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I once heard an electrical utility use the marketing phrase, "Electric heat is 100% efficient"

The logic is that 100% of the energy available at a heating element becomes heat. The amount of energy lost to get that heat out of the heating element from the energy source is hard to quantify.

Electrical energy begins as a fuel source or renewable, transformed into heat, then motion or converted (solar cells) and is pushed though wires. The efficiency rapidly deteriorates.

I was looking at the specs of a 1997 all electric Chevy S-10. The system efficiency is 73%.

Electrical energy is converted to chemical storage in batteries and then converted back to the motor. Some electric vehicle motors are liquid cooled. This is because the heat generated in the motor must be carried away and that is energy not going to the wheels.

I came across a conventional thermal electricity production efficiency table for European power plants from 1990-2004 (ims.eionet.europa.eu) The average efficiency was 38%.

Think of your home heating system that is converting heat from fuel (running at 60%-95% efficiency), only you have to heat that water to high temperature steam and push a turbine with it loosing efficiency along the way.

Transmission and distribution losses of electricity in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 (climatetechnology.gov)

My fat cat is more efficient at gathering sunlight than a thin cat. She is 100% efficient at annoying me to get out on the deck for energy capture.

None of this is really scientific, but if you started with 38% efficiency from the power plant then subtract 7.2% from transmission and distribution, then plug it into a vehicle that is 73% efficient, there isn't much of the original energy of the raw fuel to move the vehicle.

To be fair, the efficiency of a gasoline powered vehicle is about 12%, Much of the energy of gasoline is lost in heat and friction, plus we can't forget the energy exerted to refine the fuel.

The value of an electric vehicle is more determined by the energy source.

If you live in Quebec, where over 90% of your energy is produced by hydro or if you are fueled by a solar grid, inefficiency is irrelevant.

Sunshine and flowing water will release their energy regardless of whether we capture it, waste is irrelevant unless you are trying to catch more.

The efficiency (and value) of electric cars should be graded by how well we use renewable resources before electrical energy ever reaches the vehicle, otherwise we are just wasting fossil fuel by converting, transmitting and storing it's energy.

Giant Food Stores has blended energy saving technology into their new Manchester, Pa. store.

Skylights are balanced with florescent lighting automatically.

As the store gets darker from cloud cover, the lights automatically compensate. On a sunny day, the main overhead lights stay off.

The freezers are illuminated with strips of white LED lights and LED arrays are used in several display lights. The freezers also are designed not to use heaters in the doors to prevent fogging.

Water-free urinals cut down on water use and sewer plant processing.

Locally grown vegetables cut energy to transport produce long distances and push money into the local economy.

The grand opening is tomorrow.

I watched a solar panel installation on a Springfield Township home by ASCOM Electric of Dover, Pa. today.

It's an interesting relationship between industry and home businesses.

To live off the grid using solar power is impractical in Pennsylvania. We don't get enough sun and battery storage is expensive and has a shelf life of about five years.

However, using the existing power grid as your "battery" is a very efficient way to buffer your personal power source and feed back into the grid during times of peak demand.

For the electrical utility, as well as other taxpayers who pay for tax credits, these solar home businesses help add watt by watt to the renewable content of the larger power grid.

After an eight year payoff for this system, the rest of the 25+ year lifespan of the system means a profit for the home solar business.

The system will produce 9.8 kilowatts during peak sunshine.

It's shameful. EWG tested 1,606 sunscreens for last week's special report, and we found that 3 out of 5 offer inadequate protection from the sun or actually contain toxic ingredients.

Yet the federal Food and Drug Administration still refuses to hold the manufacturers accountable for their misleading advertising and dangerous products - despite more than 30 years of promises. -- Ken Cook President, Environmental Working Group

2009 Guide

It's been ten months since I put my nuclear powered clothes drier into action. Since then, I have used my monopoly powered clothes drier twice during an extended rainy period when going naked would have been the only alternative.

My natural gas bill for June 2009 was $34.5 and my electric bill $31.5.

Aside from saving a lot of money and taking a moment to enjoy the outdoors each week in ritualistic meditation, I have come to the conclusion that the sun is a great stain remover.

After washing these kaki shorts one day, I realized that some tomato sauce that I forgot to spot was lingering. Three hours in the direct sun and the stain was gone.

Lemon juice can accelerate the sun's stain fighting potential.

When you wake up every day, who thinks about this? People take it for granted that the sun's there every day. It hits a little closer to home.

-JoAnn Graham, York Township.

Before dawn Wednesday, more than 75 people gathered inside Temple Beth Israel in York Township to celebrate the heavens' return to their positions at the beginning of time.

The blessing of the sun, or Birchat HaChama in Hebrew, comes 'round once every 28 years on the Jewish calendar.

Environmental concerns, including awareness about global warming, helped bring global attention to the event, which until this year was little known outside the Orthodox Jewish community.

Aztec Solar Power, a solar applications manufacturer based in King of Prussia, is planning to open a local plant, to Springettbury Township a company official said Monday.

The plant will create 100 jobs.

inyork.com/ydr

Jay McGinnis' inconspicuous house near New Park, Pa. is an experiment of alternative energy.

The windmills produce compressed air and electricity. The innovative air compressing wind mill stores the air throughout the farm using underground lines that act as a reservoir taking on air when the wind blows.

The solar panels on the garage heat water. The solar panels on the workshop generate electricity that is sold back to Adams Electric Cooperative Inc. Instead of using expensive batteries, McGinnis sells the solar electricity back to Adams Electric during times of peak sun (and demand in Summer) and supplements the farms' electricity when the sun isn't shining.

The hopper at right holds corn burned in the outdoor furnace that pipes hot water back to the living spaces. The wood that also feeds his boiler is grown on his property.

The 3-cylinder 2005 Honda Insight has consumed an average of 55 mpg over it's service life. The vehicles hybrid system recovers energy from braking and supplements it's tiny gasoline engine with an electric motor and batteries. The shape of the car, fender skirts and other design features of the quirky 1999-2005 Insight was capable of squeezing out 124 mpg by one hypermiling competition.

McGinnis believes that our fossil fueled world is in big trouble and we all need to do anything to use less.

McGinnis' business, The Woolen Mill Fan Company, creates reproductions of water motor fans. The parts cast in Central Pennsylvania by an Amish foundry bears the unusual mark of something produced in the United States.

Atlantic New Jersey's motto is ""Always turned on."

The 13,321 photovoltaic panels will produce an average of 26 percent of the convention center's energy.

"We estimate that we are going to save $4.4 million over the 20 years of the contract [with the solar provider]," said Jeff Vasser, president of the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority.

Cnn.com/tech

A few days ago I posted Jimmy Carter's solar panels shine in the movie "W"

The panels, installed on the White House by Carter in 1977 (along with a wood stove below) during that oil crisis, were an example set by leadership illustrating to the populous that they should move away from oil. The panels were removed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan who was more of a let the free market work as it will guy. The money went with oil.

Solar panels returned to the White House in 2002.

In the 1870s and 80s, many scientists feared exhaustion of coal reserves.

"One must not believe, despite the silence of modern writings, that the idea of using solar heat for mechanical operations is recent. On the contrary, one must recognize that this idea is very ancient and its slow development across the centuries it has given birth to various curious devices." -- Augustine Mouchot, 1878, at the Universal Exposition, Paris, France.

An interesting review of solar history by Radford University, Radford, Va. with many pictures.

• Abel Pifre, Mouchot's assistant, set up a solar engine to print The Solar Journal in 1880.
• John Ericsson , inventor of the ironclad ship USS Monitor during the Civil War, believed solar engines would be needed in the future.
• American engineer Frank Schuman built a practical industrial scale solar plant at Meadi, Egypt in 1910.
• 1982-1988 If someone had said, "Build the world's biggest technological turkey to prove that solar power doesn't really work," the Solar One plant is the one they would have built.

I went to see the movie "W" last night. Whether you love or hate George W. Bush, it's an interesting movie that digs into G.W. as a human being and not our usual view from the press release or a suited podium puppet.

The movie is fresh with a blend of recent history, so news junkies like myself can melt their own experience and research with the depiction of the producer.

I tried to gauge the crowd. They were all older. I tired to gauge the reaction. It was neutral.

I thought I might feel anger, but I only felt pity and a bond in that we are all products of our parents, experiences and people's expectations; objectivity is sometimes the ability to see past these.

During the movie there was a passing mention (jab) at Jimmy Carter's White House solar panels.

During the 1970's, Carter was dealing with the effects of an Arab oil crisis and was seeking ways to wean us from foreign oil. Carter had some success in reducing the U.S. dependency on foreign oil.

Carter lost re-election to Ronald Reagan in 1980. The solar panels eventually came down in 1986 and the solar research program was gutted by the Reagan administration. Those same solar panels were in operation at Unity College in Unity, Maine for 12 more years.

The college drove an old school bus down to drove Franconia, VA, to liberate them from a General Services Administration warehouse.

They placed 16 of them on their cafeteria roof in 1992, and used them to provide hot water for 12 years. unity.edu A few were used in experiments by students.

Solar energy returned to the White House in 2002 with a grid of 167 solar panels on the roof of a maintenance shed that has been delivering electricity to the White House grounds. Another solar installation has been helping to provide hot water. Yet another has been heating the water in the presidential pool. nytimes.com

I had never heard that the White House currently had solar power until I did some research here. It appears that it was publicized more by the solar industry than the president.

How cool would it be if the White House was a "shining city upon a hill" to the world. A visible symbol of independent energy.

John Winthrop, a pilgrim who arrived in a rickety wooden boat, coined the phrase when he described the America he imagined (reaganlibrary.com); a home that would be free from the restraints of the world he had known.

My natural gas bill is going up and so will electric rates soon and my income has been stagnant the past few years, so I set up a nuclear powered clothes drier to cut costs.

I came to the conclusion that my clothes drier, burning natural gas and electricity, really serves no purpose other than to consume resources and waste my money. In the winter, the beast sucks heated air out of my house that is already heated with gas. Every ten years or so I will spend $400 on a new machine.

Here is how it works: A giant ball, of mostly hydrogen and helium gas, is compressed and hung above my yard. This gigantic nuclear reactor isn't taxed and hasn't been monopolized on yet. It's free for me to use and should last several billion years. This is my heat source.

My blower is a byproduct of the reactor called wind. It also hasn't been monopolized on and taxed yet.

By taking a rope and attaching it horizontally to two vertical objects in my yard, I was able to maximize the effect of the nuclear reaction and wind.

Dry clothes for free.

Rep. Todd Platts, R-York County, voted with his fellow Republicans against the (energy) bill, calling it an example of "what is wrong with Washington."

Instead of addressing the interest of all Americans, Platts said the bill would continue to prohibit drilling in the locations where most of the oil and natural gas can be found. inyork.com/ydr 08/18/08

And in about 7+ years when this oil and gas hits the global market (a free and open oil market) where the value is controlled by those who have most of the oil (OPEC), the price effect will be nothing. The thirst by developing nations will continue to pressure that market and will only be more severe in following decades.

Oil is a dead end. The cry for drilling will continue until the day we run out and then there will be panic for a solution.

What is wrong with Washington is that it has allowed it's vision to be powered by whatever the monopoly is of the time.

What is wrong with Washington is that we should have been building a national resource of renewable energy decades ago so we wouldn't be so controlled by this mess now.

What is wrong with Washington is that it lacks innovative heroes who can dig through the think of the crowd, the flow of money, and look beyond the rhetoric of the day to the survival of future generations.

Congress' earlier attempts this year to renew wind, and solar tax credits, with a measure proposing higher taxes on the oil and gas industry to pay for it have been shot down.

"It's pretty remarkable. ... Wind turbines are used in political ads, yet we stand on the verge of not extending the credit which supports the growth of the largest-growing sector of the utility and energy area in the country," - Hunter Armistead, head of renewable energy for Babcock & Brown, the private-equity firm with 20 U.S. wind farms generating 1,600 megawatts wsj.com

House approves offshore drilling with alternatives, drillers revolt - greenmesh 9/08

I was stretched out on my deck tonight gazing at the sky while a storm rolled in.
I came to the conclusion that only the sun and the rain, as long as they fall above my property, are free. What comes from the sky above my head cannot be taxed nor can it be repackaged, marketed and sold back to me at compounded profit and then taxed.

Harnessing these things in my backyard, I could take control of my increasingly squeezed and controlled by corporate entity - life.

The secret is in the invention, not buying the product.

I am going to build a rain collection system to water my garden. I can tell you right now that it will probably take 40 years to pay for the parts since water is pretty cheap, but it will be an exercise in securing freedom and independence. A working sculpture of hope for my future.

BUSKIRK, N.Y. (AP) — A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at McDonald's, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings.

That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak future of the world's oil supply. Now, she's preparing for the world as we know it to disappear.

Breault cut her driving time in half. She switched to a diet of locally grown foods near her upstate New York home and lost 70 pounds. She sliced up her credit cards, banished her television and swore off plane travel. She began relying on a wood-burning stove.

These energy survivalists are not leading some sort of green revolution meant to save the planet. Many of them believe it is too late for that, seeing signs in soaring fuel and food prices and a faltering U.S. economy, and are largely focused on saving themselves. (AP)

I can't say that I would choose to live on the edge of peril. I find too much hope and enjoyment in life to risk that for even one day by adopting a doomsday view of the future.

However, how cool would it be if everyone cut their driving in half, came up with a random alternative to heat their home that the commodities market wouldn't harness for profit. Gather the tax free, corporate free, sun, wind and water on their own properties and use their own soil to provide themselves food and fuel. The price oil, natural gas and electricity would plunge from the lack of demand and the individual would gain a degree of independence.

Doomsday averted.

Loganville-based Komax Systems York was one of the businesses at the York County Cooperative Job Fair (YDR, 04/23)

Komax Systems, a division of the Komax Group based in Sweden, is front-runner in the world of building machines that produce solar panels, said Elizabeth Gillespie, a human resources representative with the company.

Southern California Edison plans to install a huge network of solar cells, 10 times bigger than any previous such installation, on more than 100 large rooftops around Southern California. The solar panels, covering more than two square miles of rooftop, will be able to produce 250 megawatts of electricity when the sun is shining, enough to power about 160,000 homes.

Edison’s order is roughly equal to all the solar cells produced in the United States last year.

Edison is under orders from the state if Califonia to produce 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2010.

The largest solar installation in this country is 14 megawatts, at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The largest in the world, in Spain, is 23 megawatts. Of the top 10 worldwide, all are in Spain or Germany, except for Nellis.
nytimes.com/business

Plug-in hybrids have been touted as a short-term squeeze on foreign oil. The concept is that you plug into your home outlet and run on the energy grid for a 100 miles or so until the batteries deplete before a gasoline engine needs to fire.

Electrical generation likes consistency and using non-fossil fuel sources during low demand that are already in place like nuclear, hydro and wind could cut oil use.

However, consider if everyone had a plug-in hybrid and started plugging them in during peak energy demand on a hot summer day. More power plants and peak demand plants that run on natural gas and oil would have to be built and fired up to meet the demand. Humans by nature seek convenience.

For plug-in hybrids to become part of the short-term energy solution incentives for time-of-day metering and consumer education need to be part of the sales pitch, otherwise, we will just have another ethanol quandary to sort out.

Martin Library will host an environmental panel discussion on February 21 featuring:

I was interviewed, via keybord of course, since I will be one of the moderators. Below is the text of the interview:

5. In your opinion, how does the level of environmental awareness in York County compare to that of other similar-sized communities?

York is a land of plenty. We have enjoyed low population congestion and are blessed with resources. California is tuned into air pollution because congestion and climate patterns demanded action. The desert southwest is tuned into water supply because of the lack of it. Other than the Codorus Creek, a stray landfill and an occasional bad ozone day, York County generally has not been confronted in the face with major environmental issues. High oil prices, wars and global cries that we need to act have brought these concerns home to York.

6. What do you believe the typical Yorker can do to improve the environment?

Use less to do more. Nothing will lower pollution, lower oil prices, and stretch resources more than choosing to use less through product choice and lifestyle. This concept runs contrary to our financial model that, up until now, has promoted and thrived on people using more energy.

7. As editor of Greenmesh.com, what do you see as the most promising alternative to oil-based energy?

Experimenting with many alternatives is the best was to transition away from an oil based economy. It takes time to understand the repercussions of any form of energy production. Solar collection is the lowest impacting source of alternative energy, but in places like Pennsylvania, solar isn’t practical most of the time. We have already experienced the implications of diving head first into corn-based ethanol by higher food and feed prices.

All methods of energy production have environmental implications and placing all our eggs in one basket gives power to a new monopoly and will accentuate any negative effects of pushing a single solution of energy production....

The race is on to become leaders in self preservation. States and communities that become innovators and solution makers will have an edge.

With electricity rate caps set to begin to be lifted at the end of 2009, they said, there is urgency to get conservation measures in place. Increased competition for "green" companies from other states could hurt Pennsylvania's economy down the road, they added.

"New Jersey and New York each are spending $200 million a year," said John Hanger, president of PennFuture, a statewide environmental advocacy group. "We need at least $150 million a year or we're not going to be a competitor in locating clean-energy producers here." www.philly.com

What's undecided in government is whether consumers are willing to pay now for promoting alternative energies though subsidies that are often risky investment due to the undeveloped nature of many technologies. Thinking green often pulls money away from entrenched capitalization (oil,coal...revenue streams) and money fuels government.

The urgency is reality: California has long tried to push tougher pollution laws often blocked by federal government. California has a dense population and a climate that makes controlling pollution a more in-your-face issue than most of the country.

In 2009 when electricity caps are lifted in Pennsylvania, consumers can expect and 20-30% increase in their electrical bills. One of the reasons that will be given will be high energy prices. A high cost is an in-your-face issue for consumers.

We stand at the crossroads made in all great investment decisions, only there aren't any safe government backed securities to bank on with this one. The worst decision is to make no decision.

Some community leaders are taking their destiny into their own hands.

In Parkland, Fla, there is free hybrid-car parking. Cash rebates for installing solar panels. Low-interest loans for energy-saving home renovations. Money to tear up desert lawns and replace them with drought-resistant landscaping.

Starting next year, San Francisco will offer home owners rebates of up to $5,000 for installing solar panels if they use a local contractor.

The city of Berkeley is financing the cost of solar panels for homeowners who agree to pay the money back through a 20-year property tax assessment.

Baltimore offers at least $2,000 toward closing costs for people who buy new homes close to where they work. It is called the "Live Near Your Work" program.

n Arizona, many cities pay residents to replace grass with artificial turf or plants that use less water. Scottsdale, outside Phoenix, will pay up to $1,500.
AP

Pennsylvania Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency

The energy bill fell flat in the Senate Friday after the house passed it. The White House issued a statement saying,

"“Their proposal would raise taxes and increase energy prices for Americans. That is a misguided approach and if it made it to the president’s desk, he would veto it.” nyt.com

The bill is more of a panic reaction by a few well intentioned to a dire situation than a solution.

Well true, the bill would have increased the price of energy for Americans because a majority of the taxes were on oil companies that would have passed the cost along to consumers; before the money taken away from consumers could catch up by creating competition with alternative energy. Also people affected by feed prices like cattleman lined up not liking it because the huge ethanol mandate would push the price of feed up squeezing them against consumers.

The love for corn based ethanol is mind boggling requiring production of ethanol and other bio fuels, from about 5 billion gallons a year of bad science and impact of the food supply today to 36 billion gallons of the same and yet to be discovered methods of production by 2022.

Old school oil wants to clutch it's money as long as possible and government is here to empower status quo economic highways. Meanwhile, no one with power is enough of a hero to see the big picture and force change. The planet continues to die.

Nothing is going to get done here until consumers start using some things, stop using others and conserving what we must use but don't want. The great part about capitalism is that there has to be a market for something to gain power. Ultimately, an educated consumer holds all the power.

Solar Electric Vehicles, of Califonia, makes a system of solar cells conformed to the roof of a vehicle by embedding the solar cells into fiberglass and custom molding it.

With the SEV solar system, the Toyota Prius can operate up to 20 miles per day in electric mode thus improving fuel economy by up to 29% (depending on driving habits and conditions).

The company soon will be producing solar panels for Toyota's Rav4 EV and Highlander, two vehicles with very flat roofs. Solar Electrical Vehicles has sold about 130 conversion kits for the Prius. The system drinks up solar power and uses motorcycle batteries hidden in the rear well to supplement the manufacturer's battery.

Solar Electrical Vehicles' solar-conversion kits can supplement "plug-in" hybrids conversions. A traditional hybrid charges its electrical battery from energy created when the gas engine is running and from braking. The plug-in hybrid can plug it into a regular wall socket overnight and start the day with a fully charged battery. That can reduce the amount of gas the Prius uses, however, fuel is still burned to make the electricity.

The solar kit takes it one step further, pushing the motorist further off the grid.

more info: scrippsnews.com

$159 a barrel by 2030 with 270 million cars in China

As gasoline prices quietly scrolled past $3 a gallon locally this week and a barrel of crude nears $100 there wasn't much to say here at greenmesh, though it's an oozing fissure in the dome of the volcanic energy crisis.

Those in the energy industry who can profit this quarter are not saying much as those who just "need" a 7-liter pickup truck to commute to work from their well heated, over-sized house. Life, aside from accelerating dollars in and out of a pockets, goes on.

The International Energy Agency in it's annual World Energy Outlook has taken a more pessimistic view over previous projections that in the past said pumping trillions of dollars into sucking oil out of the earth could meet global energy needs.

$100,000,000,000 in today's dollars could shift us to Hydrogen according to Peter Schwartz, a former futurist for Shell Oil, who is an investor in two companies developing hydrogen power technologies and Doug Randall, Global Business Network.

With that investment, the nation could shift the balance of power from foreign oil producers to US energy consumers within a decade. By 2013, a third of all new cars sold could be hydrogen-powered, 15 percent of the nation's gas stations could pump hydrogen, and the US could get more than half its energy from domestic sources, putting independence within reach.

All that's missing is a national commitment to make it happen. wired.com

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Iraq War Cost

I welcome $3 a gallon for gasoline. These small warning signs dotting the landscape are a wake-up call of what is to come. There is a price at the pump where an informed democracy will force a solution with it's tax dollars; perhaps that number is $4, $5 or $10.

Here are some projections by the IEA:
The staggering pace of Chinese and Indian economic growth in the past few years, outstripping that of all other major countries, has pushed up sharply their energy needs, a growing share of which has to be imported. Free trade means increased standard of living for developing countries. The world’s energy needs would be well over 50% higher in 2030 than today.

Oil demand for transport almost quadruples in China between 2005 and 2030, contributing more than two-thirds of the overall increase in Chinese oil demand. The vehicle fleet expands seven-fold, reaching almost 270 million. New vehicle sales in China exceed those of the United States by around 2015.

A 201-kilowatt solar system has been installed on the roof of Frito-Lay's Arizona Service Center, the company's largest distribution center in the country. The 201-kilowatt system, made up of more than 1,000 Kyocera high output 200-watt photovoltaic (PV) modules, is the largest business-owned PV system in Arizona. The system will produce roughly 350,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. PRNeswire

Arizona is perfect for solar power with Tucson receiving sunshine 86% of the time. Frito-Lay already has installed PV systems in six other distribution centers in California and New York.

HSL technology uses rooftop, 4-ft-wide mirrored dishes that track the sun with the help of a GPS receiver. The collector focuses the sunlight onto 127 optical fibers. The fibers, which can be thought of as flexible light pipes, are connected to hybrid light fixtures that have special diffusion rods that spread out the light in all directions. One collector powers about eight hybrid light fixtures--which can illuminate about 1,000 square feet. /www.ornl.gov

Energy from the sun is piped directly from the sun to where it's needed. Think of combining traditional electrically powered high efficiency lighting with a solar source. In full sun, the electrical l lighting could be scaled back while in darkness used 100% or dimmed back as required.

An electric ferry that will take passengers to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island uses a "solar sail'' covered in solar panels that collect energy from the sun and wind.

It is almost silent, emits no vibration vibration and emits no fumes, reducing water pollution and air emissions.

The solar/wind wing captures wind and solar power at computer controlled angles and folds down in high winds. Two diesel engines burning low sulfur fuel add power on high seas and act as a backup for 2 large batteries at the center of the boat that can power it for four hours. The three hull design minimizes wake to reduce coastal erosion.

Miss Statue of Liberty, manufactured by Solar Sailor, of Australia, will be able to reach a maximum speed of 13 knots and seat up to 600 passengers and should be in operation by the end of 2008.

Cool graphic about the operation from the New York Post

ecologee.net catalogs internet service providers that are run by solar, wind or a combination of eco sources.

Affordable Internet Services Online, Inc. solar powered network in Romoland, Califonia aiso.net

The Hawaii Gateway Energy Center in Kailua-Kona, designed by Ferraro Choi and Associates, Ltd., receives its power from the sun and is ventilated with cool temperatures from deep seawater.

The American Institute of Architects has announced its "Top Ten Green Projects," celebrating the best examples of sustainable architecture and environmental design.

"What few people realize is that buildings have the greatest impact on climate change — more than transportation and industry — because they consume so much electricity and natural gas, and they're all powered by power plants that themselves produce carbon emissions," said AIA spokesman Scott Frank. msnbc.com

Solar cooking might seem like a great way not to consume energy or heat up a kitchen, but for hundreds of millions of people around the world who cook on wood fires, burn dung and have to walk miles or use meager incomes for fuel it is a blessing.

The basic design of a solar cooker is to trap heat from sunlight and or concentrate the amount of sunlight available and retain it. The solar cooker needs several hours of sun and an area protected by wind.

The lesson of the solar cooker for us western world thinkers is that it's a device that uses free energy. We are socialized to think that our lives are commodity controlled. And the corporate world teaches us that for a concept to exist, we must pay for it.

Raw materials, energy, products, information, advice, training... are sold to us by the nature of living in a free market system. Everyone is always trying to find a way to make money of off something so our entire existence is based on the transfer of money. It's a major obstacle for the United States in the development of renewable energy resources or more specifically energy sources that are free for the taking.

Turning to food based biofuel sources like corn and soy as a replacement for fossil fuel is already resulting in higher prices of those commodities greenmesh 3/29/07.

Although the ability for us to turn surplus food into gas should be part of an overall energy evolution, historically individuals in our market will seize on any idea that appears to make quick profit and ignore the long term effects for the rest of us.

The United States is no longer a major exporter of goods. We have U.S. corporations that do business on a global scale, but the advantage of using foreign labor and the demand for products in those countries (as simple countries become more complex) is a far more lucrative market than the U.S. Imports of oil (to feed our heavily developed, complex lifestyle) and goods (because our labor has gotten so expensive because of our lifestyle) exceeds our exports.

Food is our national security wild card.