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August 29, 2008
TheRecord.com - Local - Five years after the lights went out
The Residential Energy Efficiency Project (REEP) plans to turn a century-old Mill Street home into a public demonstration centre next year.
The home will aim to generate as much electricity as it uses, and may feature a windmill, solar panels, and water heated by the sun, said Julian van Mossel, outreach co-ordinator for REEP.
"There will be nothing else like this in the region," he said.
That kind of model of efficiency can mean a lot when it comes to conservation, considering almost 60 per cent of a home's energy consumption goes to heating itself.
Water heating consumes another 18 per cent, while appliances count for about 15 per cent, van Mossel said.
http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/398348
Posted by thdyck at August 29, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2008
BBC NEWS | Americas | US rivals try to woo Christians
Mr McCain was asked similar questions by Mr Warren. When asked about America's greatest moral shortcoming, he responded by saying that its citizens had failed to "devote ourselves to causes greater than our self-interests".
Appearing to criticise President George W Bush, Mr McCain said that after 11 September 2001 there should have been a push to encourage people to join the army, Peace Corps and other voluntary organisations, rather than an official call to "go shopping".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7566019.stm
Posted by thdyck at August 22, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 14, 2008
Many Values-Many Voices Newsletter
Most congregations' buildings in North America were built at a time when energy costs were low and constant, and when climate change was unimagined. Today, however, energy costs are high and constantly increasing, and the production of greenhouse gases is becoming a threat to life itself. Whether our congregation's buildings are old or new, reducing the congregation's consumption of energy and other resources ("greening" the congregation) is responsible stewardship. This edition of the Many Values-Many Voices Newsletter focuses on initial assessments and actions that your congregation can take to promote environmental sustainability:
* Part 1 provides basic guidelines for promoting sustainability in your congregation;
* Part 2 provides a brief overview of the steps in establishing a baseline understanding of your energy consumption;
* Part 3 provides direction to a detailed resource for use in establishing your baseline and in making changes to promote reduced consumption;
* Part 4 provides direction to additional resources.
http://www.manyvalues-manyvoices.com/newsletter/?cat=6
Posted by thdyck at August 14, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 1, 2008
Volt aero and styling: Touring the E-Flex design studio and GM wind tunnel - AutoblogGreen
Before taking AutoblogGreen and others to the design studio on Monday, Frank Weber, the Vehicle Chief Engineer for the Volt, talked about the effect of aerodynamics and other factors on vehicle efficiency. Driver behavior is clearly a factor for both traditional and electric cars. Beyond that, on traditional cars, factors like mass, aero drag and rolling resistance come into play in that order. In testing and simulation GM has found that for electrically-driven vehicles mass actually drops to third on the list behind aerodynamics and electrical loads with rolling resistance coming in fourth.
Working from the Volt's forty mile target range, it has been determined that a 400 lb. swing in mass only has a two-mile effect on range on the city driving cycle and only a one mile effect on the highway. While every mile and pound counts, this turned out to be much smaller than the effect of aerodynamic drag. Intuitively, most people expect that aerodynamic drag has an impact on the range and efficiency of a vehicle at highway speeds.
This of course is true with a forty count reduction in drag coefficient (for example going from .300 to .260) having a six mile impact on range at highway speeds. The impact at city speeds is the big surprise. Here the same aerodynamic drag reduction causes the range to increase by four miles, more than double the effect of a 400 lb. weight reduction.
Posted by thdyck at August 1, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | UK in 'delusion' over emissions
"Holding China and India responsible for emissions from manufactured goods they sell to us is going to prove very hard to negotiate.
"It would be much easier to base any future deal on emissions at the point of consumption. That feeds into the equity debate in which poor countries will be allowed to increase their CO2.
"It's at the very least misleading for the UK government to claim reductions while we export our emissions. This is a problem no government wants to face.
"In emissions terms, we are constantly battling against increases of wealth. Every year, we don't even manage to improve our energy efficiency to keep up with wealth increases, let alone to cut emissions.
"There's a very fundamental problem here that no-one really wants to talk about."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7536421.stm
Posted by thdyck at August 1, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack