Our World and Everything in It

I was watching Planet Green about solar energy, specifically residential solar panels, and found out answers to a lot of questions. An average 2000 sq. ft. home would need to use 24–3 X 5 ft. solar panels to supply 90 to 95 percent of all electricity to the home. The panels sit on a rail and install within hours. The current produced from the solar panels goes to an inverter box hooked to the home’s main electrical box. The inverter converts the direct current into the U.S. alternating current and that’s about it.

Now for the cost. Depending on the size of the house it would cost 15 to 25 thousand dollars for the solar panels. With federal rebates the cost is lowered to 12 to 20 thousand dollars. This is very affordable for many people, and for those that can’t afford to eat, let alone put panels on their roof, I don’t see why the U.S. doesn’t just supply the darn things.

I figure if there are 300 million people in the U.S., then there are more than likely 100 million homes. The average cost of 12 to 20 thousand dollars for solar panels is 16 thousand dollars. If the government can get trillions in debt over a made up war, and keep pork barrel spending in the millions, not to mention earmarks on bills that amount to millions, then why doesn’t Uncle Sam just bite the bullet and supply 100 million homes with solar panels? The total cost would be 1.6 billion dollars but over a 4 year time period, it would come to a paltry 400 million per year.

I say paltry because of all the stupid waste I’ve read about. If you read, you know. It’s as if there are two alternate worlds. One world is where our officials come from regarding the environment, which is totally disconnected from anything I’m watching on Planet Green lately. I’ve actually written to the offices of senators, the governor, and reps asking whether they have someone on the payroll to just watch all the latest innovations that are available because our leaders seem completely out of touch, and keep trying to feed us a bunch of bunk that we must drill for more gas, drill for more oil, fossil fuel, fossil fuel, fossil fuel. They’ve had their blinders on so long they fail to realize it’s the 21^st century, and we’re able to watch and see for ourselves that there are an awful lot of alternatives out there besides the same ole, same ole. I think it’s criminal the way we are blatantly lied to.

Just yesterday I watched as Gerald Brown, Great Britain’s new prime minister, and President Bush agreed that 1000 new nuclear plants will be built world wide in order to meet energy demands. This is the big alternative we’re being fed now. But why? Furnishing homes with solar panels is so much cheaper, and immediate. There is no 5 years of building a nuke plant, with the end result being no reduction in energy costs at all. Instead of paying big oil, we pay the nuclear industry, and still end up with radioactive waste that doesn’t dissipate for 1000 years.

Evidently helping consumers deal with global warming is one thing. Helping consumers deal realistically with global warming once and for all by getting homes off the grid will never happen because big utilities won’t be able to get a piece of the action. Heaven forbid we affect the monopolies of America in such a way they would no longer be viable, and therefore unable to gouge us at every turn. We should be feeling more and more like pawns everyday. 

Watch Planet Green on the Discovery Home Channel. There are a lot of myth busters on the show. You know myths that solar power is not a viable source of energy  in cloudy areas. Wellllll, in cloudy, rainy Seattle a couple just built a home using solar collector tubes to heat their water. It’s so simple an idea you wanna smack yourself in the forehead like a V8 commercial.

The tubes are made of glass that contain parallel rows of smaller glass tubes along which are metal fins. There is no air inside so that the fins do not corrode easily and the tubes last a long time. The fins heat up and in this case in Seattle on a rainy/cloudy day of less than 60 degrees, the heat inside the tube almost doubles to 113 degrees in minutes. The water flowing through these pipes is indeed hot!

The other night there was featured a 7,000 sq. ft. home in a colder state like S. Dakota, Montana, etc. The homeowner used solar panels that cost him $34,000, but provided 90% of the energy to his home even in the winter. The trick is to incline the panels enough so that the snow slides off, the same principle as a roof. In this case a foot of snow slid off the panels in short time after the sun came up.  

The price  of solar panels is not all that staggering, and what a return on investment, as well as a tax write-off. I rounded the $34,000 up to $35,000 and divided by the 7,000 sq. ft. equals $5.00 per sq. ft.

That’s pretty good if a person has a large, large gas/electric bill every month. I do not. So the $7500 investment won’t pay for itself as far as utility savings for me for a long time, but as a resale feature, and with the tax write-off, I might be able to recoup all of that investment at once. There are a lot of different angles to look at. Of course the conservation and environmental issues are always important. To be free of the grid is a very good thing.

This is a very cool channel to watch where we can actually see the opposite of what we thought was the truth. There are all sorts of solutions out there that aren’t that expensive like soft beautiful carpeting made of recycled plastic bottles, that does not stain, and is cheaper. Once you’re done with it, it gets recycled again. I wonder if it would deter fleas too?

Soon to come on this channel, Leonardo DiCaprio will host a series, which will detail the making of a model green community called “Greensburg” I believe. There are, however, community models for solar power somewhere near Southern California that are not only off the grid, but generate excess solar power.

What I can’t figure out is if there are communities baked by the sun that can generate a massive amount of excess power, why can’t we just realign our power source centers in these areas to supply enough power everywhere? Because it seems that of the homes and/or communities I read about as solar powered experiments there is always have an excess of power.  Islands habitats share both an abundance of sun and wind. Islands should be looking to immediately get off the grid via solar and wind power. I know Hawaii has passed legislation requiring all new homes have solar powered water heating systems, and they’ve had wind fields for quite a long time.

Check out the Discovery Home/Plant Green Channel. If you don’t get that subscription channel then goto: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/.

Check out this news from the Sierra Club: “Cars That Never Need Gas. Wish you never had to fill up again? Darrell Dickey doesn’t. He drives an electric car that’s charged by photovoltaic panels on the roof of his house. He’s one of three drivers who told us how they got into owning cars that are charged by wind or solar power.  As Dickey puts it, ‘For $45,000 we got a car and fuel for the rest of our lives.’” It covers the electricity on his house too.

Heck I paid more for my premium gas guzzling Cadillac 9 years ago. For anyone who pays a lot of money for their cars, this is a possibility. Throw in the house electric and what a deal! 

Read about other people who are taking the initiative to help themselves while they help the environment.  http://www.sierraclub.org/wecandoit/home/electric_cars.asp.

I read Mitch Albom’s column in the Free Press this past Sunday, and although I agree with him, I think it was well, um, a little bit dated. His perception that environmentalists are a league of people still derided as Chicken Littles is a little off. As long as I’ve been writing this blog, I think maybe I’ve been called a Chicken Little twice. I had one opponent that appeared to be a drinker going off into raves eventually calling me a cur so as to not get axed from the website for calling me something worse. But that was long ago. Another opponent eventually came to terms with the fact that on a lot of levels we are simpatico. We agreed that we do indeed create trash and should be cleaning up after ourselves, whether or not it does or does not contribute to global warming. Isn’t this moment of agreement in the environmental argument all that’s needed? Because cleaning up after ourselves is the first step to realizing just how much garbage we actually create, which should logically lead to more conservation efforts regardless of global warming.

In this light, how the pro-environmental argument is presented seems to make a heck of a lot of difference. Finding common ground brings people to agreement faster, and that’s what seems to be happening. Unlike Albom, I’m seeing a huge surge of environmentalism on TV and the Internet lately. My 85-year old mother pointed it out to me about 2 weeks ago. I paid closer attention after that and she’s right. There are all types of commercials on TV that are telling people to buy in bulk, don’t shampoo their hair every day, you know insidious mantra that eventually gets an entire population moving toward conservation without knowing it. Admit it. We’re herded more times than not and industry with the help of the media is like the rancher.

I blogged about industry moving the green market quite a while back. Industry’s push to go “green” is getting increasingly stronger because they can’t afford high energy costs either. GE can hardly keep up with the demand for its industrial wind turbines. Green rooftops are appearing on city buildings everywhere thanks to newly formed environmental organizations like Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. And just look up companies growing in leaps and bounds like Sun Edison, who provides an affordable way for industry to benefit from rooftop solar panels, that is, if they aren’t already planted green. Retail giant Wal-Mart starting moving to go green, and now companies like SC Johnson are looking to supply those big stores with their “totally” green .products. Even Conoco Philips (Big Oil) threw in the towel, and joined Tyson Chicken to create biofuel from chicken fat at no real profit, just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment. And when moguls like Ted Turner make statements that it’s absolute suicide to continue to pollute and consume the way we do, well, try calling terrible Ted a “CL.”

I’ve lost count of all the home improvement shows that tout “green,” as well as, media outlets like PBS, Discovery, Science, and National Geographic channels that consistently show the latest findings and discoveries regarding the environment and man. I’ve even watched Canadian TV like “The Outsider,” or “The Fifth Estate” air documentaries about U.S. government cover ups of scientific reports relative to global warming. I’m seeing more and more green shows coming out of Canada now. And I can’t say enough for organizations listed as links on my blog like EarthJustice, The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Union of Concerned Scientists, and many others that don’t think twice to take on the U.S. Government or anyone else over the environment and wildlife. While we sleep, or go about our usual day, these guys are out on cold oceans, at the edge of public forests, in congress, and everywhere they need to be to stop bad things from happening to our world and everything in it.

But best of all when I see Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich in a commercial urging citizens to contact congress to push ahead to embrace environmentalism, it’s a clear indication that forces are looking to gather against the old energy lobbyists and the spin machine. This was topped off last week when Henry Waxman, Chairman of the Committee for Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Johnson, that he need be prepared to testify regarding the recently released Union of Concerned Scientists Report documenting extensive and widespread political interference with the work of scientists at EPA. Yes!!!

Add to that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the EPA should be regulating CO2 emissions from autos as part of the Clean Air Act, and the U.S. Court of Appeals vacating the EPA’s “Clean Air Mercury Rule,” literally throwing out the EPA’s cap and trade system for mercury, and demanding the EPA set new standards for the coal burning industry within two years. Concurrently, it also vacated the EPA’s “Incinerator Rule.” This bodes exceptionally well for the Chicken Little movement.

The timing is uncanny, but unlike Mr. Albom’s perception of environmental efforts, this past Sunday, for the first time in a very long time, I was optimistic about environmentalism, my faith in America restored. After researching the onslaught against our parks, our air, our water, animals, and their habitat for so long by the Bush/Cheney administration, I finally sensed a real, hardy shove back by the other powers that be, which is American industry and ingenuity. They don’t seem to suffer low self-esteem as a “Chicken Little” crowd at all. Had Mitch written about the “CL” complex a year ago I might have wholeheartedly agreed. But now, all I see is the “greening” of America, like it or not. As for “Chicken Little” calling, sticks and stones…

I ran across a good website that explains RPS or Renewable Portfolio Standards. A state’s RPS spells out what is being enacted within the state to lower the state’s dependency on fossil fuels through conservation and alternative energy initiatives. And it draws jobs—many, many jobs!  An  analogy would be that an RPS is like a state’s environmental resume for new green businesses looking for a home for their headquarters/operations.

So all RPS’s aren’t the same of course. An RPS must be tailored to the state. All states won’t lean equally on the wind, solar, or geothermal power mix that are major parts of a state’s RPS.  Some states will rely on solar more than wind, or wind more than geothermal power. An article that discusses Michigan’s RPS and how it already leaves solar out of the picture is http://www.photon-magazine.com/news_archiv/details.aspx?cat=News_PI&sub=america&pub=4&parent=624. That’s too bad because solar has been really good for me this winter in Michigan.

There is a lot of reading here and it’s very interesting. Twenty-four states have already established RPS’s and are experiencing a lot of job growth. Considering Michigan barely regulates its CO2 emissions, and keeps inviting more polluting industries into the state, I don’t find it surprising that Michigan doesn’t have an RPS yet. Of all the states that have suffered heavy job loss, an RPS should have been first on an agenda for our congress. Contact our reps. and senators to get moving on “green” job opportunities in the thousands in Michigan and cut the polluters loose.

The tax benefits to states that court “green” business is good also. The sercoline website below stated that in Nevada, one geothermal plant paid “$800,000 in county taxes and $1.7 million in property taxes. In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management collects nearly $20 million each year in rent and royalties from geothermal plants producing power on federal lands in Nevada – half of these revenues are returned to the state.” In Iowa, “the 240 MW of wind capacity installed in 1998 and 1999 produced $2 million per year in tax payments to counties and school districts and $640,000 per year in direct lease payments to landowners.”

So having, as well as, advertising a good RPS will garner states more jobs, a greater tax base, and a much healthier environment while helping alleviate overall global warming. The big bonus: it entices more business to come on board, like Minnesota: “The 143 wind turbines in the 107-MW Lake Benton I project in Minnesota, installed in early 1998, brought $250 million in investment.”
 
Are Michigan’s tradeoffs to polluting industries for a few hundred jobs saved here and there being offset against higher health care expense due to bad air, or water pollution, and include the loss of new “green” jobs that bring more tax revenue, and entice more businesses to invest in Michigan?  I’d like to see that equation. I don’t think Michigan is heading in the right direction, except for the very temporary oil drilling blitz that will probably occur, whether we want it to or not. But at some point, our demand will exceed our supply and we won’t have oilmen in the White House to push that agenda any longer.
http://www.serconline.org/RPS/fact.html.

http://www.michigancleanenergy.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B43B4E9A9-4132-4A0D-A15F-39434E54B50C%7D.
 

I’m sorry to read that Michigan persists with pollution policy instead of sound environmental policy. We need to get the corporate friendly senate moving in a cleaner direction. We have an obligation in this state to at very least try to keep the water clean. If we keep goofing off, someone might decide we are poor stewards and should share the wealth and management of our water. Does adding more coalburners to the list of 19, including the country’s second largest in Monroe, sound like anyone here pays attention to health issues, future problems with water shortages, or the earth? The latest out of MI senate is a push to alter abortion issues in Michigan. That’s the big priority? People need jobs; we need a decent and moral economy. By moral, I mean we do our utmost not to disturb life in the process of living and producing.  A green economy can offer plenty of jobs but that ride is being held up either on a state or federal level and benefits the oil industry.

We know for instance about oil leases that have been sold in pristine areas and/or habitat for polar bears, seals and all types of birds. Drilling there is pending and the oil industry wants to get moving. It’s becoming obvious that placing the polar bear on the endangered list is purposely being stalled. All that is needed is a great motivator. Bingo, gas will go up beyond $4.00 per gallon shortly. We’re already being taunted by that forecast. People are expected to cry drill, drill, drill and to hell with the animals. And we’ll probably do that, instead of seeing the big picture and how we’re being manipulated by the utilities. Even Warren Buffet commented that we’ve been sticking straws into the earth and sorry but it’s a finite practice. We will eventually run out. We collectively had over 500,000 wells. Our demand is ridiculous, and growing and it all revolves around the same fossil sources.

Heaven forbid we advance in technology and perfect wind and solar power for the individual home, and make it cheap. Houses would stand-alone without need for utilities. It’s almost laughable isn’t it? We are street smart enough to know the powers that be won’t let that happen. Anyway, our airwaves will be controlled shortly. Can’t even get free air anymore, besides there is that ever lovin entertainment/sports world that’s always going to charge too.

We could practice conservation. We could develop an RPS for Michigan, (more on that in another blog), which would entice green developers to come here. I’ve been saying this for quite awhile. What green industry is going to plant themselves next to a bunch of pollution? We’ll never get away from polluting industries once they are established without paying for it dearly. The buck will pass on to us for corporation’s stubborn business sense if and when in the future a big conservation effort needs to be enacted because, gee, we really are polluting ourselves to death. 

I was reading the Sierra Club’s “The Mackinac” and it states what I’ve been reading elsewhere, that many places in this country are not giving permits to more coalburners. The front-page article said 44 proposed coal-fired plants were either denied or withdrawn in 2007 thanks to The Sierra Club. So what happened here? 

There were five more coalburners looking for environmental permits in Michigan, with three more new plants under discussion the article said. It also stated that the challenge to put a moratorium on coal-fired plants in Michigan is daunting. Well I guess, especially with a corporation friendly senate. It said, “The state has refused to regulate the CO2 from coal plants that contribute to global warming (so long as the applicants address other pollutants, the state will let them be built). So that’s why the rush to install scrubbers? The scrubbers address other pollutants that are breathing irritants, but not the mercury that is permeating through the water to the fish, to the birds, and eventually anyone who drinks the water—one of the world’s largest freshwater supplies that is no longer so fresh. Or the CO2, that’s warming us up and causing some really bad weather—almost tornado season. What’s the sense of the Great Lakes Legacy Act?  What a tail chase, and meanwhile the water and Michigan loses, while the polar bears, seals, fish, and birds, the entire earth, take a back seat to our excess.

 Take a stand and participate. Read: http://michigan.sierraclub.org/.

After last month’s heating and electric bill, I posted a blog that I was going to make an effort to pay attention and see if I could lower my bill by $50.00. Didn’t happen, although the electric bill did come down $10.00, my overall bill remained the same $300.00 combined. Since the weather dipped to some pretty low numbers and we had several blustery days with wicked wind, maybe I didn’t do so badly? After all I don’t skimp on heat. I average between 70 and 72 degrees, and have a wall furnace in the back of the house that is always on half way. Relative to people who live in sheer frigidity, I’m doing rather well. 

The reason my bill didn’t climb with the dipping temperatures and windstorms is because of sun power.  I’ve made a concentrated effort to use the sun whenever it’s out, and despite a lot of snow here in Michigan, and that awful wind, it’s been sunny a lot. The sun is already hot. If you have any decent size windows facing south, open the window coverings and let it flow in. If your front door gets a shot of sunshine in the afternoon and has a storm door, open it. Then shut the thermostat off!

I cannot believe how my house stays heated long after the sun’s strength is gone. I found out because I forgot to turn the thermostat back on, more than once. I can open the drapes in my living room with 12 ft. of southern windows, and shut off my thermostat at 12:30 pm in the afternoon and not turn it back on until 5:30 pm at which time it still reads 70 degrees. My thermostat is off right now. It’s 5:00 pm. That’s around 5 hours of absolutely no gas use by the main furnace. I don’t turn up the heat from the wall unit in the back either. If I’m using the oven for cooking later, that’s an even greater bonus. When I’m done cooking and turn the oven off, I open the door a little. Why waste that heat? 

Open the front door too if it faces south. When I open mine, the heat hits me like a blast furnace. My cats sprawl their carcasses out full length in the little foyer. Now that’s some heat. Try it.  Use it!  It just bothers me a little at just how hot the sun really is, but then again, it’s March in Michigan and next week could sprout a 70-degree day.

If you normally keep your house lower than my average, you’ve got to see savings from turning off the heat for 5 hours, whenever it’s sunny. The reason I don’t just turn the thermostat down is because the northern portion of the house will cool down a little and still trip the thermostat. I also have room fans to circulate the heat down to the floor. Don’t forget to reverse the spin or the blades to keep your fans working for you in the winter, as well as, summer.

You’ve got nothing to lose by trying this, but a large heating bill.  If you’re away at work, get a programmable thermostat, open your window coverings before you leave and let the heat shut off around noon. You won’t know the difference when you get home. 

(more…)

I got my heating bill the other day, was going to blog about it, and have lost it. Does that mean I don’t have to pay it? I know. It was higher and I figure everyone else is suffering much, much worse. My bill combined with $78.00 for electric was $303.00, I think. That’s what they’re getting this month anyway, since I’ve lost the bill. I looked at my bill enough and compared it to last month’s bill that it’s pretty much memorized. There was a funny charge on there, one from 2005, and another just like it for 2006. They were small, like $1.46 or something but the 2006 charge wasn’t on last month’s bill. Are we going to find one for 2007 on the next? I don’t like when things just appear on my bill that weren’t there before.  It looks like something was passed back in 2004 or sooner that is just now showing up. Sneaky.

The total bill was $60.00 higher than last month, granted it has been cold, but we just had January thaw 3 weeks early. It lasted long enough for my Jack in the Pulpit plants to grow large and green in my flowerbeds. We found fruit trees budding. I think we just stopped paying attention to our habits relative to our bigger bill. Slip up a little and it shows big. We have a small gas wall unit in the back of the house. The main furnace and the wall unit should never be turned up at the same time. Since this last bill, if I’m home and it’s sunny, the main furnace gets shut off for at least 2 hours in the afternoon. The reason? I have twelve ft. of windows across my living room facing south, and the tree out front is a Maple, no leaves. If I open the blinds, I can feel the heat. I say utilize that sunshine, solar panels or not. I also turn the heat down when I use the oven. Don’t waste that toasty warmth when dinner is done; open the oven door until it cools down. Make sure and block drafts under doors. Clothes drapes and blinds at night or windy days. Reverse the blades on your overhead fans to keep heat from lingering around the ceiling.

Pay attention. I didn’t, and it showed up on my bill, and quickly. Take advantage of everything you can to lower your bill. Some energy companies are offering a choice to consumers to lock in a low rate over a few years. I just received an offer from IGS Energy to lock in a rate of 0.849 per CCF. CCF is the per unit cost of your gas bill.  Look at your bill. It should be way beyond point anything right now, more like 2.80. Ouch! I would say any other source that can guarantee a year round price of anything 0.9 or lower is a really good deal. I presently have MxEnergy and have one more year at 0.851 CCF. MichCon charges me a fee of course, something like 37.00 of my $225.00 gas bill went for carrier costs, but hey my bill is still lower than most. IGS is presently offering the lowest rate. If you sign up with MxEnergy now the cost per unit will be 1.069. Realize that the locked in price is year round. It will be above the going per unit rate for gas in the summer. That is why it’s important to keep that per unit cost under 0.9. If you pay too much for gas in the summer it offsets your savings for gas in the winter, the same for carrier charges. But, I think it’s a safe bet to say that over the duration of the next 3 years that 0.849 CCF will beat anything out there for wintertime rates.

I’ll  blog next month when I find out if paying attention pays off. Considering how cold this past week has been, I’d be happy to get another $300.00 bill. If I can actually lower it by paying better attention to our habits, and without suffering, it will be worth the effort.

I don’t know if any other people interested in moving forward with all types of alternative energy have noticed the purposeful placement of the word “foreign” in many of the presidential contenders, Bush/Cheney, and legislator’s speeches. When a politician says they will make sure to fund research for new technologies to get us away from “foreign” oil dependence, they are probably talking money for a new type of oil drilling process. Technically, they won’t be lying, just misleading, if you tend to disregard that tricky little word “foreign.”

Granted, it’s been said that we do not have alternative technology available yet to take up the brunt of our oil demand, but it seems we keep looking to only one, and not a combination of alternative sources. What about a combination of alternative energy sources? I hear this idea floating around, but no gelling. The Sierra Club of Michigan has a very good presentation that shows a combination of energy sources, wind, solar, geothermal, etc., plus conservation programs like reclaiming wastewater, and recycling may meet all of our energy demands in Michigan. But we’re not advancing toward a future that will no longer be reliant on one big massive conglomerate like the oil cartel is to us right now. It seems we work toward monopolies in this country. Then we’re upset when we’re stuck with them without a choice. We should be looking to all venues to move forward for our energy future, not reinforcing the idea of fossil fuel again, like it’s all right because it belongs to us. 

I see the big push to get away from “foreign” oil as the big ruse to drill in the Arctic circle, the polar bear habitat, Utah, even Livonia, MI for Pete’s sake, and anywhere a slant oil drill can legitimately be utilized to “not’ enter our protected National Parks. They do so anyway at an angle right under protected habitat, while doing a great deal of damage with all the accompanying paraphernalia like roads, pipeline, trucks, heavy equipment, and trash. Ditto for coal mining. Using coal is getting away from “foreign” oil, all oil, but is still perpetuating the use of filthy fossil fuel that will eventually run out. Sure it might be thousands of years before it does, but at what price, gutting the countryside, ruining the earth trying?

So beware of that tricky little “foreign” word that comes before oil. It’s not a detail that should go unnoticed, because it doesn’t make any difference. It does, or they wouldn’t be slipping it in there.  It makes all the difference in our lives, our environment, and our world whether our future continues to poke around the earth and the oceans below for oil or coal that is “OURS.” Our oil and coal burn just as filthy as the “foreign” stuff.