RALEIGH, NC -- Cree, Inc., a U.S.-based leader in Light Emitting Diode [LED] solid-state lighting components, and the City of Raleigh, NC, have formed a joint initiative to test, deploy and promote LED lighting technology. The “LED City” initiative is designed to create a “living laboratory” to deliver the economic, environmental and usage benefits of LED lighting to the residents of Raleigh.
“The economic benefits for municipalities to invest in LEDs are clear – they save energy, reduce environmental impact and improve the quality of light.” stated Charles Meeker, Raleigh mayor. “We believe that the cost savings and benefits of LED lighting are real and achievable today.”
Approximately 22 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States goes toward lighting, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. If 25 percent of the lightbulbs in the United States were converted to LEDs putting out 70 lumens per watt, the country as a whole could save $55 billion in utility costs, cumulatively, by 2025. That would alleviate the need to build 65 new coal-burning power stations.
Future LEDs are expected to have twice the efficiency, doubling these savings.
February 16, 2007
Cree spreads the light
December 09, 2006
You may qualify for energy incentives
My house roofDSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Click on your state to search the database.
See BusinessWeek Online for a slide show and reports on green technologies: Bore a hole into the ground to draw the earth's warmth to heat and cool your home. Or why not put up a wind turbine or install solar panels to heat the water in your shower? Here are some green technologies being used in American and British houses that both draw on designs from the past and offer a glimpse of the future of home energy.
July 16, 2006
Landfill technology: Bioreactor treatment is efficient and cost-effective
Just add water. That simple concept, coupled with a complex, computer-driven implementation plan is putting Polk County's North Central Landfill on the technical frontier of garbage disposal.Click to enlarge illustration
Tom Palmer, 'Bioreactor' Landfill Saves Space, Keeps Polk Disposal Fees Low
March 02, 2006
The Florida Solar Cracker House
I stumbled onto a web site describing "an energy efficient, solar-powered home" in Central Florida. Interlachen is located southwest of St. Augustine, east of Gainesville and north of the Ocala National Forest.
According to Liz, who published the online document, she and her husband Randy have been living in the house since mid-1998. She describes their successes and failures:
"Our original plan was to use no fossil fuels at all. We have relaxed that ideal a bit, and now have some propane appliances as convenience and backup systems. Our total use of propane is about 30-35 gallons per year, for which we pay about $75, including delivery. We also have a backup Honda gas generator, which we rarely use."If you're interested in this sort of thing, check out the site with its loads of useful information and photos. . . .
See also. . . .
December 13, 2005
Fuel oil: Farmer Hobbs grows his own
Plant it, grow it, rotate it, burn it
This is not such a ridiculous concept for Steven Hobbs, farmer working the land at Kaniva, eighty kilometres west of Dimboola near the Victorian/South Australian border. He's gone into production of his own bio-diesel fuel to beat the rising commercial fuel prices. "My experience began... five years ago when I was first exposed to the idea of growing bio-diesel as a farmer," he says. "Initially it started as a philosophical statement... I believe in farmers making themselves more sustainable."
The material Steven uses to produce his own fuel is found in his own backyard. "Being a farmer I actually already grow it. I grow canola... and traditionally [farmers have] sold it into... [the] human consumption market," he says.
"Essentially bio-diesel is a modified vegetable oil. A chemical process that's used to remove the glycerol component from the molecule... essentially transforms the vegetable oil into a... renewable fuel... that has very much the same characteristics as conventional fossil diesel, except it has the advantages of reducing emissions up to 60 per cent. And it's also a renewable source of energy," he says.
Yet the idea of renewable energy is not new to Australian farmers. "It's not a new idea - every farmer in Australia used to do it, they used to allocate 25 per cent of their cropping area for oats to cut for horses. Horses were organic tractors, if you want to put it that way," he says.
For Steven, the current global trend upwards in fuel prices provides great incentive for Australian farmers to get in on the fuel market, and to help reduce fossil emissions contributing to the greenhouse effect.
November 29, 2005
High school student cashes in on bio-diesel
HAINES CITY - Joe Gravelle is cashing in on the rising cost of fuel in America. As a local user of bio-diesel, an alternative fuel source, he is making his own bio-diesel and saving money on commercial diesel fuel. "It even burns cleaner than regular diesel fuel because it is vegetable based," said the junior at Haines City High School.Gravelle learned about bio-diesel online and started using it for an engineering project in Joel Decker's Engineering I class at Haines City High School. Gravelle's original idea was to have a simple project that he could get a good grade on. But he saw the opportunity to save money and now uses the bio-diesel for his own benefit.
The cost of bio-fuel is about $1 a gallon, including the diesel fuel that is in it. Owners of diesel vehicles can switch from regular diesel fuel to bio-diesel, no breaking in necessary.
Beating high fuel costs ....
November 22, 2005
Biodiesel Q & A
A Tampa company has lofty plans to continue importing the alternative fuel from Ecuador to sell for use in diesel engines.
What is biodiesel?
Biodiesel is a renewable diesel replacement fuel that is manufactured from plant oils and animal fats, such as soybean oil and recycled cooking oils. To manufacture biodiesel, these fats and oils are chemically removed to produce biodiesel and a glycerin coproduct. Biodiesel can be used pure (B100 or "neat" biodiesel) or in any concentration with petroleum-based diesel fuel to create a biodiesel blend.
More ....
October 17, 2005
Why is the US still so dependent on gasoline?
In Brazil, drivers can pay $4 a gallon for gas -- or they can plunk down half that for homegrown fuel. And the most popular new cars accept either one.
Flex-fuel cars are all the rage in Brazil where they have captured the new car market since they were introduced in March 2003.
Because of decades developing alternative fuel, Brazil, a country larger than the continental United States with a population of 186-million, boasts an infrastructure of 29,000 gas stations that offer everything from 25 percent ethanol-blended gasoline, known as "gasohol," to straight alcool (pronounced alko-oll).
This means huge savings for Brazilian consumers. Alcohol costs on average about half of gasoline, selling for barely $2 a gallon. Car buyers also receive an annual tax credit on alcohol cars, which have cleaner tailpipe emissions.
Brazil is now almost impervious to the instability of gasoline supplies that has bedeviled the United States in the aftermath of two massive hurricanes and the war in Iraq.
Gas pump prices seem stuck around $3 a gallon, but most U.S. drivers have little choice beyond regular, unleaded or premium.
"There is a lot we can learn from Brazil. They are doing great things," said Gal Luft, an alternative energy advocate at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a think-tank in Washington, D.C.
You can read the complete story here: Ethanol: Is it the answer?
October 08, 2005
How will we face economic collapse... if it comes?
The United States is now facing a predicament similar to the one the Soviet Union confronted some two decades ago. There is a great deal of discussion, among those few who try to think for themselves, about the right way to respond to the permanent energy crisis that has already started to grip the country. The entire American way of life is an artificial life support system that runs on fossil fuels, and it is going to get knocked out as these fuels run low. Of the few people who have any notion that this is happening, even fewer can imagine what might come next, beyond the gut feeling that it will be unpleasant. - Dmitry Orlov, Our VillageDmitry Orlov is the general director of the Agency of Political and Economic Communications, a Moscow based think-tank. Earlier this year, From the Wilderness published his essay, "Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century":
Through his comparison and contrast of the Former Soviet Union to the U.S., Dmitry provides us with one of the most penetrating analyses of post-peak that I have read. This article is packed with original insights derived from personal experience. The picture which Dmitry paints is unsettling, but it is far better than jumping feet first into darkness. The impending breakdown of the US and world economies is here clarified to the point that you can begin to prepare for this eventuality. And this article gives some of the most practical suggestions on how to prepare.Orlov's essay is in three parts and takes a while to read, but it is time well spent. I don't necessarily agree with all his points, but he gives us much to ponder. I've been thinking for some time -- especially in the past five years -- that preparing for a self-sustaining livelihood may not be such a bad idea.
Before presenting the article, perhaps we should emphasize one major difference between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution which now confronts us. Russia was able to survive the collapse and stage a comeback because it was largely a political and economic collapse. Russia still had a rich resource base, and most importantly vast energy reserves. Moreover, it was a regional collapse; there was a healthy world outside of Russia to which it could turn for aid, albeit at an exploitive price. Following the global peak of oil and the worldwide, irreversible decline in energy production, there will be little left on which to stage a comeback. Any economy which is dependent on hydrocarbon energy will be slowly constricted. Dmitry mentions this in his article, but it bears repeating. In this sense, the collapse of the Soviet Union could be viewed as a dress rehearsal for what is to come. - Dale Allen Pfeiffer, FTW Science Editor
September 28, 2005
Bush was against energy conservation... before he was for it
What? Another flip flop?
White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer, 5/7/01:
QUESTION: Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?
FLEISCHER (Flip): That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life. LISTEN HERE
White House Press Briefing with Scott McClellan, 9/26/05:
MCCLELLAN (Flop): [T]here are steps that... or initiatives that the President has outlined that are important steps that we can take to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy. This has been a high priority for the President from day one.
LISTEN HERE
(HT: The Daily Show via Think Progress)
My little fashion tip to the White House: The white socks are too much, especially after Labor Day. So lose the socks -- with the flip flops or the flight suit. Too many people know they're hiding what's already gummed up with crude.
Florida offshore drilling plan has Congressional support
Goodbye, Florida beaches, some of the world's most beautiful. Once the beaches and offshore waters are polluted, a possible consequence of gulf drilling, the Florida we love could cease to exist.
We all hope the worst case scenario never happens, but many members of the US Congress -- including several of Florida's own representatives -- are banking on hope while rolling the dice on the state's future.
Here's a photo of Caladesi Island, but this scene represents much of Florida's gulf coast.
Now imagine this scene following a major oil spill in gulf waters 25 miles from shore.
Just as 9/11 opened the doorway to Bush's domestic and foreign agenda, Katrina and Rita have blown open the door to another opportunity -- more drilling in gulf waters off Florida's coast.
In their push to move drilling even closer to the Florida coast, what can the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans be thinking? (Hint: the answer is in the question.) They are Republicans. All that matters is maintaining party unity and enriching their corporate sponsors.
A proposed energy measure would give Florida and other coastal states control over oil and gas drilling rights 125 miles from shore but would end state authority beyond that point.Read the article here: Offshore drilling plan has support
Dan McLaughlin, spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the bill may seem to give control over a buffer zone but is actually full of loopholes that could be used to allow drilling as close as 25 miles from shore.
"This is basically marching forward with an agenda to hand over to the oil companies the Gulf of Mexico," McLaughlin said, "and they're doing it under cover of hurricanes."
An aide to the House Resources Committee named seven likely Republican supporters of the bill from Florida, but three others may also favor the idea. In the past, Florida lawmakers have nearly unanimously opposed any drilling east of the Alabama state line, so this legislation could be a breakthrough for drilling supporters.
The committee counts as likely supporters Reps. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores, Ginny Brown-Waite of Crystal River, Adam Putnam of Bartow, Clay Shaw of Fort Lauderdale and Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Miami, all of whom have said they might be able to support a compromise along these lines. Rep. John Mica of Winter Park also has been sympathetic to the negotiations.
Also, Ban on coastal drilling losing backers
If you want to help, please write or call your US representatives and senators
and/or members of the House Resources Committee.
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