In this day and age, as we consider climate change, global warming, and other scientific phenomenon, we’re all looking for ways to help reduce our carbon footprint.

For homeowners, one of the easiest ways to help reduce their carbon footprint, is to consider ways they can help cut down on home energy heating costs. Spray foam insulation, is one of the best ways to make this happen. Spray foam, is one of the most advanced, and safest, ways of insulating ones home, in this market. It can be used to insulate homes, roofing, and nearly any other type of structure. (more…)

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Today’s “word of the day” on dictionary.com is “misology” — a new one on me; it means “distrust or hatred of reason or reasoning,” as in:

In this way misology, the hatred of reason, arises. Socrates now confronts misology “because there’s no greater evil that could befall anyone” (89d2-3).
— Paul Stern, Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy, 1993

Obviously, this isn’t a term found too often in everyday discourse.  I bring it up only because it applies so well, sadly and ironically, to our discussions on sustainability here.   In its absence, it’s hard to explain our pretending that climate change doesn’t exist, and that our clearing the Amazon rain forest is acceptable behavior.

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I’m delighted to announce that a razor-sharp graduate student at USC, Nikita Rao, will be joining us at 2GreenEnergy as an intern.  Her master’s program focused on the electric power industry, a topic that I know we’d all like to understand better, and she’ll be researching and writing on a variety of related topics.

I was just about to write her a note, offering some suggestions, when I realized there is nothing private about these ideas.  Why not use this note to Nikita as a means to introduce her, and share what I’m thinking?   Here goes: (more…)

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Taking my own advice and “following the money,” I note that Bill Gates is investing in a start-up whose product is utility-scale energy storage.  We are not far from the robust expansion of renewable energy, propelled by this solution (“aqueous hybrid ion”) and others like it.  

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I just sent an email to a young man who claims to have discovered and harnessed a new form of energy here on Earth.  Of course, I’m skeptical, but he’s a terrific fellow and I’m willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement so he can feel comfortable in telling me what this is all about.

In the meanwhile, I wrote:

You may be interested to know that the mistake most people have made when I hear stories like this is that they believe there is “energy” in gravity, or magnetism, or the electrostatic fields surrounding charged particles, etc.  Each of these entities is a different kind of force; force and energy aren’t the same thing.  (more…)

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I write often about humankind’s tendency towards specialization, i.e., how most of the R&D work aimed at innovation in today’s world is performed by people with extremely narrow (though intensely refined) skill-sets.  I suppose it can be argued that this is necessary, or even that it’s a good thing, as we learn more and more about hundreds of different disciplines.  But it means that, each year, fewer people are “thinking outside the box,” developing potential solutions to our problems from fresh new perspectives.  When was the last time we heard about someone like Leonardo da Vinci? 

I bring this up to mention the birthday of Albert Schweitzer  in 1875: theologian, musical prodigy, author, philosopher, physician and medical missionary. I remember when I was a little boy my grandfather made a huge deal about the man (who was still alive at the time); “Baba” told me that Schweitzer was one of the greatest men in the history of humankind, and it is certainly hard to argue against that.

When Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, the bestowing organization remarked, “The expression ‘reverence for life’ is the key to Albert Schweitzer’s personal philosophy. No person must ever harm or destroy life unless absolutely necessary. This attitude permeated everything he did.”

Speaking for all of us, I sure would like to be a bit more “reverence for life” in the 21st Century.  Examples are all around us, but to take a single one, we don’t seem to have a problem hacking away what remains of the Amazon rain forest, which we’re turning, largely, into grazing land for beef cattle — at the rate of 1.8 acres per second. For far too many people, the fact that this is so obviously unsustainable is of only vague and distant concern. We tend not to ask “Why can’t we put a stop to this?” or even “What will we do when this huge habitat and CO2-sink is gone?” but rather, “May I have a cheeseburger, please?”

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In the last century, power resources were largely fossil fuels.  However, in the modern era, we seek to combine the convenience found in elevating technology with maintaining minimal to no harm done to the planet and its natural resources.   (more…)

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Green architecture planning is the act of outlining plans for buildings that reduce the human carbon footprint of the building as well as the people who will occupy it. Construction is designed to maximize the use of natural resources both inside and outside the building. This can save an incredible amount of resources during the construction of the building as well as through the building’s lifetime. This is done by following a few principles that proponents of green architecture share. (more…)

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I have to laugh when I read some of these guest blog posts.  Apparently some are good and helpful; in other cases, that really can’t be the case.  I just cut ties with one blogger whose list of “facts” about the environment includes: “Americans throw away 25 trillion Styrofoam cups per day.” As I pointed out to her in my email parting ways:  that’s over 80,000 per person per day or approximately one per second. Does that seem like a reasonable number?

Of course, “60 Minutes” didn’t demonstrate too great a command of fact-checking either.

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Are you concerned with resource sustainability? Are you a firm believer in the need for renewable and alternative energy for the improvement and continued existence of life on earth? You wouldn’t be alone; this is an issue important to millions, even if policy in many areas fails to reflect it. Online, you can find groups of people who are looking to get involved in the renewable energy movement on various different levels. (more…)

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