A Real-Life Laduree!

Treehugger reports that William Yuan, a 12-year-old from Beaverton, OR, has invented a solar cell that absorbs 500 times the light of existing cells. Read more...

A Solar Roof in Fishtown

A few years ago, my parents moved from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia. Selling their house at the height of the real estate boom enabled them to buy a small house in Fishtown, and still have money left over, and they wanted to invest the money in something that would give back to their community. Their decision has brought both neighbors and complete strangers to their house with cameras, knocking on their door with questions.

Their investment was to install solar panels on the roof of their row home. Most solar panel installation in Philadelphia has been on institutions, like the Friends Center at 15th and Cherry St. or new construction projects built by the “green building” team of architect/developers Tim and Patrick McDonald.

But adding solar panels to an existing row home is still rare in this city, and it presents some unique challenges. For starters, it often requires replacing your roof first, to ensure that it is sound enough to incorporate the panels, and to reduce the risk of having to remove them for future roof repairs. Then once you have the system installed, you need Peco to hook you up to the power grid, so that you can sell energy back to them when you are not using all of the kilowatts your panels are producing. In my parents' case, this took MANY phone calls, and LOTS of waiting, but they are finally up and running.

Of course, the most daunting obstacle was coming up with the financing. A federal tax rebate and a Pennsylvania Sustainable Development Solar PV Grant brought the cost down from $26,000 to $15,000, but the state grant is no longer available, so unfortunately Solardelphia (www.solardelphia.com), the company who installed the panels, has to tell all new customers that until our state government decides to enact new legislation and funding opportunities, doing what my parents did will be out of the financial reach of most Philadelphia residents. So while my parents have done the pioneering work of showing that it’s possible, here’s a few things we all can do to to try to make it possible for more homeowners in the future:

• see the action alerts at votesolar.org, including their current campaign to urge Congress to extend the Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) by attaching it to the next legislative vehicle that moves. The House and the Senate are at an impasse over inclusion of the Solar ITC in current Iraq War Supplemental legislation, and we are close to the Memorial Day recess. Call the Capitol switchboard at 202/224-3121.
• call/email/write your PA representatives (if you don’t know who they are, find them at hallwatch.org) and tell them to enact new residential renewable energy grants.

First Women Barefoot Solar Engineers

A beautiful vision.

Solar Energy: Some Pros & Cons

In my backyard there are five separate solar-powered lamps scattered across the lawn. These were purchased in hopes of spreading light across our dark yard so we could make sure my roommate’s dog wasn’t going to make a late night break. Unfortunately, they cast about as much light as the nighttime sky.*

While I don’t think the following pros and cons for solar energy are biased, I do want to highlight that for this region, solar power may not be the strongest alternative energy option, especially with the insane amount of rain we’ve seen in the last few weeks.

Pros

• A solar energy system can operate independently of other sources; it doesn't need a connection to a power or gas grid at all.
• Solar panels don’t pollute. The only traceable pollution comes from their manufacturing, transportation and installation.
• Once you install a solar system, there is no additional charge, which is cost effective in the long run.
• Advances have been made to grab more power on overcast days.
• It’s not going anywhere for a very, very long time. Thanks, sun!
• It’s very quiet. You don’t need a turbine to catch those rays.
• Some utilities will buy unused energy from you!

Cons

• $$$. The cost of setting up a home system can be very expensive. It’s about $10 - $12 a watt, so look to spend around $20,000 to make your home solar sustainable (some states will offset this).
• If the area you live in doesn’t get a lot of sun, look to spend more to get those watts.
• The sun doesn’t shine at night. After it sets, your home will have to run off of a battery back-up. If it’s raining all day, that can mean a dark, candle-lit night (how quaint) or electricity obtained from another power source.
• They can take up a lot of space. If you have a small roof or tight yard, expect most of it to go to the panels.

*I attribute this more to a shoddy product than the inefficiency of solar power.

LINK:ALERT

And now, some quirky recycling news to speed up the drag of a hum-drum Friday.

ReGeneration Redux
An interesting article that expands on the ReGeneration Campaign I mentioned yesterday. Skip towards the middle. Thoughtful, honest opinion from a competition juror about the majority of submissions.

Dell Goes Bamboo
And the Dell theme continues! Check out this bamboo desktop computer the company is bringing to the office zoo.

Dean Kamen's Water Machine
From the man who brought you the Segway! This is a clip from The Colbert Report where Dean Kamen shows off his machine that can recycle and purify water from ANYTHING!!! (We're talking Doritos. Crystal clear.)

Brewing The Environment!
Another use for beer bottles besides goggles! This site recommends saving those bottles and making your own brew. If that's not your cup of tea, how about donating them to a solar-powered brewery(!)?

Billions Served...My Cup Runneth Over!
"Well slap my lowfat-decaf-soy-chai-latte drinkin’ self if I add to that!"
(We'll be quoting from this enlightening blog later in our Recycling FAQs, but the whole piece is worth reading.)

Planting the Digital Seed

First things first. As a grassroots effort, we know we will be heavily dependent on www.futureweathermovie.com as a hub for our production over the next few years. So Jenny and I set out to see if it would be possible to host our website on a server that was powered by solar and/or wind energy. Since servers run 24/7/365, it seemed like the most energy efficent way to go. However, we also didn't want to spend too much time researching it. Time is pretty much all we have to spend right now, so we have to be thrifty.

When typing "solar powered web hosting" into Google, you will be inundated with several options for green hosts. But when you dig a little you'll find mention of green certificates on most of them, rather than actual wind or solar energy. Not knowing what that meant, I did another search. Green certificates, or green tags, are actually called, by the government, renewable energy certificates. According to the Department of Energy, these certificates "represent the environmental attributes of the power produced from renewable energy projects and are sold separate from commodity electricity." Basically, it allows you to invest in energy and offset your own consumption by having the same amount put back into the power grid, just most likely not in your own location (as a small aside, if you're based out of Philadelphia like we are, you can invest in wind energy through your monthly PECO bill for as little as $2.54 a month.

As important as investing in new energy is, it was hard for both Jenny and I to fully commit to one of these companies since the energy cost seemed hidden. Luckily, I stumbled across a very helpful website: www.hostitgreen.com. No more Google searches! All you need to do is sign up for their mailing list and you'll receive a list of all the reputable green web hosting sites. A few days later, they'll even send another email, this one with a list of green web designers, marketers and other services. Very cool and very helpful. And upon comparing prices for green servers to those of normal servers, the differences in price are pretty slight. regular hosting services start at around $5.95, while alternatives start at around $7.95. You may get more space with a normal powered web host, but most likely won't need it.

Through the Host It Green list, we were lucky enough to stumble across a hosting service based out of England called Ecological Hosting. Servers are 100% percent solar powered and run by an affable bloke name Jamie and his partner, Sue. His plans are very competitively priced (though his listings are in pounds, not dollars). But the main selling point for Jenny and I is that it's a small, conscientious family run business. When you call, Jamie picks up the phone. He and his wife also run their home office as sustainably as possible. They don’t print unless they have to and when they do, it’s on recycled paper. They also reuse all electronics in different capacities instead of just throwing them out. Very cool. You can read more about them here.

Talking with Jamie we learned that his server was run out of Calfornia by a company called AISO (Affordable Internet Services Online).The AISO data center is covered on two sides by a total of 120 solar panels. They take the power from the panels, transfer it from DC to AC, then store it in batteries which they then use to power their center. They are developing a green roof, which is made of soil and drought resistant plants, which will lower the overall temperature of the building and cut down energy use (science is crazy!). AISO also offer solar-powered hosting plans, so don’t hesitate to check them out too!