Green Living

YES! Greener new homes finally affordable!

writer lady — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:09:53 GMT

I've yearned for, longed for, even lusted for affordable new houses within reach of first-home buyers. Till now, new-construction green houses ran hundreds of dollars per square foot. But today there's good news: A pre-fab, technologically astute green home for $92 a square foot. The 992 square foot home featured here is too small for my family, but because it's a pre-fab, it would be easily and inexpensively modified.

Check it out here:

http://tinyurl.com/d7tr2n

A single product helps you save energy, water and money

writer lady — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:44:52 GMT

When we bought our house last year, we knew the old AC system was inefficient and would need to be replaced at some point, but frankly, there just hasn’t been room in the budget for such a major expense. As luck would have it, the AC condenser failed just when my mother-in-law arrived for a week-long visit, and just as the worst of the Tallahassee summer weather was coming on. The AC unit was running continuously, it just wasn’t cooling.

Not only were we afraid of the looming financial hit, while we waited a few days for the HVAC guy to squeeze us into his schedule, we were hot, sweaty, sleep deprived and cranky. Then my brilliant husband had a great idea; he went outside periodically and hosed off the laboring AC unit. Within minutes, the house would cool off and we all sang hosanna.

Three days later the HVAC serviceman discovered a minor problem, fixed it in less than 30 minutes, and we happily, thankfully, wrote him a $200 check.

As proud as I am of my husband’s ingenuity in employing the simple principle of evaporative cooling, I’ve since discovered his brainstorm had already struck some other entrepreneurs who now hold patents. A quick Google search on the terms “air conditioner mist” brings up more than 1 million results for the products some of these geniuses are marketing.

Most of the units we’ve researched sell for about $100, and claim a 30% reduction in cooling costs. One site has a calculator that estimated we’d save about $57 on our already-low average summertime bill of $280; that's only about a 20% savings, but still impressive. The device can be installed without tools in about 10 minutes.

Here’s how it works: When the AC fan comes on and starts blowing air upward, it lifts a flapper which opens a valve. Water then begins to flow to the misters, thereby lowering the ambient temperature. The AC unit doesn’t work as hard, doesn’t run as long, and doesn’t use as much energy.

When the fan turns off, the flapper drops back into place; the valve closes and no water is wasted. To save even more money and water, we plan to hook our mister up to our rain barrel. Including the expense of the rain barrel, the whole set up will cost about $200.

Don’t you love it when you discover a simple, inexpensive product--employing basic physical properties like evaporative cooling and gravity—that saves money and natural resources?

Plastic and paper bags: twin evils in a consumer society

writer lady — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:23:23 GMT

If they can do it Ireland, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Thailand, Australia and South Africa, why can’t we do it here?

Each of these nations have either banned plastic shopping bags outright, or taxed the consumers who use them.

Ireland began their efforts to limit the use of plastic bags in 2002 by charging shoppers 15 cents for each bag they used. In the first year, they reduced plastic bag usage by 90%, and raised $9.6 million. Retailers were happy to encourage shoppers to buy their reusable bags, and were doubly happy because they saved $50 million a year on wholesale purchases of plastic bags.

Why it makes sense to eliminate plastic bags

Plastic bags are petroleum products. In American, we use and throw away roughly 100 billion plastic bags a year--the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil.

Plastic bags photo degrade, meaning they have to be exposed to light to break down, so only the bags that end up as litter will degrade. When they do, they release toxic, carcinogenic petrochemicals and lead and cadmium-laced inks and dyes into the environment. And, because they take hundreds of years to photo degrade, nearly every plastic bag ever used is sitting in a landfill, caught in a tree limb, twisted around a water bird’s neck or is blowing along a roadway somewhere. Only 2% are recycled.

Other environmental effects of plastic bags

Every year, approximately a million birds and a million more marine mammals and turtles dies after eating or becoming entangled in plastic bags. In the northern Pacific Ocean, there are an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile.

Change is coming slowly in the United States

Last year, San Francisco and Oakland outlawed plastic bags outright. Santa Monica is set to ban the single-use plastic bags, but will still allow a heavier plastic bag designed for re-use. Seattle just passed an ordinance that charges shoppers 20 cents per bag. A native village in Alaska banned the bags and drummed up support of the new resolution by distributing pins that say “Plastic bags blow.”

Similar actions are being considered in Steamboat Springs, CO; Boston, MA; Baltimore and Annapolis, MD; and Portland, OR.

Say “No” to plastic…and paper bags

Many people think eschewing plastic bags in favor of paper bags is the middle road—a way to minimize their contribution to planetary degradation. If only it were so.

Unfortunately, paper bags are just about as bad as their plastic kin. Just like plastic bags, paper bags that end up in landfills cannot degrade because of a lack of oxygen and sunlight; in fact, a paper bag takes up more landfill space than a plastic bag.

They also contribute to deforestation and ozone loss. In the United States, we harvest 10 million trees to produce 10 billion paper bags. And, of course, there’s the additional environmental damage caused by the fuel used to truck the fallen trees out of the forest, and the pollution caused in the manufacturing process, and—just like plastic bags—the bags are made market-ready with a logo or smiley face printed with ink containing lead and cadmium.

Reusable bags the only solution

Many stores are now selling reusable bags made of recycled materials. The weekly groceries for a family of four fits nicely in approximately 10 of these sturdy bags. So, for a $10 investment, a family can easily eliminate their part of the damage done by paper or plastic bags. As a bonus, the bags fold neatly and can be stored in less space than the heap of twisted plastic bags that reside in a million pantries across the nation.

Spark-EV's all-electric SUV a dream car...literally.

writer lady — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:26:33 GMT

Just like millions of other Americans, I'm desparately but optimistically searching for an electric car that I can afford and that will be available before 2010 when most manufacturers are promising to be in production. No luck so far, but I'm learing a lot along the way.

For instance, I've learned another lesson from the book "If It Looks Too Good to be True." From the chapter I just read, we have promising news from a company called Spark-EV. They've been taking orders for their new all-electric SUV, the Zotye, a car that seems to offer everything other manufacturers are striving for and hoping to deliver two years from now. For a mere $25K the Zotye has room for four with cargo space left over. Its lithium polymer battery runs well over 100 miles on a single charge, and can do it at 75 MPH. And best of all, the manufacturer has been promising 60-day delivery.

All that and the Zotye is cute, too!

Unfortunately, the Zotye doesn't exist. The company's owner, Michael J. Papp, is sitting in prison after bilking Houston and Little Rock dealerships out of more than $100,000 for cars he never delivered. In fact, when Papp repeatedly failed to deliver the cars, the owners of the Little Rock dealership tracked him down and discovered he was running an internet scam out of his home and filing for bankruptcy.

The whole thing is infuriating, frustrating, and sad. But it's been an expensive learning experience for some people. For myself, I learned to look more closely and pay closer attention to details. If I had I might have seen the exhaust pipe on the Zotye's photo. Electric cars don't produce exhaust, so I guess this one is just for blowing smoke.

The NmG all-electric car means No more Gas

writer lady — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:47:49 GMT

If you've been looking for an alternative to your gas-guzzling, Co2-spewing auto, the NmG might be the American-made electric car just for you. That is, if you can get by with a single seater and get a kick out of driving a funny-looking car available in a bunch of fun and funky colors.

The NmG was originally made by CorbinMotors in California and called the Sparrow. But after a 2002 bankruptcy, the company and the car design changed hands a couple times. Now owned by Myers Motors in northeastern Ohio, the all electric vehicle' s new name, NmG, stands for No more Gas.

The NmG is essentially a fully-enclosed, three-wheeled motorcycle, with gas and brake pedals for easier driving. The US Department of Transportation considers the NmG a motorcycle, and most states require motorcycle tags but not a motorcycle license.

Powered by 13 maintenance-free, 12-volt lead acid batteries, it's capable of speeds over 70 mph, and has a range of 30 miles. To recharge the batteries, use the extension cord that comes standard with every NmG, and plug it into any 110 or 220-volt outlet. Charging takes six to 8 hours at 110 volts, but only four to six hours at 220, and costs only $0.02 per mile.

Eighty percent of Americans commute to work alone, and more than half drive fewer than 30 miles a day. With $4/gallon gasoline only a heartbeat away, the NmG could be the answer for a lot of people...if they can afford it; the NmG sells for $45,000. For more information on the NmG, visit http://www.myersmotors.com/index.html.

It seemed green at the time

writer lady — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:41:39 GMT

Even with the best intentions, it's not always easy to be green. There's a lot of conflicting information out there, for instance:

Buy hybrid! Actually, if your old car is still running, it's probably better to keep it, because the manufacturing of a new car creates a greater carbon footprint.
The electric car is the answer: Actually, it's not if it's going to be plugged into a community electicity source that's burning coal.
Ethanol, the solution to petroleum! Actually, it takes more energy to turn corn into fuel than we'd be saving.
Bamboo is greener! Actually, because bamboo is now so popular (and profitable) old-growth forests are being cut down to start new bamboo groves. And then there's the damage of shipping bamboo all the way from China.
Murphy's Oil Soap for green cleaning! Actually, MOS contains toxic potassium hyroxide.
Replace your lightbulbs with CFs. Actually, it's wasteful to replace perfectly good lightbulbs, and when those CFs burn out five years from now, what are we going to do with all the mercury in them?
Carbon offsets allow a net zero carbon footprint! Actually, some of the projects being supported are still in development and may never bear fruit.

I try to keep reminding myself that we're in a learning curve. It's only recently that the Bush adminsitration was even willing to admit that global warming is real! The great irony in all the hype and treehugging is that we're the generation of SUVs, McMansions, flat panel TVs, cell phones, laptops and bottled water. It might be that the problems we created are too complex to be easily solved. It might be that even with the best intentions my generation doesn't get to assuage its guilt by going green.

The higher gas prices go, the Smarter I feel

writer lady — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:27:22 GMT

Like most Americans, we are a two-car family. Most of our driving is done in a 2002 Volvo V70 station wagon that gets about 19.5 mpg during city driving; 30 mpg highway.

Unlike most Americans, my husband rides a bike to work three or four days a week, but after work he rides home and hops into a 1992 Volvo 940 to pick up our son across town. We’ve loved this car, but we're just about ready to sell it to someone else who is welcome to love it for another 100,000 miles.

We've been considering replacing this dinosaur with an electric car. No gas. No emissions. No noise. What's not to love? How about, no interior space, no availability, no affordability, and none of the safety we're used to in our Volvos. Many of the electric cars have to be recharged every few hours, or every 50 to 150 miles. Many of them are one- or two-seaters. I have solar power at home, and live about 5 miles from work, so I think the recharging thing will work out. The size of most of these cars means their utility is going to be limited.

Then there's the price. Some of them are available for as little as $12,000, but those are too small and minimalist for me. In Florida, AC is an essential, not an option. I've seen ads for cars that include wipers, headlights, taillights, horns, windows and heat as options! These are also the cars that max out at 25 mph.

The car that I've been following most closely for the past couple years is the Th!nk car. Th!nk used to be a Ford product, but is now being manufactured by Think Global out of Norway. Unfortunately, every time I look at this car, the date of availability and price are getting pushed further out of my range. Because the batteries for this car are so extremely expensive, the plan now is that the owner will buy the car, but lease the battery--at a price of about $300 a month. And that's on top of the $20,000 purchase price. Some older reports say this includes Wi-Fi, insurance, an OnStar equivalent, and battery replacement; more recent reports say it will include only battery replacement and maybe insurance. In my family, we like to keep our car payments at around $300 a month, so I think I've fallen out of love with Th!ink.

But now I'm thinking Smart. There's a new lithium ion battery version of the Smart Car that is supposed to be available later this year. Purchase price is about $27,250 including stereo CD player and AC. Now we're talking! I can live with 40 mph. I can live with the two-seater limitations. And, as a Volvo driver, I can live with the new test crash results…literally.

I don’t think our new Smart Car is going to give me the feeling of pampered luxury I initially enjoyed when I bought the V70—you can’t have everything. But I think I’m going to enjoy driving again. And I think my six-year-old son will grow up knowing his parents tried very hard to protect the world he’ll live in long after we’re gone.

Rock Port Missouri Powered By Wind

mike — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:57:17 GMT

Rock Port Missouri recently became the first city to be powered by wind energy. Wind power plants on a nearby bluff produce an estimated 16 million kilowatt hours. The city's 1,400 residents consume an average of 13 million kilowatt hours. The excess energy is sent out to neighboring towns. Since wind is unstable, the city sometimes has to pull energy from other parts of the grid to power itself.

While this city may be small and not entirely reliant on wind power, it still represents a huge step forward in the use of wind as an alternate energy source. How plausible do you think wind energy is as a future energy source? What are the benefits and drawbacks that may shape its future?

Going Green

writer lady — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:08:23 GMT

We've adopted several measures at our house to conserve energy and tread more lightly on the planet, and we're always looking for more ideas that will easily work for our family. I say "easily" because it's not always easy to get everybody on board: I recycle with about 90 percent consistency; my husband is at about 30 percent. But I'm the one whose guilty of doing a lot of unnecessary driving. Mea culpa.

The thing is, every once in a while I think I'm making an earth-friendly choice, and then I do further research and discover the benefits are largely hype. For instance:

We considered buying a hybrid car, but then learned that they don't really get the mileage posted on their labels. My husband is very interested in electric cars and scooters, but if we have to plug it in to charge it, is that really better for the environment? Better to keep our 1992 Volvo and just drive less.
We replaced nearly all of our incadescent light bulbs with compact flourescents, and then heard about the mercury they contain.
We were set to replace our ratty carpeting with bamboo, and then read an article the environmental impact of bamboo. Turns out that a lot of old-growth forests have been clear-cut to plant lucrative bamboo groves. Combining that with the effects of shipping it from China to Florida probably offsets the benefits.

It's confusing. Is anyone else confonting some of these same challenges? Is there a one-stop information source for socially-responsible, scientifically-proven ways of saving energy?

So far, we've retrofitted our 1950s house with enough solar panels to power the lights, TV, and DVD player in the family room, where we spend a lot of time. Our outdoor lights are solar. The new washing machine, dryer and stove are Energy Star rated. My husband rides his bike to work three days a week. We recycle (some). We do more of our household cleaning with vinegar and baking soda. Down blankets allow us to turn the heat lower at night; ceiling fans mean we can keep the AC set higher. We eschew paper and plastic bags at the grocery store and take our own reusable bags.

Please tell me what steps you're taking. And when you come across an interesting article that will help me and others sort through some of the conflicting information out there, this is the place to share it.

Tallahassee Green Events

Romo — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:59:14 GMT

Have you heard? On April 22nd--Earth Day--the Leon County Civic Center welcomes the Green Products Fair and Trade Show. According to the flier, you can expect to find seminars, hors d'oeuvres, a cash bar, and even a grand prize drawing for a digital camcorder, in addition, of course, to checking out the latest products for green design, building, and landscaping. For more information, see the attached pdf for the event.
Product Fair Flyer.pdf

New Technology May Make Solar Power More Cost Effective

mike — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:00:15 GMT

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a way to make solar power cells 15-30% more efficient while barely effecting the cost. While this seems like a minute difference, it could mark a major breakthrough for the world's ability to rely on solar power as its main energy source.

Solar power cells are made up of a thermoelectric material which generates a current when there is a difference in temperature across the material. The side exposed to the sun heats up while the shaded side remains cool, generating electricity. Gang Chen and his team discovered that by reducing the conductivity in the material, they can keep a greater difference between temperatures on either side. They have found that by grinding up and recompressing the material, they can increase efficiency by 15-30% without greatly increasing the cost of the solar cells. You can read the Full Article at Science News Online.

What impact do you think this slight increase in power might have on our world's dependence on fossil fuels? Could this development usher in a new era of solar power, or will it just not be enough to make solar power worthwhile?

A green living score card

writer lady — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:47:35 GMT

I just came across a nifty tool that lets you assess your environmental impact. After your score is calculated, the Low Impact Living Index (LILI) will give you a list of projects to reduce your score, and allows you to save your profile so you can check off the projects as they're completed. It also has a graphic that shows where you've gained the most points--where you're making the greatest impact--and tells you how many points you can shave off your score with each project.

The average score for an American is 100; my score is 74, but there was no place to calculate the benefits of the solar power we use in our family room. I'm feeling pretty darned good about that score, but I'm thinking of it as a starting point. For us, the biggest impact is the runoff from our big, grassy, .66 acre lot, complete with paved driveway and big concrete patio. Having lived much of my adult life in apartments and warehouses, I've never been much of a gardener, but my goal here is to add more native plants that require less water that grass. A previous owner used some tin sheets to enclose a tucked away corner of the yard way back under the trees and behind the ferns; this is where we dump grass, leaves and limbs. If we put a composting bin back there, we could make some mighty fine mulch and further reduce the need to water.

We also got penalized for our old beast of a refrigerator, but that's already on the must-replace list, so I'll be able to check that off the list soon. Unfortunately, the reduced impact of the more efficient refrigerator will probably be canceled out when we add a dishwasher. That's right, we've lived in this house for a year without a dishwasher. Handwashing the dishes isn't so bad, but we always have a rack of clean dishes sitting on the counter, and at least a few more dirty ones in the sink, so the kitchen never looks clean. I vow to buy the best Energy Star-rated dishwasher I can find, and run it infrequently. But, hey, I'm an American and what red-blooded American doesn't need a dishwasher! (Isn't that the attitude that got the planet into this mess?)

We're going to be starting a kitchen remodeling job soon, and plan to add new cabinet faces instead of new cabinets wherever we can. We've planned a corner of the kitchen as the trash and recycling center, which I hope will help. We're also planning to take out part of a wall which will increase the natural lighting and provide some cross ventilation. Low VOC paints, recycled tiles, cork flooring and more flourescent lights to finish the project.

So, there's my to-do list. Take the test yourself and let me know how you're doing.

Alternative Energy Sources

mike — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:13:01 GMT

Our world depends heavily on fossil fuel as its main source of power. These energy reserves are being steadily depleted, while our energy consumption is quickly rising. If this keeps up, we will use up the last of our fossil fuels and be left scraping for other energy sources. If we can't make the transition to renewable resources in time, we could suffer through a worldwide power failure.

We have technology for alternate power sources, but we are still staggeringly dependent on fossil fuels. What renewable energy source do you think will be adopted to fuel our needs for power? What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this energy source?