Been Kind of Busy

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Between vacation, an earthquake, a hurricane, and flooding after that I have been busy trying to catch up on things. Hopefully all this stuff is now out of the way and I can use my free time to write about some important stuff.  I should have an update on recycling infant car seats later today and than a bunch of other topics in the next few days that I just haven't written yet.

Work Place Snacks

Here is something I will never understand, people and their snacking habits at work. I completely get that it helps to have smaller portions throughout the day rather than the traditional 3 meals a day. I also get that some days you may need a bit more than you planned on in the morning. I also will occasionally get a snack from the vending machine. I regret it every time as I pay $0.75 for 4 pretzels but sometimes you need some food.

Homebrew: Reuse Spent Grains Revisited - Dog Treats

About a month ago I wrote about an article I read in my homebrew magazine. Well now that I finally had time to brew more beer and that I had an open keg to fill I got to try out one of the recipes. I went for the dog treats this time as I had already had dinner so no need to make pizza plus I figured I would make something for my dog who is a notoriously picky eater. Well not really he will eat anything, so I figured this would be a good chance to verify the recipe.

Energy Home Improvements Part 9: Enroll in a “Cycling” program.

This is part 9 on ways to take steps to make you home more energy efficient. You can go to the previous entry Part 8 or go to the next entry Part 10 here.

This recommendation is going to be late for this year as the summer months are almost over but would be ideal for most people come next spring. A lot of utility companies offer programs to upgrade your thermostat if needed and then to enroll you in a program to cycle it of your choosing. From my electricity provider provides a credit between $40 and $80 a year. The basic premise of these programs is that during peak energy consumption they will cycle select air conditioning systems off for a period of time. This helps the utilities in many ways, they reduce the overall burden of the system. They also do not need to start up dirty temporary generators for a short time.

Environment Review - August 31, 2011

Welcome to the August 31, 2011 edition of environment review.

Green

Tony Bennett presents 25 Interesting Facts You May Not Know About Recycling » Masters in Public Policy posted at 25 Interesting Facts You May Not Know About Recycling, saying, "Recycling is one of the issues handled in the realm of public policy. While some of these policies are handed down on a national level, issues such as this are generally dealt with locally. These twenty five interesting facts offer insight and background information about recycling and its positive affects."

Dan German presents True Cost of Plastic Bags posted at Green Eco Tales. saying "Costs of plastic bags for the consumer and the environment. This should help stimulate discussion on reducing your reliance on them. "

Jonny presents 10 Materials you can recycle. posted at Smart blog, saying, "With so many things going to waste and how much we're polluting the environment, this post discusses 10 things that you can recycle, doing your little bit for the environment."

Dawn Gifford presents How to Beat the Banks and Save Some Green posted at Small Footprint Family, saying, "Is your money clean and green? Does it support your values? Here's how to make sure it does..."


RebeccaExpertmom presents Review of Earth Friendly Eco Baby Wipes » Expert Mom posted at Expertmom, saying, "Review of earth friendly baby wipes."


Greg Diaz presents Kindle 3 Covers posted at eBook Reader Geek, saying, "Seeking eco friendly protection for your Kindle? If so, have a look at our round up of the top animal-friendly covers and cases for the Kindle 3 ebook reader."


Jeff Barrett Design presents Make my toilet GREEN! posted at Home Green, saying, "I am dedicated to spread the sustainable word and utilize my 15 years of green design implementations to create change one small DIY project at a time."


Katherine Tworsey presents 10 Regular Products That Are More Environmental Friendly than Their So-called Green Counterparts posted at Compare Electricity Rates.


Katherine Tworsey presents 10 Things to Learn About Renewable Energy Credits posted at Compare Electricity Rates.

 

Environment

Scott Bartlett presents Don?t Let the World Make Its Problems Your Problems posted at BATSHITE, saying, "An article about distancing one's self from the behaviours contributing to the global environmental crises--thereby increasing personal security."


Sue Waters presents 10 Best Cars for the Planet posted at Car Insurance Blog News, Tips, and Quotes, saying, "Green has become the most important color of the decade."


Sue Waters presents 10 Worst Cars for the Environment posted at Car Insurance Blog News, Tips, and Quotes, saying, "As the car companies scramble to evolve fuel efficient technology for the betterment of the consumer and the environment, they continue to manufacture quite a few gas guzzlers that seem to counteract the strides they've made."


Bernice Frankel presents 50 Must-See YouTube Videos to Learn About the U.S. Environmental Policy posted at Public Policy Degree, saying, "Everything from climate change to global warming and the U.S. laws that pertain to them are constantly changing, and as a result can cause scrutiny. These fifty informative YouTube videos help explain the environment and U.S. Environmental Policy, so that you can be educated and have a better understanding of what's going on."


Coleen Torres presents 10 Comparisons Between The Jetsons and Modern Technology posted at phonetvinternet.com.

 

Renewable

David presents Vertical Wind Turbines for the Home posted at Wind Turbine Center, saying, "Thanks for including me. This is my brand new site about wind turbines, been a long time publisher of green info at thegoodhuman.com Thanks!"


Dan German presents Green Eco Tales: Rain Barrel posted at Green Eco Tales. saying "Find out how to make your own rain barrels and help save the environment."


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Novel Approach To Generating Hydrogen Gas

Recent research has shown that hydrogen could be generated from water using modified semiconductor material. A great article in Science Daily the potential for an easier, cheaper process for generating hydrogen gas via recent experiments conducted jointly between University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville. Using this modified material Solar energy was able to split water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen. This gallium nitrade antimony hybrid alloy is relatively inexpensive to produce making it a good contender for generating energy by splitting water molecules.

Politcal Action helps change NJ Pet Euthanasia Bill

Last week on the web I saw a bunch of people protesting online NJ new law that would have required euthanizing shelter animals. Luckily enough people contacted the governor that led to changes to the law.  Quite a few people urging people to call the governor and this likely helped sway the governor to vetoing this bill with conditions. This is a good example of how when people get involved in politics they can change elected officials stances. I urge everyone to email, call their politicians to let them know how you feel on certain issues. It is best to have a specific bill in mind rather than to say I want you to support global warming initiatives.

Benefits of a Vegan Diet

I have read a few articles in the past few weeks about Bill Clinton who is now a full vegan. He started going vegetarian last year after having stent surgery last year and a quadruple bypass operation in 2004. This enabled him to lose 24 pounds before his daughter’s wedding but also provides him long term health benefits. This is quite a turnaround for the former president who used to have a famously unhealthy eating habit while in office.

This Blog Post at the USA Today has a lot of good info on the benefits of becoming vegan and some common pitfalls people encounter. 

About 3% of U.S. adults are considered full-fledged vegetarians because they never eat meat, poultry, fish or seafood, and about 1% of people are vegans because they also never eat dairy, eggs or honey, says the Vegetarian Resource Group. "The percentage of vegetarians has doubled since 1994," says John Cunningham, consumer research manager for the organization.

"What the science shows is that people who are vegetarians have a lower risk of heart disease and cancer, especially colon cancer, and they tend to live longer," Turner says. "They're also less likely to be overweight."

This blog article has a decent amount of tips for a vegan lifestyle. It is also a good read to find out more about the transformation of Bill Clinton from meat lover to vegan.

Energy Home Improvements Part 8: Clean Your Electric Heating System or Air Conditioner Filter and Fan

This is part 8 on ways to take steps to make you home more energy efficient.  You can go to the previous entry Part 7 or go to the next entry Part 9 here.

Changing your air filter in your house is important and should be done on a regular basis. That being said a lot of people neglect doing it. Much like a air filter on your car that helps make it run better, in your house it does the same thing. The main reason to change the filter is that they prevent particles from entering the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) system. The cleaner the air the more efficient the system. If the filter is dirty the intake can put strain on the system to get an adequate air flow. It also helps to remove bacteria, pollen, and dirt from being circulated throughout the house.

US Military Becoming a Leading User of Green Technology

I found this article on CNN and it is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. The short story is that a lot of the attacks that the USA military faces is on oil convoys. The reason for this is that most of the bases in the theater of way are being run off generators so they are constantly needing oil deliveries all over Iraq and Afghanistan. This has led to a high percentage of fatalities guarding these convoys. This has led to the USA military paying about $40 a gallon for fuel. This explains why the USA military is investing in some green technologies to power their forward bases.

True Cost of Plastic Bags

I have always wondered how expensive plastic bags really are. The only problem is how to calculate this. I have read at more than a few sources that stores spend over $4 billion a year for these bags. That doesn’t include the full cost. These bags don’t biodegrade in landfills, and they are often littered away. In the USA getting rid of plastic bags would in theory save consumers about which is obviously not a ton of money but not inconsequential either. I wanted to take a look at the cost from another angle for this post. How much many plastic bags are needed to drive a car 1 mile. 

Company Spotlight: Enerchange

With so many companies looking for ways to go greener to better promote their business and also save money there are many ways for them to tackle this task. In Minnesota EnerChange is a nonprofit that helps customers with their energy conservation. They provide helpful information via their website, professional representatives and programs such as Excel and CenterPoint. These programs and information help provide a blueprint of success to reducing your energy needs.

Yard Composting

A lot of municipalities will collect your yard waste, grass, leaves, and small branches. This is wasteful as all this material can be used on your plants around your yard. All of this can be used to compost or mulch in just a matter of months. All you need brown materials like leaves, branches and twigs. For your green material grass will most likely be the one you have the most of, but you can also use coffee grinds, and vegetable and fruit waste. By doing this you can reuse your waste. All you need to do is combine these materials into a pile. An ideal mix of materials is about 30 to1 ratio of browns to green.

You will want to find a spot that doesn’t dry out too quickly and has good drainage. You can either have it as just a pile or you can get a container to surround it. I prefer the latter as I find it easier to contain the pile, plus it looks a little more aesthetically pleasing to my neighbors I assume. My county was nice enough to provide these free if you picked them up. They aren’t great and if they were a little more rigid they would be great. Though you can’t look a gift horse in the mouth and they get the job done. When you have your pile started the temperature should be warm between 90 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

What I usually do is take all the leaves at the end of the season and mix it in with the last grass clipping from the fall. Then I let it sit over the winter, maybe stirring it when the weather allows a few times. By spring I start mix in more grass and other materials and start to stir the pile more often. I will also use the water from rain barrels to keep the pile nice and moist to help facilitate the decomposition of the material. By early summer I will typically combine the 4 bins I have to 2 and when I stir them I will rotate them from one to the next. By the middle of fall the bins are usually in good condition to be used.

You will find a lot of different recommendations as to how to maintain your compost pile. I have some sites below listed that I have found useful during the years. Doing a compost pile is a lot of fun and is an easy to give a little back to your yard.


Some Other Resources

http://www.mendorecycle.org/compostingBkYard.html

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/composting/by_compost.htm

http://www.diylife.com/2008/04/14/create-a-compost-pile-in-your-backyard/

Pictures of my Composting Piles

Potential New Design for Wind Farms

A few weeks back Science Daily had a good article a few weeks back on improved wind farm designs. Typically wind farms are designed so that each turbine is spaced a certain distance apart from each other. Research over 30 years ago had provided those guidelines but the California Institute of Technology has done some new research and it may show that placing the turbines closer together may provide overall system gains. This would significantly help in the development of wind farms as the current line of thinking was that improvements would come from larger turbines. With these larger turbines the complexity of the projects has gone up as well the cost.

Green Taxis: Eco Taxi

One of the toughest parts of public transportation is that it is a point to point system and to go anywhere too far from stations or at odd hours can be very difficult. In DC public transportation only run till 3AM and bus service till around midnight. In New York City the Subway runs all the time but buses do stop overnight. Even in Europe I have run into some stations don’t have trains running to them after certain hours and needing to get a cab to safely and quickly get to where I needed to go. If you are looking for green way to travel in a city you don’t always have as many options as you would like. Some cities do now have hybrid taxis though that help give another alternative. In Berlin Eco Taxi is a great alternative for transportation, they have over 700 taxis on the road. Be warned most of their website is in German but I will highlight some of their green, forward thinking.

The city has over 4,500 cabs and EcoTaxi has a sizable portion of the cities total. The company currently dispatches up to 750,000 calls/month. The company also uses solar panels at their dispatch center and using electro docking stations for electronic vehicles.

Currently a large portion of their fleet is Hybrid cars like a Toyota Prius or vehicles using natural gas that have lower emissions.

Quote:
Our system is sustainable cause every car is controlled automatically with a Vodafone sim card (M2M)

This Video shows how Vodafone helps to dispatch taxis in Hanover, Germany. The same system is being used by Eco Taxi in Berlin and in other cities.

With Eco Taxi a customer gets the next available taxi. This system works best when there are lots of green taxis from one fleet to quickly get to the next customer. Eco Taxi customers have a few ways to get a taxi, they can call the taxi phone number or with the Berlin Taxi iPhone app. This app will be updated shortly for other types of smart phones.

In trying to find out how efficient public versus private transportation is I came across this post showing how various transportation's stack up in the USA.  While I am sure European transportation is slightly more efficient than in the USA, but the charts show that a hybrid car is more efficient than most forms of public transportation. There are still times when the cab will be driven to its next destination or idling, but this is still much more efficient than a regular a cab and is probably not much worse than some public transportation systems. Especially when you consider that it can bring you directly from point A to B.

Green Taxis are not overly popular yet but as time goes on they can give us another way to travel in a environmentally conscience way. Currently the Green taxis are gaining in usage but some places are still behind like, Canada, UK, or South America. Even New York City had plans to make every cab a hybrid or better got struck down by the Supreme Court. 

In Europe Munich and Zurich also have Eco Taxis bit only around 100 taxis, so there is a lot of room for growth. Eco Taxi promises to have more maps of all the towns it serves but right now they only serve 3 cities in Europe. This company has a good green business plan and is definitely worth trying out.

Other links:

http://www.taxi-berlin.de/taxibestellung/app/%20

http://www.taxi-berlin.de/