Green Options

Here at Low Impact Living are big advocates for residential renewable energy. We’d like to see every home in the US being fed by solar, wind and/or geothermal power.  (And we hope that President Obama will be driving to make that vision a reality!)

But we also understand that very few of us Americans can afford $20,000+ for an installation of a solar PV system– especially these days!  [...]

There’s no shortage of news stories, blogs and online resources aimed at helping people go green, but sometimes the best way to learn new habits is to watch someone else in action.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the recent eco-stars across the U.S. whom I’ve discovered in my daily wanderings across the Web:

These days, there are more and more options for those of you who want a small wind turbine out in the yard or on your roof. They range from the standard to the somewhat bizarre, and come in sizes that can power several major appliances all the way up to your whole house and beyond. In the right conditions, wind power can be much more economical than other renewable energy options such as solar or geothermal.

Traditional propeller-type wind turbines remain the best options for residential settings outside of urban areas. They are efficient and time-tested, and the leading manufacturers of these turbines have been at it for a long time. Two of the leaders are Bergey Windpower and Southwest Windpower. Bergey makes several versions of its Excel turbine suitable for home use. The Excel can be connected to the electrical grid and is big enough to power an entire home.

Southwest Windpower makes the Skystream 3.7 turbine (shown at left), an innovative machine that has a number of advances specifically targeted to residential users. It is meant to be tied to the electricity grid, and in reasonably windy conditions could power an average home.

In the past few years, a number of new manufacturers have come out with radical turbine designs intended to make wind turbines easier to install and better for tightly packed suburban and urban environments. Most of these turbines are vertical axis wind turbines, or VAWTs. Instead of spinning on a horizontal axis like their propeller-based cousins, VAWTs rotate around a vertical axis. The key advantages are that they can be quieter, are more amenable to the swirling wind conditions found in urban environments, and can have a smaller overall footprint (both tower width and height). The downsides? The companies that make them don’t have long track records, and the turbines are less efficient because a portion of each turbine is always spinning into the wind.

One example is Mariah Power, who makes the Windspire wind turbine (shown in the upper right image above). Each Windspire turbine is 30 feet tall and two feet wide, and it resembles a sculpture as much as it does a renewable energy device. The cylindrical structure makes it very quiet and compact, meaning you could install multiple turbines alongside one another for more power. Each unit should provide from 10-50% of the electricity for a typical home depending on where you live in the country.

Another example is Helix Wind. The company make several vertical axis turbines that, in my opinion, most closely resemble a ram’s horn. The complex (and weird or beautiful, depending on your sensibilities) design efficiently transforms variable winds into clean electricity. Their largest model, the S594, can provide 50-100% of a typical home’s electricity use under the right conditions.

So, now that you’re intrigued, should you run out and buy a new wind turbine for your rooftop or back yard?

Did you know that you could have vampires in your home at this very moment? Most of us do - in the form of a vampire load. A vampire load (also known as a phantom load) is the power that is sucked from a piece of electronic equipment when it is seemingly turned off (but still in standby use) or not in use.

In order to bring awareness to this waste of energy, Best Buy has created National Vampire Awareness on October 30th. They are working to educate consumers on the effects of vampire loads and how to avoid unnecessary energy use. They have a Halloween spoofy video on their website to help them do the job as well as some facts and tips.

Don’t have $25,000 lying around for a new solar system, you say? Longing to go a darker shade of green but don’t have an extra $1000 for a tankless water heater? We know the feeling!

There are so many things you can do to make your home and life more eco-friendly that are FREE (for example recycling all you can, composting, taking shorter showers, walking to the store, using reusable grocery bags, dining by candlelight, saying no to bottled water and the list goes on and on and on…). There are also tons of things you can do that cost very little and SAVE YOU MONEY. Check out this list– spend only $100 and you will save over $500!

Don’t get us wrong, we love Energy Star. Madly, truly, deeply LOVE it. It’s just important to know that not all Energy Star rated appliances are created equal, so it’s worth a bit of investigation to ensure that you get the most energy efficiency bang for your buck.

If you’re unfamiliar with the program, here’s a bit of background: Energy Star is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Together, they established minimum standards for energy efficiency, above and beyond the federal standard. By purchasing Energy Star rated products, including clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and room AC units, Americans saved $16 billion on their utility bills in 2007 alone. Those lower utility bills translate into a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 27 million cars. Talk about a positive impact!

So when you’re ready to invest in a new appliance, you should definitely look for the Energy Star label. Many states even offer rebates on Energy Star appliances (check out the Database for State Incentives for Renewables and Energy Efficiencyfor details).

Even with Energy Star models, efficiency improvements can vary so it’s important to review all of the products available to select the best one for you. On the Energy Star site, each appliance category has its own product list that provides the details on each model’s efficiency. Here are a few standouts in each category:

Wire and Twine clothing presents 50 ways to help the planet,  They designed a shirt with little icons to remind you of the fifty ways to help. My personal favorite tip is # 33:

“TELECOMMUTE :: See if you can work out an arrangement with your employer that you work from home for some portion of the week. Not only will you save money and gasoline, and you get to work in your pajamas!”         

Image Source 

What would a country would look like if almost nobody had an electric clothes dryer? You might imagine a a landscape of colorful underwear flapping in the wind to dry. Or maybe people would be strangely content wearing damp clothes.

In six months of living in South Korea, any sign of clothes dryers has eluded me. So bring on the airing undies and the soggy bottoms, right? Well, despite having no — or at least relatively few — clothes dryers, Koreans are both perfectly dry and dignified, with seldom so much as a scrap of clothing hung to dry in view of the neighbors.

The idea might seem a little strange in the United States, but air drying clothes as they do in Korea is environmentally wise, economically smart, and practical too.

Ten earth-friendly ideas to spark your imagination

Intangibles can deliver green good all year long (and reduce clutter)

1. Donate time or money to a charity in honor of the gift recipient (a gift to Environmental Defense is a good choice).

2. Buy carbon offsets in the recipient’s name. Along with cutting your own carbon emissions — and fuel bills — help your friends and family offset theirs.

3. Give a national parks pass or a membership to botanical gardens or aquariums. (For an extra-special gift, surprise with a cross-country train tour or an eco-vacation.)

Stocking stuffers can be “green”

4. Give energy-saving light bulbs. The technology in these earth-friendly bulbs has leapt ahead, and they now come in many shapes and sizes (See Environmental Defense’s bulb guide for specifics.)

5. Consider the DVD “An Inconvenient Truth“; in bookstores and video stores everywhere.