Mountain House

OK so here's the deal, a while back some couples in our ward put on a preparedness night for us, and one of the things they had introduced to us was this Mountain House food, they had opened, and prepared I would say 8 of the main entrees and they were all very very good, I mean surprisingly good for something that was freeze dried and not home made. But here's the better part, they keep on the shelf for an astronomical amount of time. What they had brought was the standard pouch which will keep on the shelf for 8 years, however I have found on there web site that they offer what is called a #10 size can, and they are said to keep for 25 years. Now that's the kind of food storage that I can keep up with. Yes they are expensive but if you break it down they are a pretty standard price for a meal, and one that keeps for a long time.

anyway check them out here they've got tons of variety to choose from.

Happy food Storaging!

Grades

Grades are in, and I'm a bit surprised by the results, I really thought I did worse when I screwed up my final exam. But I'll just consider it an early Christmas gift.

So It runs down like this A-,A,A,A-,A,A = 3.9 GPA

So there it is.

2.5 weeks from now and it's more Math, and Electric Circuits, and another Renewable energy class. New for this term is Chemistry, Physics and Sustainable Development. I'm not so sure about this sustainable development class, I met the lady who teaches it at the beginning of the year and even she is a bit crunchy for me. Chemistry and Physics however should be pretty fun, I really liked them in High School.

Nanosolar

Their "first shipment"..... well first as in, one to a history museum one on eBay and the rest going to solar farms. But it's a start and hopefully it wont be 2010 before we see these available to consumers, however that's probably the case.

..................................
After five years of product development – including aggressively pipelined science, research and development, manufacturing process development, product testing, manufacturing engineering and tool development, and factory construction – we now have shipped first product and received our first check of product revenue.

We are grateful to everyone who supported us through all these years and the many occasions where there appeared to be mile-high concrete walls in our path; the unusual intensity and creativity of our team deserves all the credit for achieving this major milestone today.

Our product is defining in more ways I can enumerate here but includes:

- the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product;

- the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability;

- the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;

- the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel – delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment;

- an intensely systems-optimized product with the lowest balance-of-system cost of any thin-film panel – due to innovations in design we have included.

Today we are announcing that we have begun shipping panels for freefield deployment in Eastern Germany and that the first Megawatt of our panels will go into a power plant installation there.

As far as the first three of our commercial panels are concerned:

Panel #1 will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit.

Panel #2 can be purchased by you in an auction on eBay starting today.

Panel #3 has been donated to the Tech Museum in San Jose.

[These are obviously not the first three we ever produced – we have produced loads for testing – but these are the first three of what we consider our commercial panels.]

..............................................

Its over

So I have just written my last test, and I think I did alright on all of them except for my alternative Energy test. I was thrown off by my bike being stolen and messed everything up on the test, I couldn't get anything right. So I am hoping that my mark going into the exam was high enough to account for my poor performance on the final, which I would know by now, except that my teacher is apparently having some difficulty getting that grade out to us like he promised.

Anyhow by the 20th of December I should know what all my final grades are and my schedule for next term.

So from now until Jan 7th, I'm free...... well..... free to finish all the work that Amy has lined up for me that is.

SOLAR getting good

Big talks have been happening in the last couple days/weeks concerning Solar Panels. A company called nanosolar has apparently perfected their process for making a photovoltaic cell, that's essentially printed, and can be manufactured almost like a large printing press. I cant find a firm number but i have seen some articles state costs at .30 cents a watt which is huge when compared to previous models at $3 a watt and Coal fired power at $1 per watt. Apparently their not the only ones in this game either another company called Ascent Solar Technologies has been keeping pace with nanosolar as far as technological advancements. they also are doing the printing method of course with some variation to the process but for some reason nanosolar is the leader in the game for now.

Nanosolar is unfortunately a private offering still, so all the big wigs like Google are getting on that boat. Ascent is a private company traded on the NASDAQ and looking like $18 a share now.

Also a professor at our school has been watching some program I cant remember which one, but has been saying that there's big things coming from the US Gov in the next day or so that will change this whole Solar game in a major way.

If you can't tell I am super excited, I wonder if this is how Amy feels when she sees pink, cause my heart started beating faster and I couldn't think straight when I first read the original article.

The Manufacturing plant is set to be sending out units by next year, I'm crossing my fingers on this one for sure.

Well gotta go read some more, I was really excited and wanted to share......

updates

Amy was giving me grief about updating my blog so here I am.

School is going pretty good, everything is gearing up to come to a finish for Christmas break, final projects and final exams is pretty well all that is left. If I do good in all my finals (projects and exams) I should come out with an overall A average, English is the only subject that will bring down my mark at this point. Math will be my highest mark by far.... My last exam I scored 110%........ since I know your gonna ask how ..... most of the class couldn't finish the test in time allotted so he made the test out of 5 marks less and offered an extra 5% bonus question that everyone could do on there own time and hand in.

Since I'm talking about school, I was reading an article on celsias.com that said that you can read any of the course ware offered at MIT for free. Here's a link to the MIT site.

Have fun - Free rice

1000 grains of rice and I am at a level 35 Vocabulary, not too bad i think. Got up to a level 37 there for a couple questions, but it didn't last long.

Give it a try, if anything it was fun for a bit. Let me know how you do.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Weather

So lately I have been very confused by the weather, you see, when you get up in the morning and look outside, lets take for instance the other day, it was overcast and windy and looked rather cold, well after I put on my sweater and walked outside I just about died, from heat. I have been wrong almost every day about what I should wear, I never seem to get it right. I thought I would take a snapshot of the weather outside right now cause its so stinking hot, its October 5, at 7 pm, very confusing , here's a snapshot from the weather network as we speak.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, and I did not photoshop it, trust me a couple minutes outside is all you need, to know that "FEELS LIKE 35" is no joke.

Oh and while I was there I checked Calgary's page, its was 3C ........ Sorry :-(

School is going slowly, all my professors seem to think that if the students aren't getting it, that they should slow down and spend more time trying to help the students....... I'm not sure I have ever heard of anything like it, In my opinion they should hit the first year students hard with heavy course loads so that those who cant cut it get out while they still can, you would think that you would rather change you major early rather then during your third year when your professors finally pile it on.... I mean seriously if you need the teacher to help you figure out that 10 light bulbs rated at 100 Watts equals 1000 Watts (1kW) and if you run them all for 1 hour you will use 1 kWh of electricity then times that by the rate of lets say 8 c/kWh you should be able to do it. Go ahead change out the numbers 'ooooh' add some more light bulbs, 'oh no!' I mean how long do we have to spend on this.

That feels a bit better...... anyhow still riding my bike to school, although I remember why I hated it so much on my mission, you get tired and sweaty but it does nothing for you physically.
Wheres an electric scooter when you want one?

New calling

Long time no post. Well if your like mom and dad then as soon as I say I got a calling last Sunday, you will immediately guess what it is, taking all the fun out of it. So as of last Sunday I was set apart as the Elders Quorum President, trust me when I say that when it comes to leadership roles I would gladly allow someone else the blessings. But alas, coming out East isn't the best location for those who try to hide in the back. Anyway if you would like to know more feel free to call.

Other then that we are desperately needing to close our pool down, the trees are starting to turn color and if we don't get it closed in the next couple days were gonna have one messy pool on our hands, it sad to see it get closed especially since the other day if we had a pool blanket (current one is disintegrating ) we could have gone swimming, the pool water is still getting up to 70 F. which for those who don't understand what that means, we were swimming quite happily at 78F just a couple weeks ago. It was just that one week where it dipped down to frost over night that ruined it all, and now that the temp is back up again, its still too late, the leaves have
started to turn.

For those wondering how school is going, It is starting to settle in to a groove now, as we make our way past the first couple weeks where it seemed that everything was seriously dumbed down. I have had a couple Labs now in electrical circuits, nothing interesting there, and 1 lab in my renewable energy class. It was not to bad but still coming in at a basic level where the labs are just supposed to get you familiar with the different technologies out there and the principles behind them. Next term I see getting much better as the classes get harder and more is expected out of settled in students.

Tired

So the day of possession was awkward, we waited around all day with our furniture and stuff sitting out in the yard cause the brick dropped it off. we didn't get possession until 5pm and by then it was to late to move in so we stayed another night at Nicolas house and moved in yesterday, had a couple swims in the pool its really nice. Nicolas family and then the young men all used the pool so it got it real work out yesterday, learned a lot about the pool too, starting to make more sense now.

The house stinks like smoke more then we thought, during the walk through they had all the windows open which did the trick for them cause we didn't think it was that bad, hopefully that was a lesson learned, cause now we've got a lot of cleaning and kilzin to do. cable guy is coming today hope it goes well, i miss TV, thankfully its not mid season for anything except for Big Brother and we have been catching it online.

School is good, Math class is easy English is easy, had my electrical circuits course today witched is overwhelming so let hope it gets better, and of course the Alternative energy courses are cool, however of course even the professors have differing opinions on stuff so it is quite interesting to listen to them talk about different subjects, anyway just eating my lunch and have one more class so gotta go before my battery dies out here.

Back to School

It's finally here!

Time to go back to school, 12 hours from writing this post I will be in the middle of my first school day. not sure if I'm excited or scared, I want to be in school, just wish I could skip the first week and be all settled in. Either way it's happening tomorrow, so wish we luck, and lets hope I don't do anything foolish, or fall off my bike :-(

Also tomorrow we will be moving into our new place, can't wait, should make for a very busy day. probably wont be getting possession till noon'ish so there should be lots left for me to do still. and then end the day with a dip in my new pool, because you just have to. So give us a couple weeks then feel free to start coming this way!

Privatization of all the worlds Water!

OK now, seriously people. This is getting bad, If you have ever watched the movie, "The Corporation" you would see that a company in the past tried to do this, ownership that allowed them to own all water contained in Bolivia, which meant water in the ground, rivers and that fell from the sky. Caught catching it in rain barrels meant you would be charged a fee. The country fought back in a Battle that took them to the streets and cost many a life, they won, however, apparently now looking back, maybe this was just the way corporations tested the waters, and now they must think the time is better, and apparently so, since according to this article already 5% of the worlds water is now privately owned.

Quote from the article: (from Celsias)

"The antidote to water commodification is its decommodification. Water must be declared and understood for all time to be the common property of all. In a world where everything is being privatized, citizens must establish clear perimeters around those areas that are sacred to life and necessary for the survival of the planet. Simply, governments must declare that water belongs to the earth and all species and is a fundamental human right. No one has the right to appropriate it for profit. Water must be declared a public trust, and all governments must enact legislation to protect the freshwater resources in their territory. An international legal framework is also desperately needed"

The world is running low on it's resources, as the population grows it will only get worse, we must act now to use these valuable resources in a way that allows every human the right to fresh water. (from the article) "For the fact is, we know how to save the world’s water: reclamation of despoiled water systems, drip irrigation over flood irrigation, infrastructure repairs, water conservation, radical changes in production methods and watershed management, just to name a few. Wealthy industrialized countries could supply every person on earth with clean water if they canceled the Third World debt, increased foreign aid payments and placed a tax on financial speculation."

Why are we not doing anything real about these problems, what do you think? are we complacent to these issues? is it a lack of exposure to the problems? or is there a lack of knowledge for the general public to understand whats wrong and how to fix it? or maybe like some you think this is the Lords plan and not only is there nothing we can do to stop it, but should we?

Wrong Day

Well, the other day I went to my school orientation, except it was the wrong day, oops, no biggy, it was the same presentation just geared a little more to all the nurses that were there. We wandered around the school weaving in and out of hallways which made no sense, cause when you look at the map the hallways are straight, 2 main hallways with hallways off of them, very simple, 3 stories that all look the same. After Lunch (pop and 1 piece of bad pizza) I had to write my placement tests for Math and English, I Passed my Math with a 78%, which was actually kind of upsetting, I wanted to go over it but couldn't. Then I wrote my English placement, which was basically "does this sentence sound right or does this one? "I would assume that most people with English as a first language would have passed, I got 100%... yea I know, your reading this blog and thinking ..... really? Anyway by doing so I am allowed to skip the 1st year English class and go to the second year English class instead, which also happens to be my last English class, as my 3rd year does not include an English class.

So next week Tuesday I have to go see the counselor about whether or not I want to skip the 1st year English class, it's apparently an introduction to writing Lab's, which may prove useful, however if it's anything like the test was, I'll be skipping "grade 1 engrish" for sure. Is proper this sentence being?....... seriously?

Waterless Urinals

Yes Urinals.


At first I thought for sure I would want to install one of these in the house, cause even though I may let my yellow mellow, everyone else in the house has to flush it before using the commode anyways, thus defeating the whole purpose. This would make for a very good alternative, However upon inspecting the maintenance schedule off of the Kohler website it seems rather an intensive cleaning and maintenance schedule, for instance, I don't see myself wiping down the surface once a day with there special kohler no splash urinal cleaner, why can't I use regular cleaner, hmmmmm whats in there stuff anyway? or replacing the 3 ounces of sealing liquid twice a month, seems excessive, it should be based on usage or something, maybe wiped down once a week, and changed once a month or less often preferably.

Still the idea is what matters most, waterless being the key, and the whole invention of a lighter fluid floating on the top to trap smells and etc. underneath seems like it could be used in other facets, maybe a layer on top of outhouse tanks that would last until they came to pump it out.

I wonder how far in the future we have to wait before we get to hear our children say "you used drinking water to do what?" On that day I shall shed a tear of joy. of course this is just one of many battles we are faced with, lets hope we win them all.

Smart Car is Sold, and more

So I figured I would just do a post about what's been happening, so here it is, all dry and boring.

My precious Smart car is gone, It found a home in Edmonton, so some of you may see it driving around in the near future, his new family was found through a smart car website so I'm sure it will be cared for and loved.... :-(

It's replacement you ask...... most likely a bicycle, its not to far from our new home to the school, but if this year for some reason is colder then last year it may not prove very reasonable as transportation, however it wouldn't take much to be colder then last year where they received 3 snowfalls all winter and about 3 inchesof snow, and with a winter temperature in Sarnia rarely seeing negative double digits, I should be OK.

Exactly 1 month left before we take possession of our new house, which also happens to be the first day of school, hopefully school doesn't get to intense right away as I could sure use some time to settle in with my new surroundings and set up shop.

For my Birthday a couple days ago me and Amy went across the border shopping, it's really close and being that the major town for shopping is no more then a mile from the border its pretty convenient, looks like target should be getting my business for a new TV, however I'm still a little confused with the whole Duty and taxes thing, any suggestions? also if we get our act together it seems that grocery shopping is well worth the trip as well, Gas, milk (in Jugs), cheese, and cereal top the list for cheap groceries and many more I'm sure. I know I'm not helping the local economy but seriously its only a 5 min drive so why should the prices on that side of the border be so different..... oh back to the birthday, I got 2 books on the environment slash alternative energy, skittles, pens/paper, and a new backpack that holds my laptop and other supplies, I was planning to use the backpack I used in high school and for my mission however it seems to have been "misplaced"..... Amy wasn't fond of it.

Water Water Everywhere?????

If your like Amy who was reading over my shoulder at the time, you may fall asleep reading this, however if you are closer to me and my interests then you should finish it no problem.

This article is essentially a lot of information about how water from around the world is being used and how it is affecting or is going to affect us.

Between Water and Petroleum I'm not sure which we abuse worse, and which will become more of a problem first, the problem is they will both become as scarce as hen's teeth sooner then later whether we like it or not.

MagLev and Pepsi

1st - a Maglev Wind turbine that could produce energy for 750,000 homes, now that's cool tech. got the article off treehugger but the original site has some better information here

2nd - Pepsi coming clean about where there water is actually coming from... see here.. heard this one on the radio today, now if only more companies were forced to spill the beans about their false/misleading Marketing.

Good video

Transformers

Last night Me and the Bro in law went to see transformers, first surprise was the price..... $4.20 wooohoooo I can actually afford the movie theatre again.

second surprise was that the movie totally rocked, I was afraid because I saw some low ratings online, right before we went, but it was absolutely thrilling for all 2.5 hours of it, anyway this isn't a movie review site so I'll leave it at that.

In case you don't read Amy's Blog we do own a house, we can't move in for 60 days so that's a bummer, but it's something to look forward to, and we can start thinking about decorating and what were gonna do, plus we can go to garage sales and such to try and get some good deals... at least that's my plan.

OH and of course Happy Birthday Mom.

House Hunting

Pictures can be deceiving, both good and bad, some times the place looks amazing and turns out to be a dive, and vice versa. yesterday we saw several houses, Amy was not thrilled withany , I did like one although it was a pretty far commute, it just had so much character. I never thought I would enjoy those homes so much.

Anyway no luck but we have several for today, and one that apparently is suited just for us, but wont be ready for 2 weeks... not sure I wanna wait so long but we may have no choice, and depending on the situation it may have a quick possession which is what we really need.

OH... yes Amy and the kids got here safely yesterday morning, it was just too late of a flight for them to enjoy, Lily cried the whole flight apparently, Ava and Hunter kinda slept...... I would check Amy's blog soon for the whole story on that one.

Im here

Well I made it

4 days and 3 nights, 2 motels and one Walmart parking lot, the first day I decided to stop in Regina, but really should have kept going cause I couldn't get to sleep until 1 in the morning anyway, so the next day I made it to Ignace Ontario, not on purpose, I didn't realize that there are still places where you can drive for hours and not come across a gas station or town for that matter, and when you do find the town, namely Ignace, every things closed.... yup all 5 gas stations apparently have early bed times. anyway, the creepy motel in town was nice enough to tell me about a gas station down the road that was still open but that there was a lot of construction on the coming roads and at least 1 moose gets hit every night on those roads, so I decided to stay, little did I know that said hotel was super creepy decorated in the 60's and never changed since. If I was gonna get raped and murdered anywhere it was there, checked my vehicle several times to make sure nothing was going on.

It took a while, 8hrs the first day, 13 hrs, 12 hrs, and then 11 hrs, and the last day was the worst, In case anyone plans to drive to Ontario, I wouldn't come the way I did, especially I would avoid at all costs highways 400, and 401. those just so happen to be very major highways for Toronto's traffic, and not so fun for a mini van pulling a u-haul trailer that's prone to fish tailing at about 100 km/hr while inhaling the several hundred Semi trucks trailers exhaust, reminded me a lot of driving through LA.

anyway lots of smog, very humid, and more trees than BC, no I'm not joking the Trees never end, I started feeling clostrophobic for the first time in my life, waiting for there to be a break in the never ending trees, after probably 1300 km they finally start to break and even then the open spaces aren't very big.

well that's it for now, picking up Amy and the kids in the morning, and then we try to pick a house to live in for the next 3 years.

Sounds good to me!

Article on Treehugger today about Chinese Chief of Food and Drug, was executed for being corrupt, yea there is more to the article but frankly, no one is afraid of the law, in fact the most of the time these corrupt leaders are hiding behind it, so good on China for showing that they mean business, and you know the next in line won't be so quick to corruption....... die or not die, is it really worth it when that's the choice and consequence.

If the Justice system were reliable and not themselves prone to corruption, I would think that this is the way to go, and hey added bonus of population control.

Running out of time!

How many times can we say it? were running out of time, and on more than one front, you name it and were running out of time.

so here's yet another article, this time from NASA

the gist in case your not interested in reading is that we don't have time to set long term goals like 2050, cause with current warming trends of 0.2 degrees Celsius per year that means in 5 years we will have gained another full 1 degree Celsius and according to the article ....

"That means that further global warming of 1 degree Celsius defines a critical level. If warming is kept less than that, effects of global warming may be relatively manageable. During the warmest interglacial periods the Earth was reasonably similar to today. But if further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today."

....... in case you want me to do some more math 3 degrees Celsius at current warming trends gives 15 years before a whole lot of people living on the coasts are actually living in the ocean.

Why doesn't this stuff bother us more..... maybe the church should start adding Boat to the list of emergency preparedness items.

Bottled Water

see here for San Francisco Banning the Bottle

This makes me happy.... I have issues with bottled water and the people that drink them... sorry if your one of them but that's the problem with opinions. every ones got a different one.

I still remember in High School when people started drinking bottled water, it was the cool kids who started this ridiculous trend and low and behold 10 years later, look around almost everyone has a bottle of water to drink from, and man the claims of being better for you, or a better choice then pop, anything to rationalize what should be considered a wasteful un-economical disregard for a natural resource. sure we do worse things with it like go number 1 and 2 in our drinking water, but that is a technological and design hurdle we must overcome, drinking bottled water is a choice made when the tap containing almost the exact liquid is several feet away.

or see here... if NZ water is so good, why don't they drink it?

How about his quote off the sietch - In industrial countries with highly regulated water supplies, tap water has been proven to be just as safe, or safer, than its commercial counterpart. In the United States, regulations concerning bottled water are generally the same as for tap water, but are weaker for some microbial contaminants. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water at the federal level, permits the product to contain certain levels of fecal matter, whereas the Environmental Protection Agency does not allow any human waste in city tap water. Bottled water violations are not always reported to the public, and in most cases the products may be recalled up to 15 months after the problematic water was produced, distributed, and sold.

mmmm Fecal Matter....

Last week I read a bunch of articles showing that we pay more for bottled water than gasoline...I don't know about you but I don't intend on paying more for my water than my gasoline. especially not water containing fecal matter.

enjoy your water! :-)

We all knew it would happen

When a particular Design holds monopoly on the market for a long time they are reluctant to change said design because if it works don't change it right? well with global warming stirring things up and spurring new design, it's like out of no where someone realizes oh hey you know that thing we been doing for a hundred years that was really inefficient but there was no other option, well, I just out of no where realized how to make it a hundred times better, weird eh!.....

Although I encourage R&D, and competition in all products, I feel like there should be some type of ramification for the R&D that these companies knowingly held back on, or even went so far as to buy someone out, and then bury that design to never be seen again..... until now. Its very frustrating...... however.... bring it on, we need the best designs for efficiency that are out there and if those happen to be in a locked box, that someones forgotten the combo to, crack er open... lets go!

Anyhow here's the latest in light bulbs, with greater efficiency then CFL's and lasting decades this one is quite the leap in technology.

MATH

Yesterday was the Diploma for Math 30 Pure, The morning seemed rather simple, it scared me it was so simple, cause you always know you totally screwed it up when it was that easy. However the second half was basically filled with questions on stuff I have trouble with normally, so lets hope I'm a good guesser.... I'm not normally so why should I be this time?

Saving Grace however, I did have an in class mark in the 90's Not sure the exact mark, no one has given that to me, but I got over 90 on each unit so its a fair guess. That being said My Class mark at 50% weight is over 45% so as long as i got more then 20% on the diploma I should be alright, But that grade doesn't come back till the 3rd week in July.

Now what.... well were still finding a place to live, applying for student loans, basically figuring out how were gonna get there and where were gonna stay when we do...... nothing major ......

More Electric Cars!

I Love the electric car, and this one (see here) is using the in-wheel motors which I really like the idea of, eliminating even more of the reasons I hate the standard car... moving parts = servicing, breakdown, replacement.....Blech!

And of course more competition means better prices for us consumers, and more research by more and more companies trying to grab there share of the market...... I like it.

However I do prefer the design of the Tesla Roadster to this Stingray looking car, not that I could afford to buy either anyway.

.... Since I'm on the subject of cars right now, the Big auto makers of America were complaining again to the US Congress again about how efficiency is expensive (see here). I don't understand why it's the USA's problem to make sure that these guys businesses succeed..... I mean if my products aren't selling and the products that do sell are just to expensive for me to pay for in order to sell - because they will- then is the gov responsible to help me afford those more expensive products...... screw these self righteous jerks, they think that without them somehow the world will end, well guess what there are plenty of people willing to take your spot as a large car manufacturer, and supply jobs to the exact same people. So take away there money/subsidies and if they choose to lay down and die causing some sort of economical disaster then I say sue them for not abiding by the laws of the incorporation which say that they must do everything they can to succeed, they've been using that law to there advantage, I say we use it back at them.

Even if there is more to take into consideration here, I know that if I just keep giving my whiny child something, instead of making him do it on his own, he will keep coming back for the handout and never do it himself, and yes I do liken the auto makers to little whiny children, cause if I liken them to grown adults, the expression changes to something I shouldn't type.

Vertical Farm

Vertical Farm Ideas see here

Saw one a while ago and since then a couple more popping out of the wood work. It seems that the idea of building a Vertical Farm in the downtown core is the new thing to do.

I can see the advantages to local business's getting fresh fruit and vegetables, even eggs and chicken.... "Fresh Produce Picked This Morning". The localness of it all would change a lot of things, since the produce wouldn't be shipped or stored in transit, we eliminate all that Carbon footprint from the produce, probably wouldn't see to much price change, if anything I could see it going up since the price of the building itself would need to be recovered over some period of time.

I really see this idea taking hold, there's just so much potential from this sort of closed system of Farming.


Advantages of Vertical Farming taken from here
-Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
-No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
-All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
-VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
-VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
-VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
-VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of evapotranspiration
-VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals
-VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
-VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
-VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
-VF creates new employment opportunities
We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on earth
-VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
-VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical LDCs. If this should prove to be the case, then VF may be a catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for sustainable food production.
-VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water and land for agriculture

MYT (Massive Yet Tiny)

this sounds cool found the article on Celsias here

This sort of thing will probably be vaporware(meaning we hear about it but never see it come to fruition)

I would love to put one of those puppies in my Smart.... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Lets hope that at least the technology behind this engine is taken hold of and used to our advantage, if the car manufacturers don't want to yield to the Electric car then at least give us this. and toss out the inefficient Combustion Engine of old..

Gas Prices

I was just thinking about what gas prices were in London and then here comes this graphic with gas prices from around the globe..London 6.65 , Tehran 0.33 cents, so if its cheaper where there's a lot of oil, why do we pay so much in Alberta? just a question.

It's actually kinda weird where gas is expensive and where it's cheap, I thought this was actually pretty interesting.

House Switch

see here

I don't know if this has ever crossed your mind, I know I have wanted one of these for a long time, wondering why they don't come as default with new home construction, as with so many other things that don't cost a lot to install when you do it at new construction phase.

I sometimes know there is a light on upstairs or down and just don't want to give the effort to go turn it off, so it stays on longer then it should, and not only this whole house switch but I would love an Intelligent system with a central control for monitoring the entire houses electrical system, whats on, whats not, how much the stove/oven and fridge are using, daily hourly and real time stats for consumption, oh and if I'm wishin' here make it voice activated throughout the entire house so I can just speak like on star trek and the computer will hear me.......drooooool...... Oh and of course this is all in my Earthship on the side of a south facing hill with an average size year round stream running down the hill not to far away, Solar Panels, Wind Generator, and Micro Hydro system also tied into my monitoring system with stats like production , usage and battery capacities,

Just thinking here but how about Water as well, the manual water meter already tells us the numbers but why not incorporate it digitally as well, tell me how much water was used during different time periods, so we could tell how much was used for a bath or shower, washing clothes, dishes, watering the lawn, washing the car. everyone loves stats don't they?

That was quite the tangent off of a whole house switch. I wonder what sort of electrical nightmare it would take to retrofit one? anyone?

Thinking of putting some Solar panels up?

Looks like the time is on the horizon for affordable Solar Panels, 3 more years is actually not to bad of a time frame, and any go getter companies will probably try to jump that prediction and catch the first wave of affordable solar PV Panels, So if your in a rush to get your self some PV panels, you may want to wait a couple years before becoming part of the distributed network of power generation.

And if you live in Alberta, Some Utils are still holding back on allowing Grid connection. and if they do it's no walk in the park to get permission anyway. It will take some figuring out but going with at least a small set of batteries instead of a full grid tied system would be your smarter setup since if the grid goes black, you still got nothing, but having those batteries at least gives you some power to keep the food cold or lights on, of course having the lights on may just be the beacon in the darkness, and have all your neighbours on the way over, whether you want them or not.

articles on subject via Treehugger via Worldwatch

Toooooo RICH $$$$

There's Big Homes, and then there's THIS, feel free to Google residence Antilia in mumbai for more.

Can you really be too rich, exactly how much does something like this cost, and I don't mean just money but in materials and Carbon footprint, this is the epitome of whats wrong, the $Rich$ being gluttonous pigs and the poor taking it up the you know where. And don't try to give me the whole rich doing wonderful things with there money, because they do it out of necessity, and not wanting to fork over billions to the government in taxes. This place (245 Metres) is 55 Meters taller then the Calgary tower (190 meters).

I don't care how "green" they figure this place is, they should refuse to give him any kind of rating for an Eco building, be it LEED or otherwise.

I have to admit a part of me would love to see a place like this, but we just can't allow for this type of abuse to continue, earth deserves a better respect for it's resources, which are not limitless.

Vid - Bill Mckibben

Bill Mckibben Is a name that comes up a lot, on the sites I read anyways, so I thought I'd watch some more of this video and actually liked it. I haven't even seen it all, as its long (55 min), but the parts I watched were very interesting. Some things he talks about are the relationship of happiness to economic growth, how close communities determine more about our happiness then I would have thought, and a lot of Q&A at the end on varying other topics.

More problems embedding video clips here, so this will open another window which will actually be better as it has the links on the side to skip chapters.


View Deep Economy on FORA.tv

The video - More Peak Oil

More Peak Oil

It seems that global Warming has a competitor now for Headlines.... Fortunately each camp essentially has the same goals of moving us away from Oil and onto alternatives, one because of economics and one because of global climate change, its kind of a win win when you look at it like that, however this is probably not a win win situation in the slightest.

The first movie on this post from Celsias is very well put together and very doomsday which I like. check out the full article here. or you can watch the video above... yes its in a different post cause blogger is broken or something.

3 or 30 years is not really that much time, 3 years from now ill just be getting out of school which doesn't give me much time to prepare, the way I want to prepare. I need time to build up funds after finishing school to buy some land, to build an earthship or in the very least a passive solar home, off the grid, setup a garden, and maybe have some animals. purchase the needed solar and wind generators or if I'm lucky a micro hydro system.

In simple terms If the 3 year camp is right we are really screwed, if the 30 year camp is closer then at least us procrastinators have some time to develop a strategy and put it all together.

I may enjoy the Doomsday/Conspiracy Camp some.....all the time, but lets hope they're wrong.

Peak Oil

It took me a while to understand this whole peak oil thing, I attempted once to blog about it, but didn't feel as though I was doing a good job at explaining it, in simple terms it's when the world peaks at it highest amount of oil production, and then starts on a downward slope because there's just not enough oil in the ground to continue on an upwards slope.

The reason I bring this up now is because of a really good article on Groovy Green that talks about more then just peak oil, and why gas prices are so expensive right now.

Peak Oil will affect us all, like it or not, with or without my dream electric car, oil is used for more than just making gasoline.

Solar

China may have a lot of problems, but at the same time the country is making huge strides in Renewable energy, with Solar prices coming down and mass production going way up in the last year and even more scaled up in the next 2-3. read here.

Solar Energy contains the highest potential of possible energy capture of all Renewable resources, the problem of course is advancing the technology to capture all of the potential energy, they say that "The earth receives more energy from the sun in just one hour than the world uses in a whole year" and with prices expected to come way down, the time it takes to regain your investment will also come way down.

Also don't forget that electricity is not the only energy to be captured from the sun, the heat that can be captured to make hot water is actually a very efficient technology, and can be used to heat the home with, or just for your basic hot water needs, with some units even able to heat the water on semi-cloudy days. In some cases an over sized system could produce so much hot water that the water would boil inside the tubes causing them to explode ( bad setup ).

Combine these technologies with a passive solar home and a large thermal mass (read Earthship), to capture even more of the suns energy, and you've got yourself a pretty decent setup using just the energy from the Sun.

There are limitless ways to use the suns energy, so why haven't we, and why don't we use more of them. the sun gives us free energy every day, and instead we ignore its potential and continue to build structures that actually try to block or avoid the sun.

Sorry, I had to rant today and get it all out.

In Wheel motors

If you follow the electric car movement you've probably seen these, or at least there concept before, they provide more HP and more torque then a centralized electric motor and accompanying drive train. They, in many ways are the perfect design for the electric motor, and we may ( stress on the "may") see these soon on a car coming from ZAP. lots of questions still to be answered, I notice the diagram says a 10 minute recharge however no one knows what battery technology they will be using or how they aim to pull it off. A company like ZAP most likely isn't gonna be doing any of they're own R&D so they'll be using another companies technology, and could mean either a lower or higher price tag, given they didn't have to invest capital into the R&D in the first place.

latest article on this from TH

I hope they can but really at this point it's just another dream, that may not come to fruition.

Water???????????

This is a post from TH, I don't know about you but I'm still hoping someone updates it saying that the picture is a fake or some other reason for the colors. I like khaki even more today.

Update on the Bees

Cell phones are not the problem. read the article here.

Thanks again media, always willing to distort the truth to make a good story, it's so nice that they'll go out of there way like that......

I read another article that makes me feel a bit better about honey, I guess we import a ton of it so prices shouldn't actually go up too much this summer, however that's just honey.

Tagged

I don't play these games but I haven't blogged in a while so I will.

1. I don't have favourites like most people have favourites, ex. I don't get excited over certain colors, foods, places, smells, etc.

2. I've been playing LOTRO (Lord Of The Rings Online) it was free open Beta for the last month, it ends in 1 day :-(

3. I don't Like Jeans, specifically I don't like the way they feel. Ive owned prob 1 pair of jeans since 2000

4. I am not a decisive decision maker, unless of course your willing to wait......

5. I do get excited about Heroes - the TV show, starts again tonight !!!!! :-)

6. I like to watch the TV show Lost because it's so messed up. 3 seasons and no one knows what the H.... is going on. (BTW I missed last weeks, so don't spoil it)

7. If I start watching something I have to finish it, worst movies ever, chick flicks, it doesn't matter if I watch the first couple minutes, its over.

Tagged
Bilbo
Frodo
Legoals
Gimli
Sauron
Gollum
Gandalf

Yea I'm a geek, get over it.

Thoughts on Getting Real

Getting Real is a Post on Treehugger that I read today, and it made me think... go off on several tangents and eventually write the following post/rant. Read the article and comments first as it will make much more sense once you do.

My first thought was about the media and how they really really do influence how we feel towards anything, I never used to think they had there marketing powers over me, however I realize that watching the news in the first place allows them to tell me what the news is, not whats really going on, but what they decide to tell me and how they decide to tell me it.

If people realize that the media is deceitful, misleading, misdirecting etc. would people watch news based solely on the truth, could they handle it, or would it even be good for us to be aware of how horrible life really is. Would it make us rise to action? or would it make us sink into despair?

Why do I actually wish in the back of my mind that the world just come to a crashing end? It seems somewhat comforting that all my woes may finally be over, even if that means that billions die and the second coming is upon us. I would for some reason deal with all the trials that we know of during the second coming, then willfully deal with global warming. I imagine that many people feel this way, even though there is much more proof that global warming will be a problem before the second coming (that is to say that there is proof of when the second coming will happen).

Then there's marching down to city hall, which probably wouldn't accomplish much anyway, all that time and energy should be focused elsewhere, pull up your bootstraps (myself included) and do what you know you can, since really what would be written on your banner anyway?

People have the power, how we use, or don't use that power ultimately decides the outcome of our society. Sometimes I think we just forget that the world revolves around money and wherever we put our money is how it revolves. Businesses cannot succeed if no one buys there product, the Hummer after all, would still be a military vehicle if no one bought it.

Since banging down the political doorway is not the answer, what is? I think there's not an answer per say, but that if we want change then we can drive that change from our pocketbooks.

In fact an interesting quote from "The Corporation" a movie I think very interesting and should be watched by all, says "the corporation is legally bound to put its bottom line ahead of everything else, even the public good". besides the public good thing (which is an entirely different topic), its important to note that if we, can change the bottom line, than legally the corporation must change in order to improve its bottom line.

Science Quiz

found this quiz linked off of realclimate.org, it's actually pretty hard, it took me almost 48 minutes to complete and got only 70% on stuff that I should probably know. however there were at least 2 questions I knew the answer to, but put the opposite because of the phrasing of the question.

check it out here

1 more day?

1 more day is all I have left..... or not. It seems that just as I am about to be done with this contract, they are about 2 days away from actually needing me, hmmmm... not sure if they are willing to spend that much again on me, but who knows. I'm not even sure I'm excited about staying on longer, I mean except for the pay, I have been extremely bored playing online games and reading blogs for almost 6 of the 8 hrs I'm here, and, it's been condoned every time.

I should find out later on today wether or not there gonna keep me around for a while. stay tuned....

** I left early, but still it doesn't look like I will be continuing on.

*** Nope it's back to babies and diapers for me.

Colony Collapse Disorder

In case you haven't been in the loop about this problem, it's still getting worse. Bees are dying in LARGE numbers and for unknown reasons. They have theories about what may be going on but essentially all they know is that Honey bees are dying by the colony in matters of days, one day they're all where there supposed to be and the next they're gone, workers, larvae and queen all dead and missing. The bees that have been found are apparently riddled with disease which is why they are assuming some sort of immune deficiency, allowing the bees to become infected with pretty well all known Bee diseases, at once.

I bring this up today because I came across another article about the 'Colony Collapse Disorder', however this one is from Europe, where they are experiencing the same thing, link to that article here.

In case you don't bother to read the article, one thing that struck me was a quote by Albert Einstein that reads “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

In other articles they have mentioned that 1 of every 3 bites of food we take is dependant upon a Bees pollination.

Although I don't claim to understand Stocks, I think it a fair assumption that certain foods that are almost 100% pollinated by Bees are gonna change in price pretty dramatically, Almonds for one and apples another that I know of. However if we have no bees, Lets just say it would be the least of our worries.

other recent articles of interest on 'Colony Collapse Disorder', of course a google search would turn up 1000's more

Also from Celsias
KSL News
http://www.strausnews.com/articles/2007/03/29/sparta_independent/news/26.txt

5 Things I want and Can't afford

1. Land - Specifically though close to the mountains, south-ish facing hillside, Stream or more preferably river running through my property, Lots of Trees, also lots of open space as well, 10 Acre Minimum, absolutely no Drilled wells (Oil, H2S, etc.) even close to my land or potentially affecting the water table or Earth under foot, other then that I won't be too picky.
2. An Earthship Home - 3 Level Split, 2 levels partially exposed, 1 buried into the hillside. And all the goodies that go with a house like this. At least that's my vision of it right now.
3. All the Alternative energy Equipment I can get my hands onto, ie. Wind, Hydro, PV, Batteries, Inverters, etc.
4. Electric Car - Right now it would be the Tesla Roadster, but if I was on my Land I would get me a SUT from Phoenix Motorcars
5. Lot's of money ( don't really care how I get it ) so I Can afford all this stuff.

5 things I want (and could afford)

1. The 3 Part Series on Earthships, the first book would also be just fine for now and the rest later on. seen here at chapters
2. The Kill-A-Watt seen here
3. Clothing made from sustainable materials like, Hemp, Organic Cotton and Bamboo. More and more places are starting to carry this stuff, Gap started carrying some organic cotton in Khaki as to avoid dye's
4. Items for Disaster Scenarios, ie Flashlights, radio, Water purification, First aid Kit,
5. Books/Magazines on Building Sustainable housing, or Alternative energy no specifics here, just looking for knowledge.

Work

**update in comments**

I didn't know how fast to work on my project as they were unable to give me a time line.... at all. so I had to just assume they would be ready when I was done, some days I went slower, then some days faster, being unsure as to when they would be ready for me to work on the next part of the project.... turns out I went to fast... way to fast, and they aren't even sure what to do with me, I offered some suggestions and now I am also done with that. Tomorrow should be interesting as I have some garbage to deal with and then there's pretty well nothing to do.

Other then that Gore was at the white house today trying to get congress to listen to him about global warming and its imminent importance, from what I've read it went over like a gong show.. what else should we expect from those clowns. Should be more news on this tomorrow as to what happened.

Corruption

Just in case you needed a reason to doubt the current US Administration's True Agenda, take a look at this...

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/03/20/bush-administration-systematically-lied-about-climate-change/

Yes, Politics will always be dirty, and have Scandals, but why when a certain Administration can so clearly be against the people and for Big Oil, do we allow them to stay there. Let's hope that change is not just on the horizon but a whole lot closer.

The Other Side

Here is a Video that does a decent job of, presenting the other side. I'll post the link now so you can watch it first, and come back after, or do whatever you want.

Global Warming Swindle

I would then read this article that I found about the film.

http://www.carbon-clear.com/development/comment.php?bid=95



Inconvenient truth or Global Warming Swindle, you decide, I find both movies to be pretty extreme on both sides of the coin, however I believe that the argument itself will be enough to distract many from improving there way of life, the way that we know we should, and an Inconvenient truth caused people to change for the better, this movie is seemingly trying to make us revert to old technology and just keep living the way we have always been living because its not our fault, its the Sun's.... now why would someone want us not to progress.... both sides should be taken into account as with any debate, however I don't see that either film has changed the need for improving the methodology of today's world, Why do we recycle? not because it causes global warming but because its wasteful of our current and diminishing resources. Why should we use Energy Efficient appliances? not because it causes global warming but because again its wasteful. Coal fired plants can be clean/er, so can many other methods of electrical production but a simple fact remains that the more we need the more we use, and no matter the method of production, less is better. No matter the reason behind this change we will be better for it. Less garbage, less air pollution, less water pollution, improved technology, so what is it about the debate on human produced climate change that makes people so upset, is it because things are improving.... doubt it, so why then create a movie to debunk 'the myth', maybe they just can't stand back and allow the public to be deceived????? YEAH RIGHT?

Does that mean that 'Africa' shouldn't Develop, of course not, however, is it not also unethical to develop Africa using Medieval Technology? I think it would be wrong of us not to influence Africa and other developing countries to use cleaner methods of generating electricity. Maybe I am wrong? Imagine when more of the world is using inefficient Automobiles, Planes, Trains, Appliances, Homes, Buildings, etc. then won't we be glad we improved. If China alone doesn't do more and more ( they are doing a lot ) to change then imagine the effects of 1.3 Billion people, and India 1.1 Billion ( taken from here, you can see births and deaths in active time). Also take a look at some interesting maps that show the world from a different point of view.

We need to improve, Period.

Recycling

*** Updates in comments**

I am being tested..... As part of my job I have to unpack 110 of 4 different items = lots and lots of cardboard some plastic and a bunch of paper. The paper I can deal with pretty easily as almost every business has a blue recycling bin for paper. However unless I can figure out something pretty quick a very large amount of cardboard will end up in the trash..... they must have a cardboard bin right.... its a law isn't it? I guess we'll find out tomorrow. I'm very tempted to just take it to the recycling bins myself wherever they are. I know what I should do, so why am I so crippled by the thought of asking my supervisor about it... arrgghhh.

Does anyone else feel this bad when something so obviously recyclable gets tossed out in the trash?

Work

Well here I am at work, not doing much of much. Hopefully this afternoon should be better as they have promised to have something for me to do today.

Yesterday was quite awkward as the guy I was to replace temporarily came in to visit, saying he would be back on Thursday, hmmmm well they signed a contract so I will still be here for the month, however unless work really picks up then I'm pretty sure this one is over. If so lets hope there's another company willing to pay large amounts of money to have me sit around, or possibly even work I guess.

I would like to get on this place as management really seems to understand what it takes to be good, if the phones are dead and work is dead they play a LAN based Warcraft game, surfing is not looked upon badly nor is using MSN Messenger, all the things that most people at work do anyway but have to hide from there boss, well except the LAN based Game which is just awesome. My first conversation with my supervisor, she mentioned that her motto is that 'people don't fail, management fails' ..... I'm really not lucky enough to land this type of gig so I'm not holding my breath.... for that long.

The Solution

I had an absolutely brilliant idea the other day. It solves all the debate, all the arguments, and everyone will know without a doubt who was right and or who was wrong.

Here's the plan. We all sit on our big fat duffs and do nothing, yea that's right nothing. keep building more coal fired plants, forget about fuel efficiency those old gas guzzlers are really fun to drive, It would be rude of us to not allow China and India the privilege of enjoying these cars too, continue using as old a technology as we can cause hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it. then we wait for the ice caps to melt, for city's to flood, for enormous storms to demolish coastal city's. for the weather to get so hot that you can barely stand going outside, and if you do, you'll need like UV1000 protection. But hey think of all the time and money governments can save and all that hassle of trying to be proactive. Then when there's not a single person standing that would argue with global warming ( I bet there would still be a couple ) we can throw a huge party, oh and of course we don't need to worry about the mess since at this point Earth is gone to Hell in a hand basket and there is no chance to recover. But hey don't be sad at least we can all agree that global warming was definitely happening, and that's something to rejoice about.

like my plan? I think it's ingenious, and if we do it right, we won't have to wait very long for it all to come together.

---- feel free to add in a note of sarcasm

Toilets

Toilets are one of those things that currently require a lot of water. And unfortunately that water is becoming more and more valuable as the World changes before us. So people have come up with some ideas to improve upon this idea that i think are interesting, of course low flow and dual flush options are better then current methods however by filling the tank with water from say the tap or shower that has already been used once is a much better idea.... side note - does that commercial that talks about the water in your toilet being the same as what's in your glass not make anyone else wanna puke, its the flushing action in the glass of water that does it for me... anyway back on track here, some toilets that I think reinvent this whole idea of dealing with waste are what intrigue me most.

The Envirolet - these toilets are very convenient units that save a lot of hassle when it comes to the alternative being a septic tank. there site has a bunch of information and a 24 min video that really should have been a 5 min video. I like the waterless self contained Idea most as its really the K.I.S.S. principle, although i think it needs the added electrical input in order to more efficiently burn off the water. I've read some reviews on these toilets and some bad experiences with the emptying part not being fully composted.

I hummed and hawed over this post for a while, came across this guys blog the other day talking about the same thing, so I figure I'll just link to his and be done with this one.

Anyway you look at it you just can't use a normal or even low flush toilet off the grid, there's just to much water involved, and would require a very involved septic system, which isn't exactly known for being environmentally friendly.

The Renewable Energy Handbook

The Renewable Energy Handbook: A Guide to Rural Energy Independence, Off-Grid and Sustainable Living (Paperback) by William H. Kemp (Author)

I just finished reading this book the other day (thanks Tim), It was a very informational book with lots of resources and information about the powering of an off the grid or grid tied home, some of the information was pretty straight forward for anyone who has already looked into the Photovoltaic, and wind generation options. For me the information on Micro hydro power was the most interesting as I had not known very much about this technique, and he went into great detail of its designing and specs, the biggest eye opener for me on this subject of micro hydro was its 24/7 operation, why I never clued to this before who knows, but I always saw the low wattage ratings and blew them off, not realizing that they make up for the low watts with longer hours of production ie. 24 hr of 250W compared to 4 hours of 800W for say Photovoltaic. however that said, finding a piece of land with a usable river/stream could prove a lot harder then a nice south( Solar South) facing hillside, and of course the micro hydro system is considered the most complex setup of any other off grid power.

The book helped me understand the many options and many variables that need to be considered before diving in to any sort of off the grid setup. things I never thought about until reading this book were phones, Internet, TV, what to do with excess power generation, how to deal with not enough power generation, the many electrical devices involved in such a system, and even helped me understand electricity ie, watts, voltage, amps, 12V 24V 48V AC/DC.

There was of course much more information on other subjects, but these were some of the things that I picked up from this book.

As well I should note that it was written in 2005 and some of the information is already outdated mostly in the battery section.

Now if I could just figure out how to tie some of these ideas into the earthship design?(see earlier post)

P.S. This is the first book I've read since 2002, I can't read anything that's not non-Fiction zzzzzzz....

Darth Vader

Well I officially got a 1 month contract with possible extensions, with an Oil and Gas company downtown Calgary, I'm not too picky where the money comes from at this point seeing as they are planning on paying me a fairly obscene amount, and that's even after the head hunter takes his cut out of it.

The work is very specific and fairly simple as well ( could be jinxing myself right now ), however they did already mention that depending on the situations around the office I may end up doing more then originally specified, and it wouldn't be to far of a stretch to see me getting asked to stay on longer, not sure about that one yet, It will be pretty hard to say no to that sort of money.

I suppose I'll have to keep my yap shut about the similarities of Oil and Gas to the Dark Side, if I do decide to stay on longer. but for now they are definitely going to help our plans of becoming financially stable enough to go to school this Fall.

An Inconvenient Truth

With Al Gore winning an Oscar for best documentary for 'An inconvenient truth', and announcing the sequel, (supposedly) to be based on the book 'Plan B 2.0' I figure it was as good a time as any to write in my blog about one of my favorite movies.

If you haven't seen it yet, you must take a look. Hopefully I can convince someone to watch it, since I can't even convince Amy to watch it, or any of the other movies I have been motivated by lately. I watched this movie in theatres when it was showing here in Calgary, and ever since, I have been more motivated to do something, my recycling went from non existent to pretty good... I think. I can take about 4 large trash cans full of recycling every 3-4 weeks or so, plus all the cardboard on top of that, and I know that I could do better. Amy gets frustrated with me when I don't take the recycling out to the garage so when that happens, and it happens often, everything that should be recycled gets thrown out in the regular trash.

For those who have not seen this movie don't be surprised by the overwhelming guilt that you'll feel, most people I've talked to feel this way by the end. If your expecting answers, forget it, this movie fills you with questions, good questions mind you, questions we should have been asking ourselves a long time ago. Questions that will hopefully spur a motivation inside you. The movies purpose of course is to drive home the fact that global warming is more than just something Canadians hope for every spring.

Here's a random question for everyone that I have asked myself after watching this movie and still ponder on from time to time. that question being 'how do, or, do our environmental actions have bearing on us morally? ie. Wll we be held accountable for our environmental impact? I feel that we are somewhat accountable for our actions in this regard however, is it then a sin to litter? where could someone possibly draw a line. I tried to come up with some examples like littering, but as each persons situation begin different it made it quite hard, So another thought on this subject may just be that our actions towards the environment have there direct/indirect rewards and punishments while here on earth,(smog, lack of clean water, harsher weather systems) and that these things are not dealt with in the hereafter, just like, cars, homes, jobs, careers, clothes, just a couple choices I think that have little to no bearing on the hereafter. I hope my question makes sense, what are your thoughts?

All that being said, dont forget to watch the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Electric Cars

mmmmmm Electric cars...... (insert drool here)

I have been following the electric car movement for a while now and some major progress has been made in a very short time period. its not so much if they can make them viable, just how quickly a manufacturer can roll em out. and of course battery technology, always changing and getting better is really what is holding us up. The electric motor has already been at a solid technological level for some time now, however battery technology has only recently been pushed by investments and capital over the last couple of years.

We now have batteries that with a special 240Kw charger can be charged to 95% in 10 minutes giving you approx 100 mile range, however the range could be increased to almost double for a bit more on the sticker price, these particular batteries exist on the new 4 dr truck by Phoenix Motorcars available to California this Spring with limited production at 500 trucks and next year to 6000.

Still my favourite Electric car has to be the Tesla Roadster partially dependent on the Tesla name ( Nikola Tesla )and who he was. However the design and specs of this car speak for themselves with a 250 Mile range and 0-60 mph in 4 seconds this car touts better stats then probably 90% of the race cars out there and a lot better mileage given these stats comparatively, however unlike the Phoenix charging system the Tesla roadster is still charged over longer periods of about 4 hours, however if you can do this overnight in your garage, who cares. Make sure you check out there site, if anything for the pictures alone, this car is beautiful.

Recently I've also come across some interesting ideas such as 'Buy the car but lease the battery'. This could change things because the majority of concerns over electric cars are the batteries and there potential life spans. And with a lot of Battery companies competing to be the next technology used in Electric Cars you can never just tell where were gonna end up.

If you don't know the Electric car history or even if you do, you must check out the movie "Who killed the electric car"

Some other cars that are making some good waves
- Toyota Prius with Plug in option from Cal Cars
- Chevy Volt , just give me one with a Bio Diesel Generator instead and we might have a deal
- Toyota FT-HS could come out alright however its more of a hybrid concept
- Tango and you thought my Smart car was Small

I'm sure I'll post more on electric cars as they make more and more headway into a real market situation.

Earthship

I have always been interested in sustainable off the grid designs, and whilst researching the Straw Bale Design I came across what is called Rammed Earth, essentially it is just a dirt wall compacted tightly and thick 18-24", which in turn creates what is called thermal mass. Thermal Mass allows the building to regulate its temperature by absorbing the heat during the day and releasing it when the ambient temperature of the home drops.

Now there are different methods for building these Rammed Earth homes and one that caught my eye is a design called an earthship which uses the idea of thermal mass and rammed earth a bit differently. They use old tires, dirt, and a sledge hammer to really compact the dirt into each tire, then stagger these tires up about 9-10 high depending on the height desired of your wall.
You create large U shaped rooms with the opening of the U facing South. On the large south opening you create a greenhouse effect with Large windows to allow the sun in during the day. The reason this appealed to me so much was because no matter the climate, whether Ontario or New Mexico they claim to retain a comfortable ambient temperature of 15 - 20 C with absolutely no other source of heat but the Sun, and no matter what the outside temperature is. One site claimed to have a 10C temp inside during construction without the windows on yet and -25C outside (also some cool graphs on that site). That said most people will still add a secondary heat source for the home to help raise the temperature on Cold days and because most building codes require it.

Now add on your Solar panels, Wind generator for electricity, a Solar hot water heater, your rain collection and waste water treatment system your ready to go all on your own.

I think the ideas suggested for water use and treatment are very ingenious but there are simpler more effective methods that I would probably use. and of course depend alot on the build location, I'll save some of these for another post.

Some other cool points of the earthship design are the soundproofing aspect, bulletproof, earthquake and hurricane resistant, even said to withstand a tsunami impact, the main walls cannot burn as there is no air inside the wall, made with local materials, and if it for some reason has to be taken down (depending on other materials used) very little harmful waste is present, and when you take into effect that the majority of rammed earth homes are and have been standing for 1000's of years in europe and abroad the chance of this thing standing for a long time is very high.

Some Websites I've looked at, earthship.org , earthpower1 which has a detailed journal of their building process, earthship.net has some good pictures, and if I didn't make much sense then check out this video, and if that doesnt satisfy you, google it

A Blog

Been fighting the urge to join the Blogger revolution for some time, so here goes nothing.

I wanted a way to express my "Green Desires and Intentions" so here it is, I'm sure for most readers (if any)that my posts will be like gouging there own eyes out.... with a spoon none the less, that is of course if you react anything like Amy when I try to talk to her about anything Green.

As you may or may not know I am planning to go to School for ' Alternative Energy Engineering' this fall, and I thought that starting a blog would also be a good way for me to Keep in touch while we are gone, and let you know how school is going. Between me and Amy's Blog I'm sure that we can cover it all. I haven't been accepted yet and just found out that I have to upgrade my Math grade in order to meet the admission requirements, and trust me my fingers are crossed that everything works out, cause there is a lot of things to happen between now and then, ie. the Store, the house, the car, biggest garage sale ever, etc.

Hopefully no eye gouging will be done on this post so I will leave the really interesting stuff for next time.