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

World's First Osmotic Power Plant Is Small Start

It's just a start: A mere 2 to 4 kilowatts of green power.  But it's way cool.

Norway's state-owned utility Statkraft is firing up the prototype of the world's first Osmotic Power Plant.  And it works by mixing water.

The process relies on the natural property of osmosis in which fresh water is drawn through a semi-permeable membrane into a column of saltwater.  This creates higher pressure in the column holding saltwater.  This pressurize water is then used to drive a turbine and generate electricity.

While the process has been understood for years, the problem was to develop the right kind of membrane that was both feasible and economical to manufacture.  Engineers have developed a cheap membrane, based on an electrically modified polyethylene plastic, at a cost that made it fit for potential commercial use.

According to Reuters, "The main issue is to improve the efficiency of the membrane from around 1 watt per square meter now to some 5 watts, which Statkraft says would make osmotic power costs comparable to those from other renewable sources."

There is basically no fuel cost.  The by-product is saltwater.  While there are oceans of the stuff, this conversion occurs naturally when a river empties into the sea.  Conveniently enough, the prototype is located on the Oslo fjord.

Statkraft estimates that if the obstacle of a more energy efficient membrane can be overcome, half of the European Union's demand could be met using this technology.  A 25 megawatt plant would be the size of a football stadium and require 5 million square meters of membrane.

With the length of the Texas coastline totaling 367 miles with 7 major bays, the potential for osmotic power plants would provide additional low-cost, pollution-free capacity to an expanding economic area.

The Golden Arches Turning Green?

It's finally happened, the green movement's cup has runeth over and has spread over to the fast food industry. The enormous fast food empire, McDonald's, is showing their efforts to go green, which is something that should even make Al Gore happy.

In 2008, McDonald's opened their first green restaurant in Chicago. In France, they used a program called EcoProgress which decreased their energy use by 11% in just three months. In Australia, they implemented a variety of water conservation measures. And in Brazil, Chile and Argentina, they're working  with local organizations to transform the restaurants used cooking oil into biodiesel.

Most recently, they are changing part of their signature logo and replacing the red backdrop with a hunter green to show their eco-friendly support of preserving natural resources. They are making these changes in Europe first and have already begun the transition in Great Britain and France.

I have to admit that I'm definitely not the biggest fan of McDonald's, (except for when I was pregnant - loved the chicken nuggets) but there is definitely something to be said for a company of this magnitude to be taking such strides to help the environment, which is more then I can say for some others.

For more information you can go to McDonald's Environmental Responsibility page on their website.

Ten Tips for a Green Thanksgiving

1: Don't eat Turkey.  Afterall, there are serious impacts by the livestock industry on the environment...

But alas, if you're like me, you can't resist the succulent flesh roasted to perfection with sage and onion dressing...and the gravy.  So, let's look a few alternatives..

1a:  Buy a fresh, free-range or certified organic turkey.

1b:  Buy a fresh turkey from a local farmer.  Be sure to check out the local farmer's markets.

Many poultry farmers currently are looking at raising heritage birds as opposed to the usual commercially bred birds .  Basically, these slower growing, free-range birds that produce lots of dark meat and flavor.

It can take up to two days to thaw a frozen turkey.  If you haven't gotten your bird yet, a fresh bird is your best bet.

1c:  Buy your produce items from a local farmer's market.  You'll find the quality to be more flavorful than produce trucked-in from a 1,000 miles way.

2:  To save energy cut down the roasting time, consider cutting the turkey into sections before cooking it.

3:  Not really a green tip but a safety note: if you plan to deep fry your turkey, do it outside and away from wooden structures like a deck.  Do not play or toss objects anywhere near one of these.  Deep fryers have notoriously unstable bases and spill easily.  It only takes one badly thrown football to turn a cozy Thanksgiving into a trip to the burn ward.

4:  Consider the number of diners.  This years, it seems that potluck-style dinners are more common for large family feeds.  This way, not only is the cost spread around but so too is the amount of preparation work.

5: Thanksgiving is time of family traditions so stick with the traditional favorite dishes your family enjoys.  Don't try making a new dish for 15 people that no one may like. If you do want to try something new, make it only a little of it -- call it a "sampler".  If it goes over well, you can add it to the menu next year.  If it bombs, you can eat it for lunch on Friday.

6: Setting the Table: If you're having a big dinner with lots of guests, you'll want to see if you have enough plates.  Instead of using disposable dinnerware, consider having guests bring their own place setting.  Your guests will know whose place is who's.  However, if you're planning on something a bit more formal, then look for disposable dinnerware that is biodegradeable and compostable.

7:  Leftovers.  Plan ahead what you can do with your leftovers.  If you don't have the storage space, encourage your guests to take some home with them.  While donating leftovers to foodbanks and homeless shelters sounds like a nice idea, these institutions might not take such items unless they are pre-packaged.  Be sure to check before your dinner to see if your donation would be welcome.

8:  Cook down leftover meat and bones for stock.  Once the turkey soup stock has cooled, remove the all the bones and pour your stock in resealable plastic containers.   Freeze for later use in other dishes using chicken or turkey stock.

9:  Lots of people in a house with a hot oven make lots of heat.  Turn down the thermostat.  You can also light candles to add a calm, relaxed mood to the dinner and allow you to turn off a few lights.  

10:   Choose Organic wines and other beverages to serve your guests.  100% Organic wines carry the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic seal to show the wine is made from 100% organically grown ingredients and monitored throughout production. Organic wine can contain only naturally occurring sulfites (stops firmentation) in less than 100 parts per million.

Tips for an Energy Efficient Thanksgiving from Bounce Energy

It's Thanksgiving week, which means in the throng of holiday shoppers and relative invasions, it's difficult to concentrate on reducing energy consumption and saving money while prepping for Turkey Day. But there is a way to win big with your family and still cut down on wasteful energy practices.

The Bounce Energy Blog has compiled a list of 5 tips to help make your Thanksgiving a little more energy efficient. I've provided additional links to helpful resources for cutting energy costs during the holiday season. Remember, the same tips for conserving energy that apply to the rest of the year can still be implemented during the holidays.

Bounce Energy Blog - 5 Tips for an Energy Efficient Thanksgiving

Improve Your Home's Energy Efficiency with ENERGY STAR

Eco Factory - Energy-Saving Tips For Greener, Less Costly Holidays

TreeHugger - Green Holidays

Follow TreeHugger on Twitter

Bounce Energy Education Center - Save Money by Becoming More Energy Efficient

Smart Car or Sub Par?

Maybe you've seen them around town, overshadowed by the large SUV's and 18-wheelers on the road. Needless to say, they bring a whole new meaning to compact cars. If you haven't guessed, I am talking about the Smart Car. I've heard conflicting things about these cars - some say they get the best gas mileage and they are better for the environment and others say they actually get the worst. What is the truth? Are these clown sized cars really helping the environment or are they just a fad? Well, writer Rita Cook who published an article in The Dallas Morning News helped shed some light on the subject.

It turns out that this smart car, actually named Smart Fortwo, is owned by Mercedes-Benz, and it seems they couldn't have chosen a better time to introduce this car to the US. To my surprise, 36,000 of these micro cars have been sold in the US since their introduction in 2008.  According to Ken Kettenbeil of Smart USA, "Dallas is a top 10 market for Smart USA and Smart centers in Dallas and Fort Worth are among the highest-selling dealers in the country." 

Ms. Cook reported that the Smart Car really is a green eco-friendly car in its entirety. She says that even the Environmental Protection Agency has classified it as a "SmartWay" vehicle, for its low air pollution and greenhouse gas scores. In addition, the car can go up to 90 miles an hour on the highway (terrifying on these Texas highways) with surprisingly good gas mileage of 33 miles per gallon in the city and 41 on the highway. At my height, the thought of cramming myself into one of these micro-cars gives me claustrophobic nightmares.  However, Ms. Cook reports that two 6-feet-5-inch (or taller) people can fit inside with plenty of shoulder room. In fact, the only thing she reported as a negative was slow acceleration - a worthy trade-off for efficiency. 

So why choose one of these tiny options over something like a Prius or Hybrid? The MSRP for the 2009 Smart Fortwo ranges from just over $12,500 to $17,000 (the convertible ranges from about $17,500 to $20,000).  This compares to the Prius that goes for $21,750-$28,420 MSRP, but does get better mileage at 48 MPG highway and 51 in the city. So it looks like the Smart car may actually be a smart, economic choice after all.

Information was used from http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/greenliving/stories/DN-nhm_green_1114gd.ART.State.Edition1.4b819b4.html and from http://www.kbb.com/new-cars/smart/fortwo/2009/review?filter=hasereview&id=248453

Tio the Helpful Ghost

If you're looking for a fun and different way to teach your children on ways to help the earth then you may be interested in this item. British designer Tim Holley has designed an interactive gadget to help teach kids about energy conservation. He’s created Tio, a ghost shaped wall mounted light fixture system. It changes colors depending on how long the lights are kept on.  Tio starts out green and then changes to orange if left on for four hours and then to red after eight hours. It's a little scary but even his smile changes from happy to a mean scowl as he turns from green to red. To me, that would be a sure way to teach a child to turn lights off.

One thing to note, this item isn't out to the public yet. The date of when it should hit the stores hasn't been released, but I think that once it's available it's going to be a worthwhile item for the kids.

You can learn more about this product at http://www.timholley.de/Design_Home.html.

Chipotle: Food With Integrity

Here’s another good reason to love eating at Chipotle: the Mexican restaurant chain has recently announced that it is partnering with Standard Renewable Energy to install solar panels at approximately 75 of its restaurants over the next year.

They’ll be installing solar panels in Denver, Colorado, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, Texas. Chipotle is expecting to avoid around 20,500 tons of CO2 emissions of the life of the project. When Chipotle has completed installing solar panels in all of its locations, it can boast being the largest direct producer of solar power in the restaurant industry.

Other green efforts by Chipotle includes increasing its local produce program by 10%. Chipotle is purchasing at least 35 percent of at least one bulk produce item in all of its restaurants from local farmers and producers. This makes Chipotle the only national chain taking such steps toward buying locally. Chipotle expects to have more than 25 local farms in its network that will supply some of the lettuce, green bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions and/or oregano served at the chain’s 860+ restaurants nationwide. Other green efforts by Chipotle include: serving free-range pork and opening a partially wind-powered restaurant in Gurnee, Illinois

America Recycles Day - November 15

November 15th is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to raising awareness about recycling. On this day, Americans are encouraged to recycle and buy recycled products. By visiting AmericanRecyclesDay.org, you can pledge to:

• Find out what materials can and cannot be recycled in your community.
• Lead by example in your neighborhood by recycling.
• Recycle batteries, cell phones, and other electronic waste.
• Email your elected officials to ask them to increase funding for your community's recycling programs.
• Tell five friends that recycling is the easiest thing they can do to slow global warming.

ARD will be celebrating its 12th year and each year, millions of American are better informed about the importance of recycling and buying recycled products. Celebrate ARD and promote the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling and encourage more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment.

Texas Landfill Gas Capacity: Waste Not, Want Not

About a dozen years ago, the town where I live was trying to figure out what was wrong with their five-year-old bus barn. The foundation was cracking, the roof deforming, and doors couldn't close.  The building wasn't settling.  Quite the opposite: it was RISING.

It turned out that the bus barn and servicing area had been built on top of an old landfill that was closed in the mid-1960s.  When the bus barn and service center was built, the asphalt and concrete sealed the ground over the site.  That meant that no methane gas, a natural by-product of anaerobic decomposition, could excape into the atmosphere.  As gas generated, pressure built over time.  Eventually, pressure lifted this 45-vehicle-capacity bus barn and about an acre of land several inches.

The bus barn was sitting on a huge potential bomb.

Engineers sank a number of wells to bleed off the gas.  After a few months, the building settled back down.  The town thought it would soon have an energy surplus.  Unfortunately, the amount of piping required to successfully capture enough gas to make the scheme viable also required the town to demolish the bus barn.  As such, only a fraction of natural gas could be recovered.  So, the effort was abandoned.  The gas vents into the atmosphere.

Originally, landfills were just very big holes in the ground that were filled with trash, buried and forgotten.  During the 1970's, it was discovered that toxic metals and other compounds were migrating from the bottoms of landfills and contaminating groundwater.  This finding helped lead to a re-structuring of how landfills are designed and utilitized.  Landfills are now contstructed using dense rubber membrane-barriers and layers of clay to prevent liquids (leachate) from passing into the groundwater.  Leachate is now collected at the bottom of landfills and pumped into treatment facilities.  For decades, it was also known that landfill methane could migrate underground for several kilometers and cause fires far away from the dump site.  Now, when a landfill closes, gas collection pipes are buried and the landiflll is capped with layers of clay (usually bentonite).  Over time as the garbage decomposes, methane gas is released and captured by the collection system.  The result is low-cost gas that can be conditioned for heat and generating electricity.

The state of Texas estimates that:

"Preparing a 1 million-ton landfill for energy production can entail initial capital costs of $600,000 to $750,000 or more and operating costs of $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Other costs include legal fees, permitting, environmental impact studies and other costs associated with maintaining the landfill."

According to an EPA landfill database, Texas has 24 landfill gas energy projects and at least 57 more sites suitable for such projects. Texas landfill and municipal waste projects produced just 230 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006.  With 186 active landfills accepting waste and an estimated 50-plus sites with landfill gas potiential, Texas has an opportunity to convert much of its waste into an energy efficient and cost-saving fuel.

Top Green Cities in America

The citizens of the United States are taking great strides to lessen their impact on the environment. With new advances in technology and more natural resources, cities are transforming to be more environmentally friendly.

Popular Science has listed America’s 50 greenest cities. They gathered information and statistics for American cities in categories that includes air quality, electricity use, and transportation habits. The cities scored points for drawing their energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and hydroelectric power, as well as for offering incentives for residents to invest in their own power sources, like roof-mounted solar panels. High scores were given to cities whose commuters take public transportation or carpool. Cities earn points for the number of buildings certified by the US Green Building Council, as well as for devoting area to green space, such as public parks and nature preserves. Points are also for how comprehensive a city’s recycling program is and how important its citizens consider environmental issues.

Here are the top 10 US cities leading the way in successful environmental efforts:

1. Portland, Oregon
2. San Francisco, California
3. Boston, Massachusetts
4. Oakland, California
5. Eugene, Oregon
6. Cambridge, Massachusetts
7. Berkeley, California
8. Seattle, Washington
9. Chicago, Illinois
10. Austin, Texas

If your city didn’t make the list, start a green revolution. Lessen your environmental impact and become a model citizen to start influencing other to do the same.