Green Options

Green cleaning products are popping up all over the place. Even mainstream companies are going green. It’s great, but how do you know what’s really green and what really works?

I’ve tried several of the newer brands of cleaning products and compared them against the original green cleaners that I’ve used for years like Seventh Generation and Bi-O-Kleen products. And I must say many of the new cleaners hold their own fantastically.

Apparently, wave power plus offshore wind power equals something akin to Green Ocean Energy’s Wave Treader. The device is based on the Ocean Treader, a stand-alone wave power machine. According to Green Ocean Energy, its wind/wave power mash-up can generate 500 kW— enough for 125 average homes.

With so much of our planet covered in the stuff, it is a surprise that water does not receive the attention that renewable technologies like wind and solar do. Nevertheless, with renewable energy being the catchphrase of many countries at the moment, advancements are being made towards a future where our oceans will provide us with electricity.

After two years, an oversized yellow buoy floating five miles off the southern tip of Long Beach Island has definitely proved its technology feasible. With the rise and fall of each wave, pistons slide up and down inside a cylinder within the buoy, generating electricity.

According to a sweeping report released by the Center for American Progress and authored by researchers from the UMass Department of Economics, if the US government were to invest $100 billion dollars over two years in six key areas of green and sustainable development — including advanced biofuels — the result would be the creation of 2 million high-paying jobs across nearly all sectors of employment.

This represents four times the amount of jobs that would be created if that same $100 billion were invested in the oil industry for things like more offshore drilling. It also represents significantly more jobs of much higher diversity, pay, and longevity than were created by the $100 billion spent last April so that all us ‘mericans could all get our $600 tax rebates.

Okay. Let me get this one out of the way: gas hasn’t been all bad. In fact, gas has allowed us to accomplish some pretty amazing things. To be clear, when I say “gas,” I’m using the term as an easy way to loosely refer to all liquid fuel products made from buried and fossilized hydrocarbon deposits.

Ooooh… I can hear the flamers’ keys clicking away furiously already. But, before you type that horribly thought out gunslinging response, hear me out.

Australian wave power generators inspired by nature’s know-how are meeting their development goals and have the potential to leave other renewable power sources in their wake.

Biopower Systems is just one of the wave-energy developers gaining attention by meeting its technological goals and backing this up with investment support.

Dear Readers,

This week, from March 3-10, we’ll be examining renewable energy around the world.

African American community leader Bertha Calloway once said, “we cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

Likewise, we cannot direct the sun, the tides, or ground energy; and these are only a few of the many options for clean, renewable energy.

However, by adjusting our sails we can benefit from energy from all of these untamable forces of nature.