Energista - Comments

Geothermal heat pumps

vbstenswick — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:20:16 -0500

I am not sure how to use this site, but I am a strong advocate of geothermal heat pumps, which maybe should have a category of its own. There are numerous misconceptions about geothermal heat pumps. The first is that they require alot of space. This is true for horizontal loop fields. For vertical loop fields, the boreholes need to be 10 to 15 feet apart. I have a fairly standard house that required four bore holes, that is a square 10 feet on a side. Not a huge area. A second concern is the expense. They are expensive, but for some reason, many contractors in this area size them too large, as was done with my house. I have a four ton, 54000 btu/hr system. If I were doing it again, I would not put in a system any large than three ton, and maybe two ton. The following website from the Canadian government bears out my observations.http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infosource/pub/home/Heating_and_Cooling_with_a_Heat_Pump_Section4.cfmI also buy all of my electricity from Xcel's WindSource program. I like to claim I heat my house and put nothing into the atmosphere, though I know that is not entirely accurate. I also calculate the operating expense of my system to be equivalent to using a 95% efficient natural gas furnace with gas at $4.60 per MMBtu. Since natural gas is over $10 per MMBtu, my heating bills are half that of a homeowner with a similar home and a 95% efficienct natural gas furnace. Anyone with specific questions can contact me at vbstenswick@hotmail.com . VBStenswick

Now that's what I call mad science!

nickmark — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:41:11 -0600

See also the article in the Spring 2007 issue of the Wilson Quarterly (<a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=231274">"The Climate Engineers"</a>) comparing current suggestions to past schemes to control the weather (and the hubris thereof...)

SimCity Societies sneak-peek

mrdarius — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:50:17 -0600

Hi all,I'd like to invite the bloggers among you to an exclusive online event to get a sneak-peek of the 5th edition of the EA SimCity Societies game, before its release on Thursday, Nov. 15. This game is particularly unique because it focuses on environmental choices in city-building and planning which mimic the real world.The preview will include a guided tour by the game's producer, Rachel Bernstein, as well as insights from the person at BP who made this partnership possible. As you may well know, this is the first time that EA has partnered with a company for knowledge exchange to inform their game - in this case low carbon power options.This event is exclusive to bloggers, and will walk through designing a fantasy city that is an environmental utopia or one that chokes with pollution that sets off a wave of climate change that wreaks havoc on its citizens. It's a powerful education tool on environmental consequences based on real-world information. Hope you can make it!When: Wednesday, November 14th at 1pm EST/10am PST Where: Your desktop How: E-mail or call me at 212-593-6435 and I'll send you the details to log on and dial-in.Thanks!DariusDarius RazgaitisRuder Finnrazgaitisd@ruderfinn.com

Environmental Blogs

nobody — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:24:01 -0500

Hello,

We have added your web address to our database of environmental blogs. Please come by and check out your link and see the location of other environmental bloggers near you as well as across North America. It's very cool.

Hope to see you soon!

http://mylinkmaps.com/map/environmentalblogs

Possible Hazel-Diesel Demo

nobody — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:17:03 -0500

Hi Folks, Brandon Rutter here-

Thought I'd post a little bit specifically about the relevance of Woody Ag to energy concerns.

A woody agriculture cropping system should require significantly less energy input when compared to traditional row crops (no plowing, among other things).
Coppice wood, nut shells, and entire nuts can be used as high-quality biomass fuel.
Hottest topic these days: biodiesel from hazelnuts. Potential for much higher oil yeilds/acre than soy.

With respect to that last one, we're trying to put together the first-ever demo for this year's field day of a diesel engine running off of partial hazel fuel. We might even have a guy with a farm-scale oil press there to help us out with that; should be interesting at any rate.

great commercial :)

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:39:25 -0500

not really sure why his accent is french, if it's a german commercial, but the premise is great!

Interesting

Joe — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:05:51 -0500

Very interesting observations. Hope the trip is going well.

Bon voyage!

nobody — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:22:11 -0500

Bon voyage!

There's an easy solution...

Joe — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:47:34 -0500

to the problem of big box stores - don't drive there as often! When you do, combine it with other trips. Small and local isn't necessarily the solution... you could easily expend a lot of gas driving all over the city to get to multiple specialized stores as well. Biking isn't necessarily an option if you're buying large objects, and the transportation system in many mid-sized American cities like Minneapolis is woefully inadequate during non-rush hour times.

Wal-Mart

nobody — Thu, 17 May 2007 08:49:50 -0500

The big-box stores require customers to travel further, but there are transportation savings because the company needs to supply fewer stores. For example you might locate big boxes along rail lines, further reducing transportation supply costs. Wal-Mart is also experimenting with smaller stores. Customers may eventually make more infrequent trips to big boxes, spending more on each trip, but using a higher-cost neighborhood store for smaller, more frequent purchases.

The article may well be correct that the big-box model is inherently inefficient, but I would at least like to see some discussion of the net efficiency associated with supplying fewer stores as well as hybrid models in which big boxes are combined with smaller local stores.

MCCAG

nobody — Wed, 09 May 2007 08:38:45 -0500

All the meetings are open to the public, so please come.

indeed

nobody — Mon, 07 May 2007 10:21:45 -0500

Corn ethanol has aboslutely nothing to do with cleaning the environment or reducing carbon emissions. It has everything to do with creating new markets for monoculture Ag that further degrade the ability of farmland to produce useful crops. And it drives up the price of tortillas. If the proponents of corn ethanol were in it for the environment, they wouldn't be proponents of corn ethanol.

More information

darrell — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:19:20 -0500

There is what looks to be a pretty good website for the MCCAG that makes available a lot of the documents they see.It remains to seen just what impact the group will have on state policy but there is some promise. There are a number of long time advocates and experts on Climate Change who were appointed but there are also a number of omissions. I'd also like to point out that the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota (EJAM) have a representative on MCCAG in Boise Jones.

Penn State

christopher — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:06:33 -0500

Reminds me of the story I put up awhile ago - about Penn State going green with 20% of its electricity purchases.

Ugh

nobody — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:13:28 -0500

If the Minnesota Lung Associations "Clean Air Choice" campaign wasn't paid for by the Farmers Union and AgStar Financial, I might consider supporting this.

When David Tillman first released word of his groundbreaking study on prairie grass, Bob Moffit went on MnSpeak.com and opinionated that no one should get excited about this because it's not economically viable.

When I left a comment stating that, yes, Tillman's study was indeed a very big deal, he responded by calling me "Corn Hating Tom" and made some comment about me and my "granola crunching friends," which I thought was juvenile.

Why would a clean air advocate get so defensive about corn.