$28 a week and failing miserably
for all of you who have been inquiring about my $28 a week post, please cease with your pitying glances and offers to take me to lunch/donate leftover pita bread and hummus to me (unless it’s edamame hummus – my fave!)
i am happy to report that i am now gainfully gainpartly employed at codegreen solutions, and not so happy to report that i have been going over my allotted budget for 3 weeks straight now.
although it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly has been putting me over the edge, this 14K gold melting love ring that i bought from yayoi forest may be a clue. (in urkel-esque voice) did i do that?
in fact, i am ashamed to say that i have been relapsing to my piggish ways quite a bit since finding a new job. is it possible that what happened to alternative energy as soon as gas prices came down is now plaguing me on a much smaller scale?
luckily, although there were a few splurges here and there, i was able to eat nothing but 99 cent cans of corn and soup for about 3 days. note to anyone who is seriously strapped for cash – 1 can of soup can go a loooong way. don’t allow campbell’s to tell you that you can only make two servings. i successfully squeezed 5 large bowls of soup out of one tiny can by just adding water and salt. just be prepared to divvy up the already meager 7 pieces of carrot that come in a can a bit further.
in any case, i am going to do my best to get back on track being a responsible piggy. that being said, i’m amending “$28 a week” to “$33 a week.” wish me luck!
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meet your wind farm: maple ridge wind farm is creating new jobs, lowering taxes and generating income for locals
after my post new yorkers: did you know you could switch to wind energy? a few people asked me about where the wind farms are located and how many there are. there are currently two main wind farms in ny, tess please correct me if i’m mistaken, one is fenner wind farm in madison county, ny and the other is the maple ridge wind farm in lowville, ny.
for anyone who is interested in how people that live in lowville feel about the farms, this video provides some perspective:
some of the main takeaways are:
the wind farms are more like real farms than most people think. individual farmers actually put them on their land (the guy in the video says he receives $6,600 a year for one).
people are proud of them and love the boost to their town economies.
the technicians that handle the turbines are called windsmiths (i never knew!).
the farmers call the turbines “cash cows” because they don’t need to maintain, feed or do anything to them. they just get paid.
the wind farm keeps the town taxes low (in lowville, haha).
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new yorkers - did you know you can switch to wind energy?
i didn’t even know about this option until sam carroll of community energy inc. told me about it at the sustainable nyc store. don’t feel bad if you didn’t either, to quote the late notorious BIG, “if you don’t know, now you know, pigga.”
the fenner wind farm in madison county, ny
okay, i admit i changed up that last part a little bit. now for the question everyone is dying to know that answer to: how much is the switch going to cost? here’s the skinny:
not bad, right?
sam also explained to us that one wind turbine creates enough energy for about 500 families. 5 double OH! and when 500 new households sign up, they build another turbine. so in essence, by switching to wind, you’re also helping put up new turbines.
how fresh would it be if con ed ran a promo where if you could get 500 families in your area to sign up, you could see your turbine being built and customize it with your own patterns, family’s names and pics?
email sam to let him know you want to see that idea come to fruition at new.wind.energy.ny@gmail.com or enroll here.
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on wind energy: warning, this is going to be a sappy one
the fact that obama gave a shoutout to wind and solar energy in his inaugural speech yesterday was a major boost to all of us who have been using our voices (and fingers!) to get the word out on blogs, twitter and in our communities. it’s going to take a lot more work, and i applaud people like wind4me who keep the momentum going - just like the awesome force that we hope to harness.
cheers to everyone who is creating their own force!
“perhaps we cannot raise the winds. but each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.” e. f. schumacher, small is beautiful
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interactive telecommunications goes green
i was lucky enough to check out some insanely creative projects at nyu’s itp (interactive telecommunications program) show last night in a space that can only be described as what it would look like if the smartest, most creative person in the world vomited their brain out and arranged the contents neatly in compartmentalized stalls.
so what do interactive telecommunications have to do with sustainability and going green? just about everything. not only are electronic methods of communicating inherently less wasteful because they eliminate the need to use paper and send packages that need to be transported using fuel*, many of the concepts directly addressed the energy, water and waste crisis that we are currently facing.
check it:
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cameron cundiff and nobu nakaguchi’s how much water? is a system that shows you the amount of water you’re using as you use it. cameron explained that although the project is still conceptual, he hopes that such a system is in the works in the real world. how cool would it be if something like this could be integrated into your wii or posted to your facebook? note: the poland springs water bottle in tucked behind the project is ironic, don’t you think?
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martin ceperley’s power aware is similar to the wilting flower that i wrote about a few weeks ago, but improves upon the idea by consolidating the system to a single powerstrip. i also like how martin encourages potential users to compete with one another to use the least energy via facebook and other social networking sites.
some of the other projects didn’t necessarily focus on green technology, but were undeniably brilliant or just a delight to look at and play with:
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oscar torres and florica vlad’s pianocktail is a contraption that mixes you a cocktail based on the combination of notes that you play. “now you can drink your music in addition to hearing it,” they explained.
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aram chang, amanda syarfuan, dharmarajan ratnagiri ayakkad and seungran woo’s reverve is a shopping portal that works in conjunction with your favorite shows. let’s say you love charlotte’s glasses and want to buy them on the spot. reverve gives you the option to do it!
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tweetmobile, the brainchild of jill haefele, jorge just, joshua schelling and sara huong allows your twitter tweets to be manifested into the actions of these playful birdies. my tweet made the bluejay flutter!
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nobuyuki nakaguchi’s breath note was inspired by his childhood memory of fogging up his mom’s car window with his breath and doodling words and pictures on it. nobuyuki turned his fondness for this little pleasure that almost everyone has enjoyed into a way to capture your breath notes and send them to friends.
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corey lane menscher transformed his desire to know when his wife (who is actually pregnant!) felt kicks from their baby into the kickbee, which wraps around a pregnant woman’s tummy and sends a twitter tweet to loved ones every time the baby kicks!
what a treat to peek into the minds of tomorrow’s interactive media moguls. and how empowering to see so many minds focused on conserving, recycling, and communicating these goals to the rest of the world.
* the flipside is that electronic communication requires, you guessed it, electricity, which we all know needs to be conserved as well. but think about it this way: sending a whole bunch of text messages really uses about the same amount of energy as sending one or none, so why not use it to its full potential?
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monitor your energy usage with carl smith’s wilting flower
an ingenious prototype by carl smith. the flower stands tall, bright and open when you are doing a good job of keeping your energy consumption low, but begins wilting and turning warning colors as your consumption goes up.
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save the world by clubbing
as a follow-up to my post on the opening of greenhouse in soho last week, i wanted to give a full-fledged shoutout to the piezoelectric dance floor at club surya in london. yes, it sounds like something out of an episode of get smart or batman (the original one with adam west), but i am kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner! the brainchild of club4climate (you must, if you do nothing else of importance today, check out this website because it will blow you away) founder andrew charalambous, a.k.a. “dr. earth,” the revolutionary flooring uses quartz crystals and ceramics to transform clubbers’ dancing into electricity.
dr. earth offers free entry to any clubber that can prove he/she walked or used a bicycle to get to his clubs, although i’m not really sure how - perhaps a heartrate reading? surya also has its own wind turbine and solar energy system with plans to surplus power to local citizens.
the non-evil dr. is also planning to open a club4climate party island where eco-clubbers can gather to “save the world lying down and sipping cocktails next to the pool.” it will undoubtedly be expensive to attend a bash there, but i can’t wait until 2010, the slated opening date, to see what eco-innovations the island will reveal.
“unless we stop preaching to people and use an inclusive philosophy we’re never going to create the revolution to combat climate change,” said charalambous to reuters.
“it’s also about creating avenues of thought. imagine what you could achieve if big corporations adopted this kind of initiative.”
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use your workout to fuel your workout!
my workouts usually don’t consist of much more than sitting down and the slightly more strenuous standing up, but i would be more compelled to actually go to the gym if it were floating on the hudson. the rivergym (still a concept) would be powered by the energy created by people working out. i like the idea that you could “run” your way out to the middle of the river and not be able to return without “running” all the way back.
idea by: Mitchell Joachim
via: idealist
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reach a zen-like state using your microwave
how awesome would it be to have fresh rice for lunch at work everyday? not only would it be cheaper than ordering from wok & roll, but you would know that each fluffy puff had no added oil or fat (unless you added some, in which case i applaud your crazy ways, but question your motives). a few of my co-workers and i had lofty aspirations to bring in a ricecooker, but the plan never became a reality due to the fact we were afraid of shut down by strict office officials (we have a rather intimidating kitchen staff).
to my amazement, i was introduced recently to a product that cooks rice in the microwave! cook-zen allows you to make delicious, low-calorie meals right in your nuke box.
the cooker isn’t cheap ($59.99), but if you consider the fact that $60 is the price of one dinner in NYC, the cook-zen pot seems like a pretty good deal. did i mention that it cooks ramen noodles too? where were you when i was in college, cook-zen pot?
my only concern is that a microwave rice pot might use more energy than a conventional ricecooker. if anyone has any thoughts on that, please enlighten the rest of us.
oh, and i’ve been looking everywhere for the cook-zen cupcake maker, but can’t seem to find it. if anyone can hook me up with any intel, i’d be much obliged.
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can we power new york city on clean energy?
last thursday, the new york academy of sciences hosted a panel discussion picking the brains of three experts to try to answer the question “can new york city transition to 100% clean energy in 10 years?”
the symposium was held at 7 world trade center, a building that receives much less publicity and credit than it deserves. for example, did you know that when the it was re-built following 9/11, it was nyc’s first green office tower? close to 30% of the structural steel used in the building is recycled and rainwater is collected and used for irrigation of the surrounding park and to cool the building. another fascinating feature is the elevator system which is integrated with the lobby turnstile and card reader system that identifies the floor on which a person works as he/she enters and can automatically call the elevator for that floor (source: wikipedia).
sick.
thanks for the pic www.jets.org.
but let’s get down to business. sanjoy banerjee, distinguished professor and director of the institute for sustainable energy technologies at ccny was the first to present. he was kind enough to send me his slides. let’s go through some of them and what they mean. professor banerjee, if you are reading this, please correct or clarify what i’ve written as you see fit.
first, professor banerjee illustrated where the main power plants in nyc are.
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then, he showed us what our daily and annual energy consumption look like.
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these charts are pretty common-sensical. our power demand goes down at night when we go to sleep and our heating fuel demand goes down in the summer when it is hot.
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the following chart, to me, was by far the most interesting. it illustrates how much photovoltaic (or solar energy) power can be generated throughout the day vs. the amount of electricity we consume. logically, pv generation spikes around noon because that is when we receive the most sunlight. the most important thing that this charts shows is that the sun provides us with more than enough energy during the day to power us through the night, and professor banerjee dispelled the myth that we either do not have the technology to place solar panels on our rooftops or that it would be too expensive. “the achilles heel of solar power,” he explained, “is storage.” how do we store the energy that we collect from the sun during the day so that we can use it to watch tv, charge our cell phone and light our lamps at night?
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now, professor banerjee had a very nice slide about different types of batteries, but as a normal, less than super-smart person, i couldn’t really distinguish it from a map of brooklyn. what was very clear to me, however, was his identification of metal-air batteries as the main contender because they, unlike lithium-ion batteries, are cheap(er). the issue with metal-air batteries is that dendrites (like the ones in the slide below) can form, growing and growing until they completely clog the battery. i had to leave the room for a moment to go to the restroom, but i believe what professor banerjee was saying was that if we can somehow come up with a way to prevent dendrites from forming, we can use metal-air batteries to efficiently and inexpensively address the storage problem.
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a breakdown of figures associated with the energy storage challenge:
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professor banerjee also discussed wind energy, using renewable energy for our transportation needs and using our wastes for power in his talk as well. instead of reiterating every word that he said, i’ll leave you with his conclusion slide:
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as you can see, the project will be costly. we currently pay about 20¢ per kilowatt hour for electricity where we would be paying about 40¢ per kilowatt hour (roughly double) if we transition to alternative sources of energy. however, the most important thing to takeaway is that it is doable.
i’m interested to see how many people would be against/for paying the extra 20¢ in order to make our city more sustainable. you guys already know how i feel about it.
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why is this a site?
swyyne has always been an experiment for me. with all of the other super eco sites out there, i've been feeling like i want to contribute something just a bit different. so for now, here are my random musings.
look for stuff
feed yourself
