Charles Frost's blog
"Thank you for your interest in One Laptop Per Child. Our mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education—sometimes less than $20 a year per child. Imagine the potential that could be unlocked by giving every child in the world the tools they need to learn, no matter who they are, no matter where they live, no matter how little they may have.
If you'd like to donate an XO laptop today, simply click the donation button on the right, above the photo. A donation of $200 will pay for and deliver one XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, $400 will pay for and deliver two XO laptops, and so on.
Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home. If you're interested in Give 1 Get 1, we'll be happy to send you a reminder email. Just sign up in the box to the left and you'll receive your reminder prior to the November 12 launch date.
Once again, thank you. We sincerely hope you'll join our growing community of people working to create a connected, educated, enlightened future for the world's most essential resource—its children."
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Barrels of fun, with a message
Location has always been the key to selling products, this machine has no restriction. Wherever the customers, the machine can be placed, static or mobile. It has its own internal supply of DC energy. Should power cuts occur, it will carry on operating when conventional machine stop. No matter if the skies are grey, rain or even at night, 365 days a year.
Ask a die-hard altpower fan if they’ve ever seen a functional wind turbine in the urban jungle, and chances are, the answer is no. Today we bring you some exclusive footage of this rare species. This Skystream 3.7, built by Altira-backed Southwest Wind Power, sits atop a remodeled corner house in San Francisco’s Mission District. The blades sit on a skinny 45-foot pole dropped in by crane. Here is the turbine in action on Wednesday’s windy afternoon.
Why Protesters Are Playing
Ping-Pong in Your Parking Space
September 21, 2007
First Renewable FIT Introduced in U.S.
Prices for solar and biogas introduced in the Michigan Renewable Energy Sources Act would be the best in North America.
by Paul Gipe
Lansing, Michigan [RenewableEnergyAccess.com]
Patterned after Germany's highly successful Renewable Energy Sources Act, Veteran Michigan Assemblywoman Kathleen Law submitted a bill to the Michigan House of Representatives earlier this week that creates the first comprehensive renewable energy feed-in tariff (FIT) introduced into any U.S. legislature.
The proposed tariffs or payments for solar energy in the Michigan bill are more than 50% greater than the equivalent tariffs in Ontario, currently the highest in North America. Likewise, the proposed tariff for biogas is nearly one-third greater than that in Ontario.
Like the German law which has powered the country to world leadership in wind, solar, and biomass energy—and created nearly one-quarter million new jobs in its booming renewable energy industry—proponents of the bill are hoping the tariff will revive Michigan's flagging economy.
"We are extremely excited that Michigan has joined the ranks of so many progressive states in making the commitment to reduce our carbon footprint," said Subhendu Guha, President of United Solar Ovonic, which is headquartered in Michigan and is a leading manufacturer of thin film solar cells. "Policies like this will create new jobs in Michigan and will help maintain a cleaner environment."
The tariffs proposed in HB 5218 (2007) are equivalent to those in Germany and would be the highest in North America if the bill is made a law.
• Hydro less than 500 kW: $0.10 USD/kWh
• Biogas less than 150 kW: $0.145 USD/kWh
• Geothermal less than 5 MW: $0.19 USD/kWh
• Wind: $0.105 USD/kWh
• Wind energy from small wind turbines: $0.25 USD/kWh
• Rooftop solar less than 30 kW: $0.65 USD/kWh
• Solar façade cladding less than 30 kW: $0.71 USD/kWh
Other legislatures in the U.S. and Canada have considered or are reviewing similar FIT programs. The province of Ontario launched its Standard Offer Program (SOP) in 2006, and a bill for solar energy tariffs was introduced into Hawaii's legislative assembly earlier this year. However, neither are as comprehensive as the FIT proposed by Assemblywoman Law.
While Ontario's SOP is seen as a very important step for FITs in North America, the proposed tariffs for solar energy in the Michigan bill are more than 50% greater than the equivalent tariffs in Ontario. Likewise, the proposed tariff for biogas is nearly one-third greater than that in Ontario. The Michigan proposal also includes tariffs for geothermal energy, a technology not covered by Ontario's SOP.
Renewable tariffs, like those in HB 5218 (2007), encourage homeowners, farmers, and businesses to sell their renewable energy for a profit by allowing them to "feed" their electricity into the grid. Many people call such tariffs "Advanced Renewable Tariffs," because the price paid per kilowatt-hour of electricity differs by technology.
For example, because solar is more expensive than wind on a cost per watt basis, the tariff for solar energy is much higher than that for wind energy so that homeowners can profitably install solar panels on their roofs across the state.
HB 5218 (2007) is also the first bill to propose wind tariffs differentiated by wind resource intensity, as is used in France. These differentiated tariffs limit potentially excessive profit from commercial wind farms at windy sites while allowing profitable development in less windy areas. This is important in a state like Michigan so farmers in the interior of the state can profitably develop their wind resources.
The bill has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Technology. Before becoming law, the bill must pass both the House and Senate and must be signed by Governor Jennifer Granholm who has made renewable energy a key element of her administration.
In the spring of 2007 Governor Granholm traveled to Germany. After returning she was quoted in the Detroit News as saying, "In Germany they created 170,000 jobs by changing the incentives for the use of wind and solar. We ought to be doing the same thing in Michigan."
Just an amazing 8 minute video. Sent to me by my little sister, the teacher, and School Board member... (the white sheep of my family).
Definately worth the time (in my opinion).
A Green Movement Is Roiling America
Clothesline Has Neighbors Bent Out of Shape in Bend; An Illegal Solar Device?
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER
September 18, 2007; Page A1
BEND, Ore. -- It was a sunny, 70-degree day here in Awbrey Butte, an exclusive neighborhood of big, modern houses surrounded by native pines.
To Susan Taylor, it was a perfect time to hang her laundry out to dry. The 55-year-old mother and part-time nurse strung a clothesline to a tree in her backyard, pinned up some freshly washed flannel sheets -- and, with that, became a renegade.
The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development's managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.
"This bombards the senses," interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor's clothesline. "It can't possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood."
Ms. Taylor and her supporters argue that clotheslines are one way to fight climate change, using the sun and wind instead of electricity. "Days like this, I can do multiple loads, and within two hours, it's done," said Ms. Taylor. "It smells good, and it feels different than when it comes out of the dryer."
The battle of Awbrey Butte is an unanticipated consequence of increasing environmental consciousness, pitting the burgeoning right-to-dry movement against community standards across the country.
The clothesline was once a ubiquitous part of the residential landscape. But as postwar Americans embraced labor-saving appliances, clotheslines came to be associated with people who couldn't afford a dryer. Now they are a rarity, purged from the suburban landscape by legally enforceable development restrictions.
Nationwide, about 60 million people now live in about 300,000 "association governed" communities, most of which restrict outdoor laundry hanging, says Frank Rathbun, spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, an Alexandria, Va., group that lobbies on behalf of homeowners associations.
U.S. Plans a Switch To All Fluorescents For Efficiency's Sake
By JOHN J. FIALKA and KATHRYN KRANHOLD
September 13, 2007; Page A8
WASHINGTON -- The House and Senate are working on legislation that over the next seven years would phase out the conventional light bulb, a move aimed at saving energy and reducing man-made emissions believed linked to climate change.
I read some good comments by Marc Lefkowitz over on GCBL regarding the movie "The 11th Hour".
As I recently saw the movie too, I was thinking that it was a good movie to inspire us to change our current over-consumption ways. This evening I ran into this article that got me thinking about change, and I thought that it had some interesting points.....
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Hope, Not Fear, Inspires Change
Emily Gertz
August 27, 2007 5:37 PM
Summer 2007—The Cuyahoga County Planning Commission quietly launched a new section on its web site for Whiskey Island, signaling its readiness to move forward with plans to enhance the existing natural areas at the 23-acre eastern end known as Wendy Park. Connections from the city would also be improved with a proposed bike path along the road from
Edgewater
Park, and—further in the future—one over the
Cuyahoga
River for the Towpath Trail.
Lake Erie is on average relatively shallow and has one of the most productive and popular
Great Lakes sport fisheries. When it comes to walleye (the best eating freshwater fish that ever existed) and yellow perch,
Erie is "hot". So hot, that this Lake Erie based wind farm proposal could make the Cape Wind project proposal look like a playground scuffle, unless the sponsors properly look after any fish and aquatic life issues early on. Because this is the first of many wind farms that will be proposed for
Erie, we can be sure.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
By Jeff Piorkowski
SOUTH EUCLID
Daniel turned five years old the other day. He was very happy about being five, because he was big now and no one could treat him like a baby. Daniel's daddy came in his room to wish him a happy birthday and said, "How would you like to come with me to look for a new car? Our family needs a new car, and since you are five years old now, I would like your help in deciding what to buy."
Daniel was very excited. He had never gone car shopping and he knew this would be a real adventure!
I copied this from the July/August issue of SOLAR TODAY the magazine of the American Solar Energy Society - http://www.solartoday.org
Father of the compact fluorescent bulb looks back
By michael [dot] kanellos [at] cnet [dot] com, News.com
Published on ZDNet News: Aug 16, 2007 11:57:00 AM
Will Electric Utilities Be the Fueling Stations of the Future?
Source: NPPA Bulletin
[Jul 29, 2007]
SYNOPSIS: Reprinted from the June 2007 Bulletin of the Northwest Public Power Association.
As far as I can determine, here is the origin of “Think globally, act neighborly.”...
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Conversations: Bill McKibben
"You state in your writings that once we nurture the essential humanity of our economy, the more likely we are to recapture our own. How is our economy linked to our humanity?"
"Community has become one of these buzz words. “Building more community.” The real pathway to doing that is to resuscitate the economic networks of dependence on each other, which is what community really was in the first place. Fossil fuel is destroying the world. But in addition to that, it has made us less dependent on each other. We don’t need each other.
There is a guy here, Tod Murphy, in Vermont that only serves local food at his restaurant, [Farmer’s Diner; farmersdiner.com]. He printed up a bunch of bumper stickers that said: “Think globally, act neighborly.” The stuff that I am talking about is not in itself conservative or liberal. We need to figure out how to move past polarization. We need to emphasize our neighbors. People today have half as many close friends as they did 50 years ago."
by Sean Fisher, Cincinnati, Ohio on 07.31.07
According to a recent report in Forbes, the amount of driving we do back and forth is killing us...literally. From breathing air polluted with diesel particulates and other nasty pollutants to fatalities occurred in private automobiles, Forbes suggests that many of us are placing health far behind priorities such as McMansions, big box shopping, and congested commutes. Forbes compiled statistics from the American Lung Association's air pollution monitoring, average U.S. traffic delays from the Texas Transportation Institute, and U.S. per-capital car fatalities from the U.S Department of Transportation to find out what U.S. cities were most dangerous to drive in. Their results? Surprise, surprise...Southern California ruled the list. Both Riverside, California and Los Angeles were in the top three, separated by only Atlanta, Georgia. So, what is deemed the answer for this rising health problem? Public transportation and carpooling.
Of course, increased use of public transportation and carpooling takes enough cars off the road to reduce bad-news air particulates. However, public transportation in particular can help you avoid much of the pollution we breath in on our commutes to and from work.
According to the Forbes article:
Ultra-fine particulate matter has been linked with premature death, cardiovascular disease and respiratory illness, according to the California Air Resources Board. Though it takes Americans an average of 25 minutes to drive to work, according to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau figures, the board estimates that over 50% of a person's daily exposure to ultra-fine particles can occur during a commute.
Sunday, July 29th, 2007 8:21pm
"I find that it is very possible to have moments where we can be wise but not smart, and conversely, smart but not wise. Likewise, we can be ignorant but not stupid, and stupid but not ignorant. The more distinctions we have, the more possibilities we see. "
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