Project: Greenify | Guide to Going Green in Your Home, Office & Life

Home Wind Turbines: Some Things To Consider

A recent article in the Dallas News addressed some of the obstacles homeowners face when trying to install home wind turbines on their properties.  The obstacles were not engineering problems but rather local building codes, land use regulations, and (most damning) neighborhood aestetics and property values. The same worries also apply for solar panels.  

All of which are valid concerns most of which can be dealt with by educating the opposition.  Some might think that a wind turbine a homeowner wants to install is one of those towering industrial monsters from the West Texas Hills  or that all solar panels look like they just came off the International Space Station.  In these instances, it's import for the homeowner to be able to have a clear picture of what their planned installation will look like.

Small wind turbines are  available in a range of sizes ("nameplate capacity") from 1 kilowatt ones mounted on your roof or chimney (about $7,000) all the way up to 100 kilowatt hour turbines mounted on their own tower (about $80,000).  While roof-mounted or roof-mast mounted 1kwh versions are more affordable, they have in the past had problems with vibration and noise inside the home at higher wind velocities.  Mounting them on their own separate tower might solve this potential problem but it also raises the installation cost.

If you are thinking about installing a home wind turbine on your property (in the Texas ERCOT area), there are several factors to consider that will affect its appearance.  First, what is the wind speed in your area?  Second, how much electricity do you want it to generate?   Third: what height do you need to set the turbine for it to harvest that amount of power from the wind?

There are several helpful online resources that will help you answering these questions: The US DOE National Renewable Energy Lab has a map showing wind power classifiactions.  Generally speaking, the ERCOT area is poor to marginal for wind power capacity with roughly 12 mph the average speed at 50 meters (150 feet).

West Texas A&M University's WindEnergy.org provides free Texas wind data and wealth of info for installation supplies and costs.

Recycled Glassware from ... Zappos.com?

Okay, I wouldn't begin to pretend that I'm not a big fan of the Zappos model, considering they've leapt to the very end of the customer service plank and still pulled some crazy Jedi flips that made a lot of companies look foolish in their wake of awesome. Deep breath ...

It's more than just selling shoes folks. It's reinventing the concept of customer service and a happy work environment. Well thanks to my usual suspects over at Treehugger and their RSS feed on Twitter, I can now say that I've seen just about everything. Zappos is now selling recycled glassware.

Yes I said it, Zappos is selling recycled glassware from the Highbury Collection, which produces high-end glassware from wine bottles, soda bottles and other common household glass items. The pieces themselves are apparently collected, crushed and molded in Europe then sold online via Zappos.com. The pieces are microwave and dishwasher safe, but according to Treehugger, pieces are moving from Zappos like hot cakes, so you might want to hop in line quick like.

Check out the original article, Zappos.com Now Sells Recycled Glass Dishware for more details.

Get Dirty with Rammed Earth

The entry by energy_linguist about celtic roundhouse construction in western Europe got me thinking about a one of my favorite building methods:  Rammed Earth.

Rammed earth, also known as taipa, pisé de terre or simply pisé, has been around for centuries, ever since it seems that humans have been making mud. So it's very basic stuff: clay, sand, and gravel with a little lime as a stabilizer.  It is mixed in careful proportions with enough water to make into a stiff mud.  It's then put into a form and compressed with a tamping pole (or pneumatic tamper) until it is about %50 of its orginal height.  The forms can then be removed and the next layer applied.

What you get is an incombustible, termite and pest resisitant, biodegradeable wall with 2/3 the compression strength of concrete, excellent humidity control, and a high thermal mass that performs magnificently for passive solar heating.  According to the USDA, rammed earth structures have the potential of lasting forever, having been used on original sections of the Great Wall of China, structures of the Han Dynasty in China (circa 210 AD), and the Borough House Plantation in Stateburg, SC.

As mentioned, the thermal mass capabilities are the principal focus for people working with solar heating.  Typically, rammed earth walls are 18 to 24 inches thick and dense: up to 125 pounds per cubic foot.  One home project built in Dallas estimates the finished 2400 sq. ft. home will weigh in excess of 300 tons.  This kind of mass translates into thermal bank which stores heat during the day and releases it at night. 

And of course, you can use it for building a wall for your garden, patio, privacy wall along your pool.  Naturally, it's best not to use this technique in areas that are typically very wet or have a lot of rainfall-- afterall, its made of compressed mud and takes about 2 years to cure.  However, if you are interested in harnessing the sun and earth to heat and cool a house that chops bucks off heating and cooling costs and has a low carbon footprint in creating, then rammed earth is the way to go.

Quentin Branch, a Rammed Earth Builder with 33 years experience, offers "Rammit Yourself workshops".  Participants can even bring their own half-full five gallon bucket of any soil they wish to test for suitability.

Files from the Strange: Building a Low Impact Roundhouse

Now I have to give kudos to the purveyors of this page/site with tongue firmly in cheek, simply because it's often that this type of ecology or environmentally conscious product or tip is not for everyone. But sometimes it's equally important to shift and wander into one eco extreme or another to A) offer perspective and an interesting view into how far some ecoists are willing to go, and B) Not every green tip can be about your dishwasher or air conditioning unit.

First off, check out Building a Low Impact Roundhouse before we go too far into some of the details. Ready? One, two, three ... and go:

• Two workers on a communal farm living off the land
• Wood for heat, water from the mountain well (you get the picture here)
• Based on the celtic roundhouse, which was historically built in Western Europe prior to Roman occupation and used either stone walls or wooden posts joined by panels and a thatched roof
• Utilized 150 bales of straw for insulation, reed bed for sink water and a  traditional compost toilet, just as a start

Can't really argue with the UK's progressive approach to going green, but you'll have to decide for yourself whether the roundhouse lifestyle is your eco version of a dream home.

From the Land of StumbleUpon: Jack Nicholson's Green Car

Circa 1978, well before hydrogen hybrids and tax credits were serving Americans a healthy helping of green in their auto diet, infamous Jack Nicholson eco'd out his classic Chevy to run off hydrogen powered by solar. In comparison to common models on the road today like the Toyota Prius, which uses half petrol/electric, the hydrogen economy has been a tough sell in the U.S.

The technology simply hasn't caught on for mass or mainstream production, primarily because of the expensive roadblock that is the refueling infrastructure. But it's certainly interesting to take a look back to the early days of green automobiles.

Organic Foods Debate: Organic Labeling and Marketing

The National Organic Program (NOP) and its most important duty, at least in my humble opinion, is ensuring that all organic foods are produced, processed and certified according to rigid standards. It's a lifting of the proverbial curtain so to speak, and our only protection as consumers from being duped.

More specifically, the labeling regulations and requirements of the NOP apply to any product, raw or processed, that contains organic agricultural ingredients. But what exactly does organic mean when it comes to food labeling? I can easily pick up a can of organic beans and see the list of ingredients on the back, but have no true insight into the processes of producing and canning organic black beans. Is it done by hand? Are they processed in filtered water? In all actuality, food labels tell us very little about what goes on before the can reaches the grocery shelf and our carts and cupboards.

So let's look at the labeling requirements for a bit more insight:

100% Organic Vs. Organic

Products labeled as 100% organic must consist entirely of organically produced ingredients with the exception of water and salt. That includes any processing aids.

Products labeled organic must contain 95% organic ingredients and processing aids, again excluding water and salt, and can only use other substances for production that are approved via the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances. Here's the key to this particular level of organic: The allowed substances/ingredients does include non-organically produced agro products that are NOT commercially available in organic form, but again, any substance is still strictly regulated by the USDA.

A bit confusing on the surface, but in reality, strict guidelines according to the above list prevents a good portion of the tongue twisting and non-healthy substances you see in most processed foods from entering the organic equation.

Made with Organic Ingredients

This is a bit tricky considering the language doesn't really dictate the level of organic on the surface, though you'll be glad to know that the NOP does regulate what "made with organic ingredients" truly means to the consumer.

70 percent of the ingredients must be organic to use this phrase, in addition to the ability to include up to three organic ingredients on the primary display label. The product cannot use the USDA organic seal, and is also strictly regulated in its production processes in order to stake this claim.

Anything less than 70 percent cannot make any direct organic claims, though they can include any organic ingredients on the information area of the product (where the specific ingredients and nutritional information is listed).

One other interesting detail straight from the NOP:

"Except for operations whose gross income from organic sales totals $5,000 or less, farm and processing operations that grow and process organic agricultural products must be certified by USDA-accredited certifying agents."