Englishtown, NJ 07726.

100% of all contributions will be given to Mr. Mercurio to help defray his legal expenses.

If each of the 28 panels in the Sean Godsell’s Future Shack, click here for Jon’s post, was a 160 to 200 watt Photo Voltaic solar module, of the type manufactured or used by Akeena Solar, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, SunPower, World Water & Solar, etc. etc., the structure would be rated at 4.480 to 5.6 kW. In other words, it would be sufficient to power a small house - say your typical 1800 sq ft 3 bedroom single family home anywhere in the US (except the Pacific North-West).

NPR’s David Kestenbaum has been doing a series on Morning Edition about Japanese effort to keep up with the Kyoto Protocols

This morning’s piece is about internal temperatures; men in certain government ministries have actually stopped wearing ties to work.

Here’s yesterday’s piece; we’ll post a link to today’s piece- about office temperatures, and clothing, today when NPR posts its links.  Kestenbaum points out in today’s piece that this inititative adds up to only one-tenth of one percent of Japan’s Kyoto targets. On the other hand, 999 other efforts would make 100%. And efforts that make you physically aware, all day - may have persuasive value greater than that of less-visible schemes.

Congressman Dingell’s loyalty to the US automobile industry is laudable. However, resisting higher mileage standards does not help the industry. It doesn’t help management, it doesn’t help the workers, and it doesn’t help the stockholders. (Click Here or Here) It helps the Japanese, especially Toyota.

 

Ford Motor Company, for example, started losing the taxi and limosine market to Toyota long before Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative that all new taxis were to be hybrids. All around Wall Street, where the limos pick up investment bankers and hedge fund managers in cars that are driven 50,000 to 100,000 miles per year, you see old Lincolns and brand new Priuses.

 

Each Prius (Edmunds, Toyota, Car Talk), which gets 45 miles to the gallon, will burn 2,222 gallons as it is driven those 100,000 miles.

 

Each Lincoln Town Car, (Edmunds, Lincoln, Car Talk), which gets 12 mpg, will burn 8,333 gallons in that 100,000 miles.

 

At $3.00 per gallon, fuel for the Prius costs $6,222; fuel for the Lincoln costs $23,333. It’s economics not environmentalism. Fuel costs for the Lincoln are almost four times higher than for the Prius.

Even with a new set of batteries at $5,000, the operating costs for the Prius are less than half those of the Lincoln.

 

GM and Ford act like a man with a toothache who won’t go to the dentist because it will hurt. But unless he takes action the man will lose the tooth. They act like someone with pain that ‘is probably nothing’ who dies of cancer. And Congressman Dingell is saying ‘It’s ok, it’s probably nothing.’

 

Dingell’s loyalty is laudable. But rather than tell them what they want to hear, he should tell Detroit the hard truth - milage matters. Or to paraphrase Bill Clinton, ‘It’s fuel economy, stupid!’

So it turns out that the average American household consumes 70 gallons of water per person per day, which seems problematic and unsustainable even for those of us living on big islands still soggy from spring. (Calculate just how much water you waste with your thoughtless ablutions here. Now for the last time, would you please turn off the tap when you’re brushing your teeth?)

That’s the bad news. The good news is that populist logisticians are at work on the problem. There’s an article in the NYTimes today about “the Greywater Guerrillas, a team focused on promoting and installing clandestine plumbing systems that recycle gray water–the effluent of sinks, showers and washing machines–to flush toilets or irrigate gardens.”

Interested? Get your hows and whys here.

From ToolMonger’s reporting from Maker Faire:

These people from GreeneMotor brought out a number of motorcycles and scooters that they converted entirely to electric power. They claim that you can ride 450 miles on a single dollar’s worth of juice — even at California rates. Thumb your noses at the Prius crowd — you’re really green now. At least you’d be the first person on your block with an almost totally silent ride.

From  GreeneMotor.com.

Via Toolmonger. Maker Faire is a project of MakeZine, to which we subscribe.

Here’s a design for a solar heater built entirely from recycled materials. Might be worth having in an emergency - seems to be easily made, and quite portable.

Via Cynical-C.

 

Dr. Hermann Scheer, on the Eurosolar page.

The mythical Prometheus was banished from Mount Olympus for giving control over fire - technology - to man. Dr. Hermann Scheer, a contemporary Prometheus, an economist, and member of the German Parliment, and board member of Eurosolar, says “A Solar global economy will enable the total demand for energy and raw materials to be met. … By the systematic use of solar … all material needs of humanity can be satisfied on a permanent basis.” (For the text of the article, click here.)

President Kennedy once said “Ich bin Ein Berliner.” To paraphrase Kennedy, “Ich bin ein Scheermench.”

Sunpower Corp, which trades using the symbol SPWR, makes photovoltaic “modules” that turn sunlight into electricity. These can be small enough to power a calculator and large enough, when linked together, to power homes, stores, warehouses and office buildings. Johnson & Johnson uses solar power at its Cordis facility in Warren, NJ. As does Whole Foods in Princeton, NJ. and Timberland in various factories around the world.

Sunpower, through its Powerlight subsidiary ‘designs, deploys, operates and maintains the largest solar power systems in the world.’ Other publicly traded solar energy companies include Akeena, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, World Water and Power. They compete with BP Solar, a subsidiary of British Petroleum, Kyocera, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Sharp. Home Depot sells BP Solar’s best panels.

Microsoft Corp, which trades using the symbol MSFT, is a software company. It writes computer programs such as Microsoft Windows, Office, Exchange, SQL Server, etc.

The question is not will Sunpower start writing software, but will Sunpower’s stock price, or that of any of their competitors, follow a tragectory like Microsoft’s. What trajectory? A $3 Thousand investment in Microsoft stock at their IPO March 1986, would be worth something like $1 Million today. Each share of stock purchased in 1986 is worth 288 shares today, after splitting 9 times. (Click Here and Here) Because Microsoft, along with Intel, Apple, Sun, Oracle, Compaq, and other companies, changed the way we work, play, learn, and, think. They shifted the paridigm.
Solar panels turn sunlight into electricity without pollution, toxic wastes, radioactive wastes, mercury, greenhouse gases. There is no fuel, so there are no fuel costs, fuel spills, etc. There are no greenhouse gases as there are with fossil fuels and no security ramifications, as with nuclear power.
And Clean Energy costs less. Solar power costs about $7 per watt not counting any tax breaks or government subsidies. Wind is $3 per watt for offshore turbines, less for land based turbines, altho the maintenance costs are higher. Nuclear is hard to price because it relies so heavily on government subisdies. When you factor in the “externalities,” the time required to build, the fuel costs, nuclear power is probably on the order of $20 to $50 per watt.

So as Otis said, ‘Sittin in the mornin’ sun. …’ I can feel the paradigm shifting.

*
In the intrests of disclosure,. I am not a licensed financial advisor and I do not currently work in the financial industry. I do, however, own stock in some of these and other companies.

“Adapt or Die” says Gary Yohe, economist at Wesleyan and co-author of the UN study on climate change, on Marketplace this morning. Growing seasons will lengthen, rainfall patterns will change.

Some people are in denial. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their cheerleaders. Others are adapting. You can see solar panels on homes in California and New Jersey. Their visionary owners have no electric bill; their solar powered roof top power plants will pay for themselves 8 or 10 times during their 40 year life-span.

We see wind farms in operation from Jersey to Texas to California. More are on the horizon. Power without pollution. Wind Power. Solar Power. No greenhouse gases, no radioactive wastes, no mercury. Clean Energy.

If Vestas, harnessing the wind to produce 30% of Denmark’s electric power, may be the Apple Computer of wind power, GE is the IBM, legitimizing the industry with Arklow Bank as IBM did when they introduced their PC in 1981.

Evergreen, First Solar, and Sunpower may be leap-frogging each other for “best” solar panels. Meanwhile BP, the energy company that sees itself moving “Beyond Petroleum,” manufactures solar panels in factories in Maryland, Spain, Germany, and India, for sale in Home Depot.

The best example of adapt or die can be seen in the auto industry. Honda and Toyota offer hybrids with low emissions, good mileage, and great performance. Ford and GM are still pushing gas guzzlers. Big SUV’s are only profitable when they are sold, not while rusting on dealer lots. Wall Street is voting with its “Market Capitalization” and Main Street is voting with its wallet.

Tips on using available - and green, or relatively green materials as cleaning products.    From 101cookbooks.com 

Via Lifehacker