Category Archives: stewardship

Cancun And Trains – I keep trying to focus on the residential market

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But stuff just keeps coming up that is too wild or too woolly to not at least post it.  I mean why in the world would you turn down money for high speed rail? The upgrades and new crossings and crossing guards are worth it.

http://www.forconstructionpros.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=25&id=18770

Calif., Fla. Big Winners as U.S. Redistributes Rejected Grants

Jason Plautz, E&E reporter, E&E News PM

California and Florida were big winners as the Obama administration announced the redistribution today of more than $1 billion in high-speed rail grants abandoned by incoming governors in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood officially killed projects in those states after a monthlong dispute with the two Republican governors-elect, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich.

Both Republicans campaigned against the rail projects, saying they would leave their states on the hook for operating costs and take away road-repair money. And both requested permission to redistribute the funds to other transportation projects.

But the Obama administration insisted the states’ stimulus grants be spent on high-speed rail, sparking protests by Wisconsin manufacturers that had been banking on the rail project and jockeying among states seeking fresh cash.

The administration has now reshuffled $1.195 billion — $810 million from Wisconsin and $385 million from Ohio — and is sending it to 14 states. The biggest grant, $624 million, will go to California, while $342.3 million will go to Florida and $161.5 million to Washington state.

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Then there is all the mucking around in an alleged Climate Change Conference. Here is what the Climate Change disbelievers have to say. But really for all they are accomplishing couldn’t they teleconference?

http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/10/hypocrisy-alive-and-well-at-cancun-climate-conference/

Hypocrisy alive and well at Cancun climate conference
By Amanda Carey – The Daily Caller

From November 29 to December 10, delegates from 194 countries gathered in sunny Cancun, Mexico to “lay the ghost of Copenhagen to rest,” as one dignitary put it. After last year’s chaotic, disastrous and worthless climate change conference in Copenhagen, the goal this year was simple: avoid further embarrassment.

The focus has been on hashing out details for a global climate fund, extending the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, and establishing an official agreement among developed countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 percent by 2020.

But in the middle of all the global-warming demagoguery and calls for developed nations to shell out $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate reparations to help less-developed countries cope with the unfair burden of climate change, one thing has very obviously not changed: the hypocrisy.

Yes, hypocrisy was present in Cancun just as it was in Copenhagen in 2009, Ponzan in 2008, Bali in 2007, and the many other climate change summit cities before them. As hundreds of officials travel in gas-guzzling jets and carbon-dioxide emitting cars to the conference site and stay in luxurious, high electricity-consuming resorts, the carbon footprint of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is ironic, to say the least.

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More next week

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Household Energy Consumption – How much do you use..

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Here is what the government thinks:

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/appliances/index.cfm/mytopic=10040

Typical Wattages of Various Appliances

Here are some examples of the range of nameplate wattages for various household appliances:

  • Aquarium = 50–1210 Watts
  • Clock radio = 10
  • Coffee maker = 900–1200
  • Clothes washer = 350–500
  • Clothes dryer = 1800–5000
  • Dishwasher = 1200–2400 (using the drying feature greatly increases energy consumption)
  • Dehumidifier = 785
  • Electric blanket- Single/Double = 60 / 100
  • Fans
    • Ceiling = 65–175
    • Window = 55–250
    • Furnace = 750
    • Whole house = 240–750
  • Hair dryer = 1200–1875
  • Heater (portable) = 750–1500
  • Clothes iron = 1000–1800
  • Microwave oven = 750–1100
  • Personal computer
    • CPU – awake / asleep = 120 / 30 or less
    • Monitor – awake / asleep = 150 / 30 or less
    • Laptop = 50
  • Radio (stereo) = 70–400
  • Refrigerator (frost-free, 16 cubic feet) = 725
  • Televisions (color)
    • 19″ = 65–110
    • 27″ = 113
    • 36″ = 133
    • 53″-61″ Projection = 170
    • Flat screen = 120
  • Toaster = 800–1400
  • Toaster oven = 1225
  • VCR/DVD = 17–21 / 20–25
  • Vacuum cleaner = 1000–1440
  • Water heater (40 gallon) = 4500–5500
  • Water pump (deep well) = 250–1100
  • Water bed (with heater, no cover) = 120–380

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More tomorrow.

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If You Live Anywhere Near Baton Rouge Please Attend LEAN’s Fundraiser

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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Louisiana-Environmental-Action-Network/103828312998455

LEAN Fais Do Do 2010

Come celebrate the holidays and this past year at a LEAN house party!

Join your friends and family at the LEAN office for LEAN Fais Do Do 2010. Let’s say a goodbye to 2010 with conversation and cheer.

Food, Fun, Drink and Cheer.
Perhaps even a few reindeer games!

When: Saturday December 4th 2010

Time: 3:00pm – until

Where: The Lean Office


162 Croydon Ave, Baton Rouge, LA 70806 (map)

We will have food and a keg of beer. Please bring any other food or beverages that you like or would like to share. If you are musically inclined please feel free to bring your instrument.
Come on over and pass a good time!

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More next week.

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Consumer Reports Can’t Be Wrong – Heating, Cooling and Water Heating 56% of residential energy use

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Something to think about as the weather here gets very cold and nasty. Insulate everything.

http://www.greenerchoices.org/energytips.cfm

You can make a difference
ANATOMY OF YOUR HOME ENERGY BILL AND HOW TO SAVE

This section looks at the environmental impact of our energy consumption, some simple ways to use less of it, and the many positive benefits that can result.

Home heating and cooling: 45 percent
In most households, heating and cooling account for the biggest single chunk of your energy bill. The good news is there are many ways to cut those costs.

Choose energy-efficient furnaces or air conditioners that are the right size for your home.

Properly insulate your home (especially the attic), including the duct system.

Contact your utility company for a free energy audit. If your utility company doesn’t offer free audits, try the do-it-yourself tool, from the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Programmable thermostats, insulated windows, and ceiling fans can also help lower your energy bill. A programmable thermostat, for instance, can cut heating and cooling costs as much as 20 percent when you use it to reduce the temperature 5 degrees at night and 10 degrees during the day when heating (or raise it an equal amount when cooling). Watch how we test programmable thermostats and get recommendations on choosing a thermostat (full report available to subscribers).

Hot water: 11 percent
Overall, water-heater technology hasn’t changed much in recent years. There are, however, newer, instantaneous heating models (with no tank) that can save you up to $50 a year in energy costs, although they cost more initially. Solar hot-water heaters are gaining in popularity as an alternative for or supplement to conventional water-heating units. For more information, visit the Department of Energy online or National Center for Photovoltaics.

Set your water heater to 120 degrees, it can save up to 10 percent in water-heating costs compared to a 140 degree setting.

Wrap an insulation blanket around your hot water pipes and storage tank.

Replace a showerhead that is more than 10 years old with a low-flow model. It can save up to half the hot water used for showering.

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More tomorrow

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Steet Lights Are A Total Waste Of Time – Turn them off

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OK. So I can see leaving a few on but one of the biggest office buildings for the State of Illinois in Springfield is the Stratton Building and it can NOT turn its lights off at night.

That is right night after night after night. But then the rest of the world looks like this:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-city-lights-space

hentziapalarum.jpgWritten by Michele Collet

The Greatest Cities on Earth Shining into Space

Nile River Delta at Night

Photo: NASA

Not only stars light up the sky at night; these incredible photographs taken from the space stations show earth in a whole new light.

The Nile Delta is illuminated above and shows the incredible distribution of the population. NASA describes it as a flower, with Cairo being a particularly bright spot at the base. Almost all of the people live along the life-giving river, while Tel Aviv, Israel is another bright spot, as is Amman in Jordan.

City Lights at Night along the France-Italy Border

Photo: NASA

A stunning image of the city lights along the border of France and Italy. With the alps separating the two countries, you can clearly make out the centers of Lyon, Marseilles and Torino. The island of Corsica is just behind the brightly lit moon.

Indiana/Kentucky/Ohio city lights seen be STS-62

Photo: NASA

This image was taken by space shuttle Columbia and shows Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The three bright lights in the center are Springfield, Daytona and Cincinnati, with Indianapolis in the lower left. Lake Erie, Cleveland and Akron are in the upper left, and Lexington is at the center right edge. The white light at the top is a phenomenon called “airglow”

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He Is Not A Survivalist – He just likes to do things the hard way

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MY favorite quote that I shall only paraphrase is, I could just jump in the car and go to the store for a lot of this stuff..but.

http://www.straight.com/article-357270/vancouver/peak-oil-spurring-locals-selfsufficiency

Brennan Wauters believes that the world has reached peak oil production, and that learning how to do things such as grow your own food and fix household items will help you take care of yourself.
By Carlito Pablo, November 10, 2010

What if you woke up one day and found that the world as you knew it had ceased to exist? It’s a thought that has probably crossed the minds of many and perhaps been quickly dismissed by most as silly.

For Brennan Wauters, this prospect is real. That’s why he’s preparing for what he describes as a “collapse”.

From Wauters’s perspective, the game changer is peak oil. He believes that in the past five years, the world has reached the point of maximum production of oil, and that the supply of this fuel source is on the decline. One day, the pumps may run dry.

But the 42-year-old Vancouver man is not the type to hunker in a bunker. He isn’t storing food, buying gold, or stocking up on weapons to survive in a post-oil world.

“I’m more a survivalist in the sense that I think we have to be psychologically prepared,” Wauters said. “I concentrate on being able to do things with as little as possible. It’s also an exercise to me, like there’s many things that I could just go to the store for. But I deliberately take a harder route just to test my own capabilities, to give me confidence that whatever happens, everything will be fine.”

Learning to grow food is one of those things. Peppers were ready for picking when Wauters showed the Georgia Straight the vegetable plots at the East Side house where he lives with a number of other people. There were also chickens and honeybees out back.

“If there’s a general economic collapse, people are not going to have jobs,” he said. “So they’re going to have time on their hands. And that probably means growing food so that they don’t have to depend upon some larger infrastructure. That’s the clear objective.”

Wauters is also collecting books on edible and medicinal plants. That way, when the Internet is no longer working, he’ll have something to rely on for farming information.

He’s also learning “wildcrafting”, or methods of gathering food from the wild and living off the land. He likewise considers knowledge of canning and smoking food to be important.

Wauters builds sets for movie productions for a living, and that partly explains why he has a large collection of tools. He particularly values hand implements—drills, saws, and sets of screwdrivers—which he said will all be useful when power devices can no longer be plugged into wall sockets.

He can also fix a bicycle, noting that this human-powered conveyance will eventually become more valuable than the automobile.

According to Wauters, neighbours come to him to repair various broken household items. The house where he lives has a shed that stores numerous tools, such as pickaxes, shovels, and rakes.

“The survival aspect is really two things,” he said. “It’s a mental exercise which helps you cope with adversity, and then the other thing is that it prepares you to be creative. You have to be creative to solve those problems that we’re going to face. We can no longer run to the store to buy something to solve our problem.”

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More tomorrow.

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Wind Power From Lake Michgan – We want it…No we don’t

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Why would wind energy generation on or in Lake Michigan be controversial? Well first there is the “Chicago Attack”. This will just benefit large cities. Then there is the “pristine view” attack. It will block my beautiful view of this beautiful lake on a beautiful day. Finally there is the, “sure it will create jobs….but not ones I will be qualified for”.

http://domesticfuel.com/2009/12/23/scandia-proposes-1000-mw-lake-michigan-wind-farm/

Scandia Proposes 1,000-mw Lake Michigan Wind Farm

28 Comments Posted by John Davis – December 23rd, 2009

A Minnesota company is proposing to build a massive wind farm in Lake Michigan, but some of the residents of Michigan, which has some of the highest unemployment rates in the country, still aren’t pleased about the project that would bring green energy and jobs to the economically distressed region.

The Detroit Free Press says that Scandia Wind, a Minnesota firm partnering with a Norwegian wind developer, wants to put up a 1,000-megawatt wind farm just offshore from the communities of Pentwater and Ludington:

Several companies have been sniffing out offshore wind farm possibilities in Michigan, but Scandia was the first to jump in and publicly announce its plans. The turbines would be visible all along the shore, which takes in Silver Lake and Mears state beaches, Little Sable Lighthouse and Pentwater Harbor.

The firm wants to build foundations on the lake bottom, which is owned by the citizens of Michigan, and place 100 to 200 turbines — 5 to 10 megawatts each — on top.

The total size would make the wind farm bigger than any proposed new coal plant in Michigan and nearly as large as the Fermi 2 nuclear plant.

Local residents say the wind turbines would ruin the view off their beaches and hurt tourism. Scandia officials point out that the $3 billion project would put people to work to the tune of at least 2 million man-hours.

COMMENTS

LakeShoreOwner

I attended the meeting in Ludington. Dirdal (Scandia Rep) said after the project was completed, only about 100-150 jobs would remain, and that national bidding for these positions wouldn’t guarantee they would be local. The skills for these jobs are not your garden variety skill sets.

I believe this project will only help those who need the energy and are willing to pay for it (Detroit and Chicago). Locally, aesthetically, and economically the Oceana and Mason residents will pay for it in lost property values and tax bases.

Julie Burdick

Wind turbines in Lake Michigan would lower property values and lower the tax base because the reason property values are high in this area is because of the access to the natural resources. This includes sailing, boating and fishing on the great lake and admiring the views from the beaches. This may work in Denmark etc. but it is not the reason people live and visit Pentwater and surrounding areas. Why should Pentwater bear the brunt of creating “green energy” for the surrounding metropolitan areas??

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OH then there is the coal, oil and gas push back – they are unreliable and costly.

Dustin

I thought this was interesting…..”Despite their being cited as the shining example of what can be accomplished with wind power, the Danish government has cancelled plans for three offshore wind farms planned for 2008 and has scheduled the withdrawal of subsidies from existing sites. Development of onshore wind plants in Denmark has effectively stopped. Because Danish companies dominate the wind industry, however, the government is under pressure to continue their support. Spain began withdrawing subsidies in 2002. Germany reduced the tax breaks to wind power, and domestic construction drastically slowed in 2004. Switzerland also is cutting subsidies as too expensive for the lack of significant benefit. The Netherlands decommissioned 90 turbines in 2004. Many Japanese utilities severely limit the amount of wind-generated power they buy, because of the instability they cause. For the same reason, Ireland in December 2003 halted all new wind-power connections to the national grid. In early 2005, they were considering ending state support. In 2005, Spanish utilities began refusing new wind power connections. In 2006, the Spanish government ended — by emergency decree — its subsidies and price supports for big wind. In 2004, Australia reduced the level of renewable energy that utilities are required to buy, dramatically slowing wind-project applications. On August 31, 2004, Bloomberg News reported that “the unstable flow of wind power in their networks” has forced German utilities to buy more expensive energy, requiring them to raise prices for the consumer.”

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Bunch of crap if you ask me. More tomorrow.

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Cap And Trade Rises From The Ashes – It made it into the Senate

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It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ16hEpB_Sk

Conventional post election wisdom has the Cap and Trade legislation being declared dead. But, it is sitting in a Senate that the Democrats control. Will they bust it lose during the end of the year session. Who knows, but I think the issue will not go away so sooner or later something will have to be done. I mean Russia caught on fire. How much more does it take than that.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/4/clean-coal-is-as-dead-as-cap-and-trade/

MILLOY: Clean coal is as dead as ‘cap-and-trade’

Mitch McConnell had better study up on the election results

By Steve Milloy-The Washington Times

While we shouldn’t expect our left-wing elitist president to understand Tuesday’s electoral rejection of his “progressive” prescriptions for America, we should expect Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, to get it.

But Mr. McConnell seems to have missed the message, at least when it comes to “cap-and-trade” – odd for a coal-state politician. The day after the election, Mr. McConnell said, “The president says he’s for nuclear power. Most of my members are for nuclear power. The president says he’s for clean coal technology. Most of my members are for clean coal technology. There are areas that we can make progress on for the country.”

Aside from the canard of President Obama sincerely supporting nuclear power and the fact that Republicans ought to avoid the loaded and already co-opted-by-the-left word “progress,” so-called “clean coal” is a form of Obama-think – a discredited cap-and-trade concept that was more trap than sincere policy.

Some in the coal industry and some coal-burning electric utilities had been talked into supporting cap-and-trade, provided that taxpayers and ratepayers forked over billions (if not trillions) of dollars for so-called “carbon capture and sequestration” (CCS) – that is, burying utility carbon-dioxide emissions deep underground and hoping they stay there safely.

But to the extent that any so-called environmentalists paid any lip service to clean coal and CCS, it was only to lure coal and utility suckers into cap-and-trade. Does anyone really believe, after all, that the greens would allow utilities to inject underground billions of tons of highly pressurized carbon dioxide all over the nation? They fought tooth-and-nail, after all, to prevent the storage of sealed casks of spent nuclear fuel one mile underground in the Nevada desert.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm-pFqdqcZY&feature=related

Which would they prefer, a tax on carbon? This guys lists all the reasons for cap and trade mechanisms to be set up by the Federal Government and heavily policed by the Federal Government. Nonetheless he likes carbon taxes because they supply more stability. But his belief that it won’t be passed on to the customer is asinine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSJdjb6K5i4&feature=fvw

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http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/cap-and-trade-legislation/810

Cap and Trade Legislation is Fatally Flawed

My First Ever Mea Culpa

By Nick Hodge
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

We may never see cap and trade in this country.

Those are words I never thought I’d write.

In fact, I’ve been touting the benefits of a cap and trade market since 2007. But new ideas, unraveling facts, and recent events have changed my thinking.

So today, I’m publishing my first ever mea culpa.

Cap and Trade Legislation is Fatally Flawed

My First Ever Mea Culpa

By Nick Hodge
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

We may never see cap and trade in this country.

Those are words I never thought I’d write.

In fact, I’ve been touting the benefits of a cap and trade market since 2007. But new ideas, unraveling facts, and recent events have changed my thinking.

So today, I’m publishing my first ever mea culpa.

Carbon Should Still be Priced

To be clear, I’m not saying that carbon shouldn’t have a price. By all means, it should.

What I’m saying is that cap and trade isn’t the way to implement it.

At the end of the day, carbon dioxide is a harmful waste product that needs to be handled. Companies don’t get free passes for treating and disposing of other waste streams their businesses generate. Why should carbon be any different?

Not charging companies for emitting carbon is giving them free reign over something they cannot and will not ever own: the atmosphere.

We don’t let companies freely dump waste into rivers or lakes… We don’t allow companies to dump waste in forests… So why, then, are we still letting companies dump a known pollutant into the atmosphere unchecked?

This is why everyone speaks of how cheap coal is. It’s not really that cheap, we just don’t include the price of carbon in its costs.

Carbon isn’t a business externality — meaning, companies that produce it can shift the cost to society — and it can no longer be treated as such.

The Trouble with Cap and Trade

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You can go to the article for the rest. I personally support a carbon tax. But I have always said that Cap and Trade is what we get because high finance wants it that way. More Monday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdAhR-c–20&feature=related

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Energy Efficient Roofs – Paint it white or

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It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvYsBlg4QEM

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http://www.professorshouse.com/your-home/environmentally-friendly/energy-efficient-shingles.aspx

Energy Efficient Roof Shingles

Home > Your Home > Environmentally Friendly > Articles > Energy Efficient Roof Shingles

image of energy efficient shinglesThe right roof is essential to designing an environmentally friendly and energy-efficient home. If you’ve got typical shingles or hot asphalt on your roof—as many homeowners do—you could be doing better. Below are a few cutting-edge roofing techniques that can cut your energy costs and make your house greener at the same time.

Use recycled shingles. If you want an environmentally friendly roof, the worst thing you can do is install 15-year, non-recycled shingles. These are among the most disposable building materials, are hardly ever recycled, and contain toxic volatile organic chemicals that evaporate under the heat of the sun. This means that just by sitting under the sun and heating up, your home is releasing toxic chemicals into the air. For a greener option, use recycled asphalt shingles that use reclaimed materials, reducing waste. These shingles often have a 50-year lifespan instead of 15, so you won’t have to replace them as often.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kilR-4rQS5g

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Consider metal. Metal roofs are more energy-efficient than shingles. Metal roofing is typically made from aluminum, copper, or steel, and you should ensure that your roofing is lead-free. Metal does not have the kind of heat-absorption qualities shingles have, so it will absorb and radiate less heat into your home. In fact, the right color metal will actively reflect sunlight, keeping your home cooler in hot summer months when the sun is most intense. Metal roofing also stands up to the elements better than shingles typically do—it’s the best for rainwater catchment systems, and snow slides off it easily.

Reflective coatings. To make your shingled roof more energy-efficient, brush a reflective coating on. Uncoated shingled roofs typically absorb around 80% of the sunlight that hits them—heating your home in the summer and driving up your air conditioning bill. A coated roof, however, can reflect about 80% of heat—giving you significant energy savings.

Clay and slate. Two natural materials that make excellent green roofing choices, clay and slate are both energy-efficient, can be disposed of without pollution, and are much less toxic than shingles. Corrugated clay tiles encourage air flow on the surface of the roof, keeping the home cool in the summer. However, hail will shatter it, which is why it’s typically only used in warmer climates. Slate is far more durable—it can last up to 100 years with minimal maintenance. Slate can also be reclaimed and recycled.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B7YeDmmTFc

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Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). This is a roofing system that’s coated with a film that converts sunlight into electricity—a solar-power coating for your roof. This system uses tiles or shingles, and the electric current flows on the edge of the roof. The tiles look like slate, and can be installed by most roofers—an electrician will also be needed to hook the solar-energy system up to your home’s electrical system. The charge it generates isn’t huge—about 1 kilowatt of energy per 100 square feet of tile

Roof turbines. Companies in the Netherlands, Scotland, and Britain are developing small turbines designed to install on roofs and convert wind power into home electricity. The turbines are typically around six feet across, and are usually mounted on the roof or a pole. Roof turbines feed energy into a converter, which transforms it into electricity for home use. They can typically provide enough power to operate lights, a refrigerator, a television, and a computer—providing significant energy savings. However, the amount of energy an individual house sees will depend on how windy its location is

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More next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EAog6Crv7c

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