Another retail gimmick

Taking a cue from the success of various state sales tax "holidays," now retailers are trying to edge in on President-elect Obama's forthcoming stimulus package. See this Wall Street Journal story.

The National Retail Federation is calling for three 10-day stints of sales tax-free shopping, in March, July and October 2009.

Their proposal would have the federal government reimburse states for lost sales tax revenue during those times. Gee, wonder who will pay for that?

We don't need this sort of circuitous nonsense. What we need are industries that employ people. We need clean tech industries that wean us off foreign energy, thus freeing up our need to deploy troops in far flung areas. Thus reducing our defense expenditures. We need new thinking.

If we want to stimulate consumer spending, give a 50-100% tax credit toward purchases of green items like wind turbines, solar panels and more. This will decrease energy expenses, individually and for the nation as a whole. And it will free up checkbooks for other consumer goods.

Sales tax holidays are a dying idea anyway. Of the 17 states that have had such consumer holidays so far, some are considering doing away with them because of the coming state budget crises.

If retailers want to propose a holiday, how about pushing that all Americans get their birthday off as an official holiday. I might go spend some money on my birthday. And the sales tax would be spent as it should be, not in some end-around where we taxpayers foot the bill in the end anyway.

Is the music industry finally ready to embrace the Internet?

This vague news report would suggest that the music recording titans are gathering energies to exploit the Internet.

Will they create their own portal? Will they partner with Hulu? Will the deal with youtube be expanded or modified? Warner, EMI and Universal are reporting growth of 29-39% in their digital sales over the past year. Clearly, they have to view that as progress.

Who knows how all this will play out, except for that CD sales will continue to decline. I only bought a few in 2008. And I have so many CDs downloaded to my iPod that I can't really get excited about paying to download a song or album online.

Really, I have more than 600 artists on a device, with more than 53 days worth of music.

What I'm really excited about is this handy device that will allow me to transfer my significant vinyl collection to my iPod. Sorry, music industry. That's a whole lotta love for my iPod that is already bought and paid for, collecting dust on a shelf. Can't wait to get to it (it should arrive today, courtesy of my wife for Christmas/anniversary). I think I'll be starting with my Dylan records first.

Tweet, tweet, I'm on twitter now

Good thing I joined before the end of 2008. I would hate to have done something in 2009 that was SO 2008. Look me up by real name or as thisismyusa, and see the twitter widget (twidget?) on the right side of this blog.

America - the world's wind leader

Great news! The United States is now the leading producer of power from wind.

According to this article on Cleantechnica, America has surpassed Germany in this regard. The U.S. now produces enough wind power to offset the burning of 91 million barrels of oil a year.

U.S. wind power produces more than 21,000 megawatts annually, or enough to power about 5.5 million households.

Read more good news on wind power from the American Wind Energy Association.

"Whoo-hoo for wind," you say, "But how can I get in on the game?"

Well, you don't have to own acres of prairie to harness the wind, as this video shows.

Go to Seth's blog

Seriously. I'm glad you're reading this, but if you've never been to Seth's blog, you owe yourself the treat.

Seth Godin is one of the most influential new media thinkers around. He wrote "Unleashing the Ideavirus," an ebook that remains available for free online (link here) despite the fact he is selling the actual book. He has lots of great ideas on media and marketing, choosing a satisfying career, making money. He also knows a bit about being a good person ... life in general.

This is a great post because it's his top-10 posts of 2008, as judged by the number of visits each page got. So there it is, Seth's best work of the year, as chosen by the people who matter.

Passive houses - another innovation from the Germans

I saw this interesting headline on NYTimes.com about passive houses.

This is a new concept to me, and probably to most Americans. Such houses "get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer," according to the article.

"Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies," the article continues.

The idea was pioneered in Darmstadt, Germany, a city of 140,000 outside of Frankfurt.

So far the idea has not gained much traction in the United States. One is being built in California, but most of the materials needed for this unique kind of construction must be imported, making it a costly endeavor. Passive houses cost only about 5-7% more than conventional housing in Germany, where the materials are increasingly available off the shelf.

The other challenge for adopting this housing style - at least for most of America - is that no one has figured out how to turn the warmth generated by the house into coolness. The concept is great for mostly cold areas that do not require air conditioning. In the Midwest, where summers get hot and humid, we need our creature comforts.

A final obstacle to adoption here is America's addiction to personal space. Passive houses work best when limited to about 500 square feet per occupant. That doesn't jibe with a McMansion culture.

Obstacles aside, passive housing strikes me as an innovation worth pursuing. I'm sure some bright minds can find a way to keep passive houses cool as well as warm.

If the idea can be melded with straw-bale construction, we'd have a very green new home movement waiting in the wings.

So much for generating power

Two nights ago I wrote about a man who used his Prius as a generator.

Who would believe that just six hours after writing the post, I would need a generator. Strange storms passed through Kansas City, drenching the city in rain and pounding us with gale-force winds. We were under a tornado watch - in December!!!

Around 5 a.m., we lost power. We still don't have it back (I'm typing this at Panera. Thank you Panera for free wifi.).

We waited out yesterday hoping that Kansas City Power & Light would restore power. Around 5 p.m., we realized that probably wasn't going to happen, so I broke out the new-in-the-box Honda generator, filled it with oil and gas, and pulled the cord. And pulled. And pulled. It never started.

So our house got colder and colder. Our poor tropical fish are beginning to ponder climate change in their little world.

If practical, I would have tried running a DC inverter through the Prius. Unfortunately, providence was not on my side. I asked my brother in St. Louis to get on the Internet and look up locations where I could purchase an inverter. There were numerous kinds available, for purchase online only. The only kind available in a physical store would generate only 350 watts, not enough to run very much.

Oh, the irony. I had a brand new generator that wouldn't start. The night before I stumbled upon the brilliant notion of using the Prius as a generator. But the inverter was available only online, and I couldn't go online at the time. And even if I could, it would take days to deliver one.

So I went to a friend's house. He was having a party and he had a warm fireplace. That was nice for a few hours. Then it was back to my cold house, where my wife and I succumbed to EWM - electricity withdrawal madness. Literally, we were getting mad at each other over a situation we couldn't control. I'll quit rambling now and drink my coffee.

Addendum: As for the fish, I boiled some water, put a hot/cold pack in there for a few minutes, put the pack in a freezer bag and put that in the fish tank. I'm about to go home and repeat the process. I'll keep this up until we get power back.

Addendum II: Power was restored at 12:10 p.m. CST. My wife became very excited. Me too. Damn we are weak.

Another plus about the Prius

I might be able to dump my Honda now that we own a Toyota Prius. My Honda home generator, that is.

Needing an emergency generator, a real-life MacGyver got the idea to wire his Prius to a 12-volt DC inverter to power his home appliances and other necessities, according to this blog on NYTimes.

According to a press report, one John Sweeney, "ran his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan and several lights through his Prius, for three days, on roughly five gallons of gas."

The hybrid's battery powered Sweeney's home, and the engine kicked on periodically to keep the battery charged. Much more efficient than running a generator 24/7.

Now that's thinking.

Here's a link to a diagram showing how to run a typical furnace through a Prius. Here's a way geekier forum comparing the Prius' output versus several Honda generators.

Sport flying

Who doesn't want to fly? Okay, maybe not everyone.

But I have always been fascinated by the idea of floating through the clouds, in control of my own movement and trajectory.

Getting a pilot's license is a major hurdle. Owning or renting a plane an even bigger one.

A new plane promises to do for flying what the jet ski did for boating - make it fun and accessible. Wired has an article about the Icon A5, a personal airplane that would sell for $139,000 and require only a sport pilot license (about 20 hours of training and $4,000 to get). Get a 360-degree view of this machine here.

The plane can take off and land on water or terra firma. The wings fold back so it stores easily and can be hauled on a trailer. It goes about 135 miles an hour and flies up to 10,000 feet high. And it looks so very cool.

One day, when I win the lottery, the A5 will be on my short shopping list. One can dream.

Let a little Sunshine into your life

I just watched a movie called Sunshine. It's a sci-fi movie, with the premise that the sun is dying and the only hope for humanity is to send a spaceship to deliver an atom bomb the size of Manhattan island directly into the sun.

The bomb would create a mini big bang, and rejuvenate the sun so Earth would be safe.

It was a good thriller. And a good reminder of how - among so many vital forces and elements in our universe - all things are interconnected.

It's so easy to take the sun for granted. It's been a cold few December days of late, but it is supposed to be fairly sunny and nice today, Christmas day. And then 59 degrees tomorrow.

I will certainly be thankful for the shining rays.

Merry Christmas 2008. May you all have a wonderful day.

Answering the question: Is it worthwhile to put solar panels on your roof?

Depending on a variety of factors - including elevation and surrounding tree cover - my house may be a better or worse candidate for installing solar panels than another located in my own city. Wouldn't it be nice to know the potential before making the investment?

According to this article on Time.com, this might be possible sooner rather than later.

Engineering firm CH2M Hill is working with the U.S. Department of Energy to map the solar potential of 25 American cities. Using Google Earth, the company aims to chart the solar potential on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

This is another great example of technology to the rescue.

Dealing with our trash

There's a promising six-part series on the Science Channel called Ecopolis, that attempts to point a new forward as cities try to manage problems like food production, water access, transportation, waste management and energy. The show will run through 20 possible solutions, gauging their ability to reduce the carbon footprint of a future megacity.

A recent episode focuses on how to deal with waste, looking at four examples that could help.

TRASH TO ISLANDS

Densely populated Singapore is known for its spotlessly clean atmosphere. (Spitting out your chewing gum on a city street will get you fined.) But the city has to do something with all the trash that is picked up. City planners want to reduce physical waste to 10% of current levels. Their solution is to burn the trash in super-efficient incinerators.

But what to do with the highly toxic leftover ash? Since it has to go somewhere, it was decided to use the detritus to build an island not far offshore.

Singapore uses impermeable membranes to contain the ash, and manages the mixture by adding plant material to rehabilitate the materials. Mindful that toxins could seep out, designers planted mangrove trees, a very senstive plant that acts like a canary in a coal mine. If the mangroves start to die, there is a problem.

City planners hope this solution takes care of Singapore's waste needs until 2040. Carbon footprint reduction potential: 3%.

PLASMA GASIFICATION

Because incineration has harmful byproducts, some are turning to vaporization as an alternative. The hope is that energy and materials can be recovered from waste.

Plasma gasification mimics conditions on the sun, reducing compounds to their basic scientific elements. This method is already in use to deal with radioactive wastes. But how to put this expensive process to work for everyday garbage?

First, garbage is fed into a superhot (1,600 degrees Fahrenheit) chamber that reduces the waste to tiny particles. Then, the particles are put into a plasma chamber (1,800 degrees) that blasts the waste, turning it into energy.

The plant in Wiltshire, England, run by Advanced Plasma Power, runs on a gasplasma process. It's estimated such a process could generate five times more power than it takes to run, with nearly zero emissions. Carbon footprint reduction potential: 3%.

BIOCHAR

Let's begin by looking back at the example of how ancient Amazonian civilizations turned barren soil into rich growing material, burning organic material and mixing the char into the soil. The secret of charcoal lies in its honeycomb-like molecular structure, which gives microbes a good place to grow.

BEST Energies is developing a product called Biochar, turning organic waste from cities and farms into both fertilizer and green energy. Volatile gas byproducts are burned by slow pyrolisis to create electricity. The Australian company's leftover char material locks in carbon. After mixing it into the soil, it improves the soil, boosting agricultural yields by 50% in some cases.

The key? How much carbon dioxide is released from the char into the atmosphere? If the technology adversely affected global warming, the benefits might be negated. Early results are promising. Carbon footprint reduction potential: 21%

HEAT FROM HUMAN WASTE

Each day the average American flushes away 100 gallons of liquid and solid waste. Because it holds heat, an average 50 degrees, the waste holds energy potential.

In 2010, Vancouver, British Columbia, will host the Winter Olympics. The city hopes to capture heat from sewage to keep Olympic Village warm.

One example is already in use. In Oslo, Norway, lukewarm sewage is run through a heating plant to keep the city warm. In the sewage heat exchanger, a liquid refrigerant absorbs heat from the sewage, creating gas under extreme pressure, raising the temperature to 150 degrees. The superheated gas runs over a separate pipe, heating the water inside. A network of insulated pipes delivers the heat.

Oslo's sewage can heat up to 4,000 homes yearround, and the pipe grid warms more than 400,000 square feet of sidewalk, melting hazardous snow and ice.

Using Oslo's example, Vancouver hopes to keep Olympians warm. Potential carbon footprint reduction: less than 1%.

Intelligent city design is part of the solution

While there is much to be gained from perfecting alternative forms of energy production such as wind, solar and tides, we should not overlook the benefits of smarter city design.

Using control networking infrastructure, cities can reduce energy usage by 10-20%. This video, which is basically a Youtube ad for a company called Echelon, does a decent job of explaining the concept.



As individuals, we can do a lot by using fluorescent lights and installing better home insulation and windows. As citizens, we should demand that our municipalities and state governments employ smarter design and efficiencies in public spaces.

In these tough economic times, doing so surely beats the alternative, which is reduced services.

Bell jars for lettuce?

Sitting inside today, trying to avoid the single-digit temperatures outside, I came across this interesting blog called Inventing Green - the lost history of American clean tech.

It has an article about an article (that's what we bloggers do) that showed how the British, starving for fresh vegetables during World War I, used an innovative low-tech method to extend the growing season for lettuce. The article was originally published in a 1918 edition of National Geographic (see, my dear wife, there is a reason to save each and every edition of this great magazine).

At any rate, the article showed how Britain was able to grow food for 40 of 52 weeks. Turns out these bell jars were adapted from a French idea of intensive gardening. The French called them cloches.

The blog later states how some in the U.S. later discovered this practice. Too bad that a good idea has to be discovered again and again.

I'm going to try it this year. One other benefit to using a bell jar over heads of lettuce - I challenge the evil rabbits to get at my lettuce!

Addendum: I searched Youtube for some videos on using bell jars for lettuce, but couldn't find one. However, this video shows a pretty inexpensive form of backyard greenhouse.

Free trade that is not one-sided

For 15 years, we have operated under more and more free trade agreements that have indeed opened up economic ties and created more cross-border commerce.

This has been good mostly for U.S. consumers and retailers, who have been able procure more goods, for less. These deals are the reasons many Americans have more TVs than they can watch, more toasters than they deserve toast, a new cell phone every two years.

In the realm of stewardship to the environment and laborers as it relates to manufacturing, these trade deals have served to squelch the many years of progress made in the U.S. When manufacturing is sent overseas, quite often the plants do not have to adhere to the same standards regarding wastewater management, proper disposal of hazardous waste, safety and decent pay for employees.

When Obama introduced former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk as nominee for chief U.S. trade negotiator, Obama insisted that future deals will take a keen look at their effect on labor and the environment, according to this story. Obama has suggested that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. renegotiate NAFTA, with an eye towards these reforms.

Obama seems to recognize that our economy has not gotten back what it has given in trade agreements. He has criticized the recent trade deal with S. Korea because it would permit more S. Korean autos to the U.S. but does not open the S. Korean market to U.S. autos.

Some think Obama's stance toward trade will put a crimp on the Doha round of trade talks, with developing economies that export consumer goods worried that rich countries will use labor and the environment as excuses to block their goods.

If that's the case, so be it. I've been to China, Mexico, Guatemala and many other poorer nations that have industries devoted to exports. To a degree, many of the products are safe for consumption. But in my travels, I always asked what sort of wages the workers made. Most will make less in a day than someone at Best Buy makes in an hour.

This is why we have retail shelves chock full with cheap TVs and cheap food. And don't forget that sometimes this cheap food causes illness, that the cheap TV you buy today might last less than five years (Last year, wallowing in the relative luxury of a five TV household - for two people - I finally gave away a U.S.-made TV from about 1981 that still had a great picture. It probably cost $400 back then, which would be much more in today's dollars.).

Do I long for a future where U.S. consumer goods are more expensive? Not really. But I do long for fair trade that does not needlessly destroy U.S. manufacturing capability for the sole sake of filling shelves with cheaper goods. Nor do I believe we need to be making TVs, unless those TVs consume considerably less energy than others.

I do long for a U.S. where the emphasis is put on creating products that reduce our dependency on foreign energy, products that can likewise be exported to energy hungry developing nations. And I want trade deals that will enable us to actually get our products into those countries, to compete on a fair basis.

If Ron Kirk can help make that happen, I wish him a speedy confirmation in the Senate.

A grounded solution to wildfire detection

We've long known that living plant material carries an electrical charge. Ever used a potato to power a clock?

Now, researchers have taken that concept to the forest. This article in Popular Mechanics explains how one company plans to manufacture wildfire detection devices that will be powered by the trees they are affixed to.

A minor difference of acidity between soil and tree leads to an imbalance of hydrogen ions, thus generating voltage.

Voltree Power is coming up with some prototypes to put in place for field tests with the U.S. Forest Service in spring 2009.

How will the sensors communicate back the news that a fire has been detected? According to PM, "a mesh network of sensors could bounce a signal from tree to wired tree until it reaches one of the 2200 automated weather stations scattered through the country. These, in turn, would beam the data via satellite back to the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho."

Cool stuff. If you have a kid, make sure he or she is participating in school science fairs. You never know if they'll eventually have the next big idea.

For any potato clock disbelievers, here's a short video.

Continuing education

Have you heard of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education?

I just learned about it today. I'm considering a masters degree in green technology or sustainability, with an emphasis on the business side.

If Obama holds true to his campaign promises, this should be a ripe area for business in our nation, perhaps as much of an economic lightning rod as the internet boom.

If you have any experience with these kinds of university programs, I'd love to hear your feedback.

How sweet it is(n't)

The problem with artificial sweeteners is that they only fake the taste of sweetness.

You know the real taste of sweet - honey, fresh fruit, caramelized carrots or onions. In other words, real sugars. The benefits of these lay in their basis as real foods. They have real nutritive qualities.

Now, we have a new sweetener - Truvia. Made by Cargill, this artificial sweetener lays claim to a natural, plant-based heritage. Cargill produced a video testimonial showing consumers dipping strawberries into the powdery sweetener. The consumers, who were at a product launch party at Rockefeller Plaza, marveled at the sweetness. Well, gee, aren't strawberries kind of sweet to begin with?

Federal regulators approved Truvia Dec. 16. PepsiCo. has been working on its own version, PureVia.

Truvia is derived from the leaf of the plant stevia (pronounced steve-ee-uh). Here is the Web site of an herbal company that has been promoting the use of stevia for several years. The site has a condensed history of the plant, which has its origins in Paraguay. Natives used it fresh and dried for centuries. Turns out that synthesizing the sweet compounds of the plant is nothing new. The French started doing so in the 30s. The Japanese in the 60s. In the early 90s, the U.S. banned the marketing of stevia unless labeled as a supplement, setting off many conspiracy theories, mostly that it was being blocked by the sugar industry.

So, what's unique about Cargill's usage of stevia? Cargill says it uses only the sweetest portion of the stevia leaf, the rebiana. This it combines with erythritol and natural sweeteners. Erythritol itself is a natural sugar alcohol, one that tends to have bad aftertastes if it is not diluted in water. In a 3.5 gram serving of Truvia, you are getting 3 grams of erythritol.

Use Truvia, and really what you're getting is a little bit of stevia, a whole lot of the sugar alcohol erythritol. Erythritol also is a laxative. Just because Truvia has zero calories should not be a license to indulge, or you will learn this the hard (soft) way.

So, have I tried Truvia? Not yet. I tend to steer clear of artificial sweeteners of all kinds. Generally, they're used to mask poor-tasting foods.

Instead, I opt for good tasting, natural foods. Prepared correctly, even a bitter brussels sprout can be tasty. As for Truvia's taste test, I'll take my strawberries without sugar or Truvia. Taste the goodness in real foods.

And if you have to have the taste of stevia, put a little bit of the natural leaf in your mouth.

Building for the future

For the past couple years, I've been telling friends that if the U.S. spent 40% of our defense budget instead on renewable energy technologies, a great deal of our problems would be solved.

No one looked at me as if I had the answer, but I still feel that doing this would be a great boon. We would go from a nation with a warmongering image to a nation that is helping find a new way forward, toward greater energy independence, not only for ourselves but for all other nations.

And as other nations purchased this technology from us, we would go back to an exporting powerhouse.

Of course by reducing our dependence on foreign energy sources, we would have less need to flex our muscle in the Middle East. The jihadists there would have less reason to hate us, and they would instead rightfully focus their energies on their own repressive governments.

In reading this interview that President-elect Obama gave to Time magazine, I am struck by a sense that he gets this too. Obama said, "The drop in oil prices, I do think, makes the conversation about energy more difficult, not less necessary. More than ever, I think, a wholesale investment in transforming our economy — from retrofitting buildings so that they're energy-efficient to changing our transportation patterns and thinking about how to rebuild our electricity grid — those are all things that we're going to need now more than ever."

I would suggest that we redeploy big chunks of our troops stateside, with the purpose of upgrading the electrical grid, installing community wind machines, bringing public buildings up to date as far as energy efficiency. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could go to work installing machines like the Vivace that use low-speed water currents to generate electricity. This would mean we wouldn't have to dam our rivers to garner kilowatts. And it might be more fish-friendly than some turbine-based projects that have been proposed.

If we do this, it is not an easy conversion, but it is one that sets the nation up for energy independence for the long haul. And if we quit messing with other nation's business just so we can have oil, we will be less feared, more respected. We can flex our military muscle in areas like Darfur and other genocidal hotspots. Working with regional allies, we can go after truly despotic dictators like those in Myanmar.

Really, aren't we better than trading bullets for oil? Is that how we want to heat our houses? Is that how we want to say we were able to drive to work?

As the post-beat bard sang, "The answer is blowing in the wind." And it's rippling in the waters.

A day of snow, a day of hope

This morning, as a three-inch blanket of snow fell, I created a blog called www.notmyusa.blogspot.com.

Looking back at the invectives, I realize the blog is too critical. It is not hopeful. That is no way forward.

Anyone can criticize. In fact, nearly everyone does.

Criticism of a problem without providing a solution is not good math. It is only half the equation. Most such criticism is destined to be thrown upon the hubris of wordspeak. Deservedly so.

So, this blog is dedicated to a better America, with an emphasis on answers.

Welcome to www.thisismyusa.blogspot.com.