Hydroponics: The History and Mystery of Hydroponics Gardening
Posted by lindseyshoe
In this two part series on Hydroponics find how what is behind the history and mystery of this tried and true, where old becomes new again growing trend for plants.
June 30th, 2009
June 26th, 2009
The Best Bang for Your Buck When You BYOB
Posted by lindseyshoe
Any reusable bag is greener than plastic or paper grocery bags but some are greener and more durable than others. Here’s a comparison of 9 versions of reusable grocery bags sold at grocery stores and what’s in the bag for your buck.
June 17th, 2009
Energy Star Equals Gold Star for School District
Posted by lindseyshoe
We have all heard of Energy Star appliances, those appliances that operate with efficiency while using natural resources such as energy, gas and water, but how many of us know about Energy Star schools?
June 16th, 2009
Solar Power Plants On Planet Earth
Posted by carrie_roll
Concentrating Solar Power Plants:
Solar thermal energy is a technology for harnessing solar energy for thermal energy (heat). Solar thermal collectors are defined by the USA Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat swimming pools. Medium-temperature collectors are also usually flat plates but are used for creating hot water for residential and commercial use. High temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or lenses and are generally used for electric power production. STE is different from photovoltaics, which convert solar energy directly into electricity.
And here’s the map for CSP locations
30+ Utility-Scale Solar Installations in the United States
June 14th, 2009
Free Money For Changing Toilets and Water Fixtures
Posted by carrie_roll
Came across this web site today: ToiletRebate.com
Basically, it’s a way to get some money back for changing out inefficient water hogging appliances and fixtures in your home, condo, or apartment.
It’s US based, and really only indexes the US and Canada. But if you’re in the US or Canada, you really should take a look.
They organize into one place the various projects which are trying to give you money for changing out your water fixtures and appliances.
If you’ve just renovated, or are planning on renovating, or want motivation for why you should renovate, take a look at ToiletRebate.com.
June 13th, 2009
Open Pit Mines (coal) vs. Solar Updraft Towers
Posted by carrie_roll
It has to be a kilometer tall, with a 1.5 mile radius of “greenhouse canopy”, just to power 200,000 homes only for 50 years? AND with a cost of 1Billion dollars/tower? And…??? Are you kidding me? How can you think this is a good idea?
Sometimes people fascinate me. Really.
I got that message after posting about solar updraft towers a few days ago.
I thought, and still think, that solar updraft towers as power plants are a great idea.
But I do think it’s good to take differing perspectives into account, and so I decided to look into this.
What I’ve found (as you’ll read below) has convinced me that solar updraft towers are not only a great idea, but one that we should be pressing our energy utilities to act on, or creating solutions to ourselves.
Here’s what I mean:
We currently use coal to generate significant amounts of electricity, right?
Coal is cheap. It’s “easy” to come by, and easy to use to generate power. (RIght?)
This is an aerial shot of one of the largest open pit mines in the world, the Black Thunder Coal Mine in Wyoming.
I learned from here, that “In 2004, Black Thunder became the first coal mine in the US to ship a cumulative 1,000Mst (907Mt) over its 27-year life to date.” and that “The combined operation is now producing coal at a rate of around 91Mt/y, equivalent to about 10% of total US coal production.”
I had no idea what those measurements meant.
Turns out it was easier than I thought. It’s 901 Million Tons total, or 91 Million Tons/year.
So the first complaint/rebuttal offered by this individual was It has to be a kilometer tall?
Well, how much concrete would be needed to build a solar updraft tower?
I know that in the world trade towers, 425,000 cubic yards of concrete were used. (It’s unfortunately an easy number to look up.)
1 cubic yard of concrete = 3,000 pounds (approx.) source
Less concrete would likely be needed for this kind of tower, but let’s assume it’s the right amount of concrete.
We would need 6,375,000 tons of raw material per tower. (I realize as well that there would be steel and other materials to build a solar updraft tower, but we’ll just go with the base material for now.)
Not comparing apples to apples here (at all) but go out on a limb with me for a second and say we were to make towers out of the material that has been extracted already (coal instead of concrete). From what has already been taken out of the ground there in 27 years (as of 2004), we could have built 151 towers. (907Million tons/yr. divided by 6 Million tons/material per tower). Coal’s not as dense as the material needed to make concrete, so let’s round that number down to 100 towers, just to give flex room in my figures.
So I realize that’s not apples to apples, but it gives a good base for understanding. From one (albeit large) mine, the raw material could have constructed 100 or more towers.
The next complaint offered by this person was It has to have a 1.5 mile radius of “greenhouse canopy”?
Well, just how big is that footprint?
The image below shows how many of these 1.5 mile radius greenhouse canopies could fit into the surface area of just the Black Thunder Coal Mine. (I left the scale on the map so you could see I was accurate to a 1.5 mile radius.)
I’ll save you the time in counting.
It’s 16 (or more).
So, for the same space used by this one coal mine over 27 years, we could build 16+ towers.
For the same (or similar amount) of raw material extracted from the earth by this one coal mine over 27 years, we could build 100+ towers.
The next issue offered by this person was this expense would be *just* to power 200,000 homes *only* for 50 years/tower?
Well, how much coal is needed for 50 years of powering 200,000 homes?
In 27 years, 907 million tons came out of the Black Thunder mine.
They say that met about 10% of the nation’s energy needs.
If that number is accurate, this means that in 25 years, the US used about 10 billion tons of coal. If energy consumption remained the same (which it won’t because consumption is increasing, but it’s easy for purposes of the example), the US would use 20 Billion tons of coal in 50 years.
According to the US DOE, it currently costs about $36 to mine a ton of coal and deliver it to a utility.
20 Billion tons of coal * $36/ton = 720 Billion dollars to get coal to utilities over 50 years.
That’s 720 solar updraft towers that can be built for the same amount of money.
But the utilities have costs to building and maintaining power plants for turning coal into electricity.
According to the DOE, “Each ton of coal consumed at an electric power plant produces about 2000 kilowatt hours of electricity.”
According to APPVoices, a traditional coal power plant costs approximately $1,300 per kilowatt hour of generation capacity. Therefore, a 500 megawatt plant costs about $650 million. (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants and Fluidized Bed plants are more expensive at more than $1,400 per kilowatt hour, or more than $700 million for a 500 megawatt plant.)
We’re going to use the lower number of those numbers, $1,300 per kilowatt hour of generation capacity.
This means that (in 50 years) 20 billion tons of coal produced around 40 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity.
40 trillion kilowatt hours * $1300/kilowatt hour, is a a total cost (just in production of electricity from coal) of 520 trillion dollars (over 50 years).
Assuming each tower would cost 1 Billion dollars, we could *only* build 520,000 towers for what it would cost (at the current price of coal), to power the United States for 50 years.
(I know coal was less expensive in the past, but it will likely cost more in the future, especially with the dropping value of the dollar. So just stick with the example here.)
A single tower could power 200,000 homes. The US Census Bureau reports 126,316,181 housing units as of 2006. That equates to 632 of these towers to power the entire US. Let’s round that up to 640.
(Significantly more than $640 Billion was spent in the Iraq war, 20 billion was spent so GM could go into bankruptcy, but I digress…)
After the first 50 towers were built, construction efficiency would increase and as a result costs would decrease. But let’s assume that didn’t happen.
Compare these numbers next to each other.
$520,072,000,000,000
$ 640,000,000,000
For the same space used by one coal mine over 27 years, we could build 16+ towers.
For the same (or similar amount) of raw material extracted from the earth by this one coal mine over 27 years, we could build 100+ towers.
For the same costs as the entire coal industry over 50 years, we could build 520,000 towers.
For the same electricity production as the entire coal industry (to power the United States over 50 years), we could save more than 520 TRILLION dollars.
Is my math flawed? Am I missing something here? Please let me know if I am.
Even if my numbers are way off, and there are all sorts of unaccounted for expenses in building the solar updraft towers, the cost to power the United States for the next 50 years is so much better when looking at the solution proposed by solar updraft towers.
And this ignores the real costs of coal.
Coal cleanup (after mines are carved into the earth)
Coal pollution (health challenges)
Trucking/Equipment pollution and oil price fluctuations
June 12th, 2009
Prince of Wales Protects the Rainforests
Posted by carrie_roll
Check out our video below for the Prince’s Rainforests Project:
June 11th, 2009
New Tomato Plants In Old Milk Jugs: Planting Tomatoes Upside Down
Posted by carrie_roll
This video will show you how to plant tomato and pepper plants in milk jugs. The biggest advantages? Growing plants in a small space from reusable milk jugs (instead of throwing them into the trash).
If you live in an apartment, you can still grow vegetables. Milk jugs, potting soil, and tomatoes combine to make simple summer plants, and you can use something you’re probably throwing away right now: plastic containers.
The inspiration for this: Carrie and I saw a TV commercial where they were selling some plastic thing you could buy for $20 to grow your own tomatoes. What’s the point of that? People have plastic containers like milk jugs that they throw out every day. We actually got the milk jugs for our tomato plants from the coffee shop where Carrie works sometimes. Carrie told me that the coffee shop throws out at least 15 of these milk jugs EVERY day. That’s unbelievable. (Think about the hundreds of thousands of milk jugs thrown out every day my the thousands of coffee shops across America alone). So we turned them into tomato planters. If you live in an apartment or have limited space, this could be a perfect way for you to grow tomatoes as well.
June 9th, 2009
Solar Towers Could Power the Future: Solar Updraft Power Plants
Posted by carrie_roll
Many of you have no doubt heard of solar updraft towers, but I had not until today.
Basically the idea is that a tower is constructed, and a large circle of the ground is covered with a material that sits 3-15 feet off the ground. Light can shine through the material, heating the air underneath the material and funneling it toward the only escape for the hot air, a tower at the center of the circle.
In the tower is a turbine. That turbine is turned by the heat rising upwards.
A successful research prototype operated in Spain in the 1980s, and many modelling studies have been published as to optimization, scale, and economic feasibility.
Here’s a video of the tower that was done in the 1980′s.
That video was taken before the tower collapsed in a storm in 1989.
The concept has come a long way since then. Although very little has been done to actually build towers in the world, but power companies are (slowly) beginning to look at this as a real possibility for meeting electricity needs in the short and long term.
The generating ability of a solar updraft power plant depends primarily on two factors: the size of the collector area and chimney height. With a larger collector area, a greater volume of air is warmed to flow up the chimney.
With a larger chimney height, the pressure difference increases the stack effect, ultimately producing a greater pull on the air flow and more electricity generated.
Heat can be stored inside the collector area greenhouse to be used to warm the air later on. Water, with its relatively high specific heat capacity, can be filled in tubes placed under the collector, increasing the energy storage as needed.
June 8th, 2009
Peat Pots for Potted Plants
Posted by carrie_roll
Peat Moss is a family of wild growing mosses of the Sphagnum kind or family of mosses (as it is scientifically known). Peat Moss, as used in gardening, is a fibrous, decomposed remains of these certain types of moss, which are found in very wet areas of the country. It is a highly prized natural plant food and can be used as a covering or mulch like substance for seeded areas.