A New Hopedale

Surfing the red tide

2011-10-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

The phytoplankton in this red tide off a California beach are bioluminescent. Their cells produce a chemical reaction that creates a soft, blue-green glow. It's basically the same thing that makes lightning bugs light. In this video by Loghan Call and Man's Best Media, you can see plankton light up in the beach (and a few surfers).

Video Link

Via Jennifer Ouellette via BoingBoing

Retrofitting Suburbia

2010-08-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

I've only seen the first few minutes of Ellen Dunham-Jones' Ted Talk Retrofitting Suburbia, so I can't comment on it too much. My first reaction to the concept of trying to urbanize suburban settings is that the result would be pretty compromised. The idea is to make existing suburbs into more complete communities instead of separate working and living zones. I fear though, is that it is really hard to reclaim land set aside for cars. I would guess that it's nearly impossible to reduce the number of car lanes on most roads to put in sidewalks and a bike path.

One of the saving graces, it seems, might be that suburban office parks and retail areas are notoriously inefficient users of space. The roads may be set in stone, so to speak, but when one of these facilities gets repurposed, there is lots of space for adding walking paths, green spaces, and run-off management features.

Right now, I need to get back to work, but I plan to watch the full talk next chance I get.

Giant batteries

2010-04-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/giant-gravel-batteries-could-make-wind-power-consistent-energy-option

The unpredictability and non-uniformity of wind is one of the largest technical problems facing wind farms. A company in Britain thinks it has figured out how to use argon gas and 200ft barrels of gravel to store electricity in a high volume, low loss, low cost manner. If it works, the devices would capture excess energy in windy times for use when the skies are calm.

Their pilot project is only 23 feet tall. This is still too big for a house, but a large apartment block or shopping center could have some solar panels and small wind turbines hooked into something like this. They could also be useful in a smart grid set up accepting extra energy if a broken link causes a surge. Rather than cascading surges and blowouts, the batteries could absorb the extra energy and return it once the grid is stabilized.

Yet another dimension to sustainability

2010-04-22T04:29:00.000-07:00

The hysteria over global warming continues to obscure the broader issue of sustainability. Though, in a 'rising tide lifts all boats' sort of way, it may still be a good thing, I still worry that the broader point is getting missed as most people try to sort out the global warming debate.

Since I haven't posted in a while, let me summarize my view of climate change. Adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in at the current rate (or anything like it) will cause the planet to keep more of the sun's energy than it radiates. The temperature of the planet WILL rise. This is pretty basic physics and thermodynamics. In the short term, the dynamic systems of the biosphere will adjust (and have been doing so for 100 years), and we won't see many effects. However, virtually every biological system that has been stressed in a similar manner has snapped at some point. We see this in small systems as well as the climate record in response to other changes. What happens next is unclear, it may start snowing more for all we know, but it will probably cause a global crisis.

My bigger point is that we need to take some action and move on. Carbon dioxide emissions are not the only environmental threat that has the potential to cause global instability. There are more out there. Fresh water is a big one you here about. Simply running out of fossil fuels is an issue that will get solved by alternative energy solutions. Environmental contamination may not cause a singular crisis, but it may be a severe burden that opens the door for something else like the next pandemic.

Sustainability is broad philosophy that will help curb the effects of most of these. If every process can account for every input and output, then most of these problems are solved and we can get back to dealing with the political and social issues.

I bring this up again because I just read an article about an issue I hadn't thought of that fall right into this line of thinking: peak phosphorous.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/20/peak_phosphorus

Micro hydro?

2010-03-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

With all this rain, we bought ourselves a rain barrel. For a few bucks at Ocean State Job Lot, we got a 150 gallon barrel and set it up in time for the latest deluge. It was full by noon the next day.

All the water flowing off our roof got me thinking about how much energy could be produced if you funneled it all through a turbine. It seems like it should be a lot (picture the energy involved in dropping a full 150 gallon barrel off of a two story building). My rough calculations for a 1000 square foot roof, two story building, with 50 inches of rain annually (Worcester county) is 1 3/4 kWh.

A Google search turned up some patent applications, but nothing concrete...

Cool recycled house

2010-01-15T08:02:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates and content lately. Here's a peace offering:

http://www.instructables.com/id/House-in-Mexico-built-with-plastic-and-glass-bottl/

Nudging communities towards sustainability

2009-10-28T06:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I was working from a local coffeeshop and chatting with the owner as I got my tea and settled in. It was typical small talk, for the most part, but we did spend some time on how food can kill a family budget. It's been in the back of my mind since that I'll put in the effort to make and bring lunch everyday, but I'm happy to spend $2 bucks on tea that can't cost more than a few cents to make.

I'm happy to do this because it supports a local business and I want to live in a place where local businesses thrive. I like being able to walk or bike places. I like being a regular. I also think it makes the community stronger, both socially and economically, to have locally owned businesses. A few people who think about long term community development can't change the landscape much by simply buying overpriced coffee at the local bookstore. But I don't think we can (or should) convince others to ban or boycott Borders and their ilk. A subtler, more workable approach is needed.

One of the themes that comes up repeatedly in attempts to address climate change, and with many approaches to all kinds of environmental challenges, is how to work environmental issues into economic models. Externalities is a word that comes up often. The idea is that there are costs associated with pollution that the polluter doesn't pay directly. (Keep in mind that I am NOT an economist. I don't even read the magazine.) If we could make most or all of that cost go back to the polluters via taxes or penalties, then pollution might drop via market pressures without having the government take a too heavy-handed approach.

There must be similar logic in community development. It's in the interest of the town to have more local business, but you can't just ban big box stores. Well, you can, but it a hotly debated idea. I'm sure there are good policies being developed out there for building strong community centric economies. But, once they've been identified, how do you get them implemented on a wide scale?

Another recent hot topic in politics is the nudge. Popularized in the book Nudge, the idea is that changing the default option is almost as effective as sweeping mandates with a lot less effort. You don't have to outlaw frito chili pie at the school cafeteria, just make the healthier choices easier and more obvious.

Maybe instead of trying to generalize local successes to statewide laws, maybe the best approach is to make it easier for municipalities to implement regulations appropriate to their situations. I'm not sure what for this would take and I also suspect that there are folks out there doing this already. I just haven't heard about it.

One of the things I'm picturing is a database of regulations and plans that have been implemented across the country and the world. It would make it easier for planners and city and town officials to apply these ideas in their own community. Maybe even include generalized versions of successful plans and regulations.

Protein sources

2009-10-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

The Green Lantern at Slate just addressed a question that's been bugging me for a while now. How does tofu stack up against meat for environmental impact? Soy protein is better than animal protein in most regards, but there is a whole lot of processing involved in making tofu. How does that tilt the balance?

Rastogi references a Dutch study that ranked Dutch made tofu slightly worse than Dutch raised chicken. She then takes a stab at adjusting the results for the US and decides that US tofu is probably better than chicken, but not dramatically. The change is mostly because the dutch get beans from South America.

The Dutch study is worth a look, even if the results cannot be translated directly to the US. It covers every protein source from veggie patties, to cheese, to fish and back. A quick look at the graphs (I haven't read the whole thing) revealed to surprises to me. First, cheese is horrible in this regard. Second, lamb is the worst thing ever. Which is too bad, because I wanted lamb to be a earth friendlier alternative to beef. Ah, well, I guess I'll have to live with the guilt.

Eggs, nuts, chicken, tofu, and most fish are all about the same. Milk is a slightly better and local seafood is even better than milk. Their numbers also indicate that cutting out dairy reduces greenhouse gasses as much as going meatless. That must be mostly the cheese.

Keep in mind that this is a Dutch study and the focus is greenhouse gasses. So if, like me, your concern extends to other pollutants and effects, don't treat these numbers as gospel. However, I haven't seen anything else half as useful.

Some chatter about commuter rail

2009-09-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

This week, the MBTA negotiated a deal with freight carrier CSX that should make it easier for them to expand and improve commuter rail service. I don't know anything about this, but that's what all the articles seemed to imply. The deal does not impact the Franklin line that would be the one that could come to Hopedale or Milford, but it is a sign that the MBTA is willing to expand.

The Milford daily news debriefed our local state Representative, John Fernandes, who serves on a key transportation committee. Towards the end of the article, the subject of expansion to Milford/Hopedale comes up and it sounds like there have been some serious, if informal, discussions. It's probably not anything more than the rumor mills already had heard, but it's nice to see it getting some press.

Super bugs

2009-09-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not going to write about drug resistant TB and its friends. I'm talking about the microbes Craig Venter is going to make. He is talking about engineering microorganisms that can make biofuels from sunlight, air, and water.

I don't know too much about his plans, but I've written in the past that algal biofuels seem to be the only biofuel tech that makes sense on a large scale. Most other approaches compete with food production. I've heard that he is starting with marine algae so as to avoid conflict with fresh water needs.

I also know that Venter is not someone to bet against in this arena. As with sequencing the human genome, the science isn't in doubt here. The question is whether it will work at a useful scale. I hope he can do it and suspect he will. One of his moves (and this is no secret formula) is to use money to lure really smart and creative folks to his cause. He just hired a friend of mine away from our lab.

2009-07-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

CarFreeWithKids and BusChick ask: what do you do about friends in the burbs if you don't have a car?

We're actually on the other end of this dilemma (sort of). I love being in a small, locally dense, town, but to our friends in the city, we may as well be in a sprawling suburban development.

We realize that, most of the time, we'll have to do the driving to see our friends. We understand that our friends didn't count on having to make frequent trips out here when they planned their lives. When we go into the city for any reason, we try to visit someone while we're there, to get the most out of each trip. Often, we try to meet half way (literally). Drumlin farm is a favorite, but it's not really accessible without a car, so it doesn't help if your friends are truly car free. But there are some nice spots on the commuter rail that would work. Hopkington State Park is close to the Worcester line and accessible to most anywhere "MetroWest." Many of the commuter rail stops are in nice town centers where it could be fun to meet for an extended lunch.

That said, it does hurt when folks won't make the trip out here for big events. We haven't black listed anyone, but when we are in the city, looking for someone to meet up with at the last moment, we're more likely to call folks who've made the effort to come out here. It's not out of spite as much as who would be more likely to want us to crash their plans.

My philosophy with most things related to self improvement is that I'm going to start with the easy stuff. I look for changes that will make the biggest difference with the least impact on folks I care about. Cut out short car trips. Try eating 25% of the meat you used to. Set a limit ($10 a week?) on non-local produce. I had a similar philosophy when Mandy was pregnant. The stress of avoiding every last source of danger to the baby was worse for the baby than anything. Yeah, don't smoke or drink, but if one snack of raw milk cheese is going to improve your mood, it is probably worth the risk.

Stressing yourself out about your carbon footprint isn't going to hurt the environment. (It may shorten your life, which would lower your lifetime footprint.) But it may alienate folks and let them continue to see climate change as a cause for nutjobs. If you can cut out 75% of your footprint without affecting the way you interact with others, maybe you can inspire more people to make changes in their lives.

I'm all for some folks going car-free or vegan, but most people are going to see that and turn away. There also needs to be a moderate movement with less drastic changes that includes more people. That way folks who are just starting to think green, can do something positive from the outset.

Everyone changing to CFLs isn't going to save the planet, but everyone cutting their meat consumption by 75%, their car use by 50%, and their electricity by 30% (to pick completely arbitrary, but achievable numbers) just might have a huge impact.

There is a good article in the Washington Post that covers much of the same ground.

Fish

2009-06-17T07:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I picked up our first share of our new CSF. CSF is for community supported fishery, and like a CSA, you pay up front for a share of the season's haul. The Wall Street Journal just did a feature on it. I had no idea there were so many people signed up. Today, I learn to fillet.

Another good TedTalk

2009-05-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

Shai Agassi's talk at TED this February, presented his vision for how we could make electric cars feasible now and why it's the best way to go now. He's not the most amazing speaker, but there are quite a few good ideas in here.

The key idea of the whole thing, and the idea behind BetterPlace, is swapping batteries instead of charging them. If automated, it could be quicker than fueling up a gas car. It starts to make the electric car pretty appealing.

The rest of the talk is a rambling mix of tales of his attempts to get governments to buy into his vision and more reasons why we need to make the switch to electric. One bit I liked was his a recounted conversation with someone from the Israeli government in which he proposed turning some large tract of land into a solar farm that would power all the cars in the country. His point was that they'd not hesitate if that same piece of land held enough oil to run those cars for some number of years. The solar power would never run out. I really like that point of view for setting aside large tracts of land for solar.

Micromanufacturing

2009-04-27T17:45:00.001-07:00

I was listening to a report on the first Maker Faire in England recently and was intrigued by a comment of one of the interviewees. He mentioned that industrial quality manufacturing equipment is become small enough for hard-core hobbyist to have in a garage. He mentioned a neighbor who makes electronic components to sell to device manufacturers.

The idea of garage based manufacturing brings up some concerns, and I think, some opportunities. Much manufacturing, particularly electronics, involves using many unsavory or downright dangerous materials. Garage enthusiasts are probably not regulated as much as corporations and can get away with improperly disposing of waste products. I'm sure many tinkerers do, because if you don't handle these things regularly, you're likely not going to have the proper systems to get rid of it.

On the other hand, I see a huge opportunity here for ideas like green chemistry. This is the idea that, if we take the time to figure them out, many chemical manufacturing processes that currently produce toxic waste, can be redesigned to be safer. However, the status quo is hard to change since most manufacturers already haves systems for handling the dangerous stuff.

Most people doing regular manufacturing on their own property are going to be extra careful about what they use. If there are safer ways to make something, they'll jump on it. At least that's what I'm hoping. Maybe the democratization of manufacturing will spur the development of green manufacturing practices.

A mark against frozen foods

2009-02-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

In an effort to reduce impact, we've tried to avoid buying too much fresh produce that's not produced locally. It's certainly not the 100 mile diet, but that vast majority of the produce we ate this winter was either canned (mostly by us) or frozen. It seems to me that you'd get better tasting food for less energy if you preserve produce at it's peak and ship it preserved rather than try to ship fresh food around the planet.

There are some obvious costs to preserving food. Canning requires a fair bit of heat, and frozen foods require refrigeration. But it gets worse for frozen foods. Apparently, even the non-CFC refrigerants are nasty and being emitted in mass by supermarket freezers. They don't kill the ozone layer, but the are potent greenhouse gasses. Wonderful. At least there are alternatives, it's just that most places don't use them.

Trash man

2009-01-30T05:17:00.000-08:00

Sustainable Dave, as he's calling himself in his newest venture, spent 2008 attempting to produce as little trash as possible without drastically altering his lifestyle. He chronicled his efforts on his previous blog, 365 days of trash. He didn't just log his trash for the year, he kept it in his basement and weighed it in January. Just about 30 pounds, not bad. According to sustainablog, he did all this while still eating his favorite junk food.

The only drastic measure he took was starting a worm bin to dispose of food and paper scraps. I'm not sure why I'm all hung up on trash here. I guess I feel it's not getting enough attention in the current green hysteria. I'm always happy to see folks thinking about how to simply reduce waste.

The last biofuel standing

2009-01-29T04:56:00.000-08:00

Another good step towards biodiesel and ethanol from algae.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/01/algal-slurry-could-soon-be-pow.html

I'm still skeptical of biofuels in general, since they generally use lots of land and water and aren't that efficient. Algae are pretty darned efficient and (paradoxically, since they live in a pond) use very little water. If biofuels are going to work, they are going to be algal.

The only other reasonable biofue is celluosic ethanol, which is almost as much of a pipe dream as clean coal.

BPA is everywhere!

2009-01-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

My Podcast directory is a little backlogged. I read a biography of Mo Berg, MLB catcher turned OSS agent, a while back and remember the description of his apartment in which months or years worth of unread newspapers and magazines were stacked. He insisted on going through them in order and not skipping anything. I'm approaching that with my podcast list.

The point being, the November 21st Environment report just popped up on my playlist. In it we hear that although many dangerous chemicals enter our body through items we purchase and bring home, most of us don't know it. We also hear about a report that BPA leaches out of any kind of plastic in the microwave.

The continual denial of industry spokespersons is laughable at this point. Even if each case is small, people eat lots of stuff from microwaves and much of it is heated in plastic. That's going to add up really quick. If you add up all the BPA in all the Campbell's microwave soups and released the same amount into the water supply of a small city (maybe the same size as the number of soup eaters), you'd hear something about it.

Exit strategy

2009-01-13T04:52:00.000-08:00

The last post on curtailment was pretty much an unorganized brain dump. I have a whole lot of related ideas to these and will probably continue to off load them here in an attempt to formulate some more coherent opinions.

We recently saw one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history come to light. One of my first thought on this (and I'm not the only one) is that the global economy and stock markets in general are large part pyramid scheme. Investments get positive returns only if the economy grows in either investors or consumers. What happens when there are no more people to invest? What happens when there are no more customers?

Resources are fundamentally limited on this planet. Whatever your view of a reasonable lifestyle and the longevity (or lack thereof) of the fossil fuel supply, there is a maximum number of people that can live on this Earth. At some point we will reach that number and the only way to get new customers is to take them from somewhere else. The global economy will (unless we colonize Mars) stop growing at some point. What happens then? Does the pyramid scheme unravel? Can we gracefully reach a stable state without a large correction?

Curtailment

2009-01-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

This book review over at Sustainablog got me thinking about ways the next century may play out. I got so lost in my thoughts, that I didn't finish the first paragraph of the review.

First of all, forget about global warming for now. Yes, it's real and we should address it, but it is just one of many reasons why there will be a lack of resources (by western standards) in the future. There are lots of ways this could play out, but if things don't change, there the bottom billion or two are in for some serious hurt. Meanwhile, those of us who helped cause the problem will have to cut back. The question in my mind is whether we can change our ways before anything really bad happens.

The Earth is a complex system of energy and resource cycles fueled mainly by the sun. If things get too out of balance, there will be a correction. Think famine and disease more than "The Day After Tomorrow." If it's not economically and politically feasible to preemptively change our ways, maybe we should try to more the global economy towards a system that will gracefully reach it's stable point rather than grossly over shoot it require a serious correction.

The original green revolution

2009-01-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

For many of us raised in the last few decades, the words "green revolution" are more likely to thoughts of organic farming and vegan diets than John Deere and Monsanto, but roughly half a century ago, the industrialization of agriculture vastly improved yields and threatened to end large scale hunger.

In the 21st century, the label "Green revolution" is beginning to look poorly named. It did produce huge crop yields, but only with heavy dependence on petroleum to create fertilizer. Industrial agriculture takes a heavy toll on the environment in many ways. First, monoculture directly reduces biodiversity on farms. Heavy pesticide and antibiotic use selects for more virulent pests and destroys the diversity of beneficial bugs (both invertebrates and microbes). Heavy fertilization (along with antibiotics and pesticides and herbicides) wash out into the environment causing blooms of opportunist organisms (algae in lake eutrophication) who drive out other species and upset ecosystems. Corporate farming places a bureaucratic wedge between decision makers and the land causing the deterioration of the environment to go unheeded.

Michelle over at Garden Rants wondered recently if there isn't a better way. I'm inclined to agree with her. I also wanted to point out that one of the lessons I see in the green revolution is that creating more food won't make hunger go away. Hunger seems to be largely a political and economic problem.

By attempting to modernize the third world in the image of the developed world, we have laid bare our shortcomings. Our current model is unsustainable, and the currently developing areas of the world need to change tack and look for new models of sustainable development. We can, I believe, best help that by looking inward to try and address our own failing first, whether as an individual, a community, or a nation.

Of course we can't stop trying to help those around the world who are in desperate need, but we need to stop pretending that our way is the best and only way. We all know the old saying about giving a man a fish. But instead of merely teaching him how we fish, we should helping him find the best way to fish his pond. It will probably work much better than our methods, and we may learn something in the process.

No Child Left Inside

2008-12-30T03:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_sub_actioncenter_federal_nclb_amendment

This proposed amendment to NCLB would provide grant money for get children outside to learn. This seems like a great goal to me and a decent way to push in that direction. In the current climate of hyper-testing, it seems to me that it would take a truly special teacher to get kids outside to learn if there isn't already some precedent at his/her school. Maybe the availability of these grants would help motivate schools and districts to set up programs for outdoor learning.

Blue is the new green? WTF?

2008-11-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

Greenwashing (to use a loaded word) and global warming (as real and important as it is) were good to get the movement going, but are beginning to distract from the need for sustainability across the board, not just the carbon cycle

sustainability-is-not-a-color-sustainability-is-transparent/

Food fight

2008-11-12T17:56:00.000-08:00

Although much of the statistics are specific to Japan, many of the messages in this Japanese PSA should probably be heeded all across the developed world. It was produced by the Minisitry of Agriculture, Forests, and Fisheries. It takes on many of the problems inherent in the western diet from health effects, to wastefulness, to security. There is an honesty to it that would be impossible from the USDA given the huge influence lobbyists seem to have in that organization.

The dancing people at the end are a nice touch, and I particularly like the food packer and the gas station attendant fighting over the ear of corn.

(Via infosthetics)

The Little White Market

2008-11-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

Sometime in September, a friend told us that a good friend of her neighbor (and friend), just bought a little old house downtown behind the police station. This person previously was a chef for the Finest Gourmet, a little shop in Mendon that makes prepared dinners. The Bocks had them deliver us a meal after Alex was born. It was quite good and we've gone back a couple of times, usually on butternut squash ravioli night.

Anyway, we walked by there on Saturday and it turns out she opened for business this past Thursday. While we've been hoping for a little cafe/ice cream parlor to open up. The root of that wish was that there might be an afternoon destination downtown. The Litte White Market sells, in addition to catering and selling prepared meals, also sells sandwiches and drinks (including beer and wine). This is pretty exciting. We'll make a point to stop by as much as possible to help her out, because we'd really like to see this place succeed.

She was just closing up as we walked by, so we couldn't do more than poke our heads in. She did mention that she is having a wine tasting on November 20th as a belated grand opening event.

It is that easy

2008-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

In looking for a YouTube link to Mark Bittman's TED presentation, I stumbled upon this recipe for making bread the easy way.

It really is that easy. Next time I'll try with more interesting ingredients.

Hot, flat, and crowded

2008-10-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

I just listened to an interview with Tom Friedman, author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

He makes the case that we need systemic change in the way we live to face the coming challenges. The primary challenges are global warming (hot), a globally growing consumer class (flat--yeah, I don't get it either), and overpopulation (crowded). It doesn't sound revolutionary in its content, but he makes very strong arguments in the interview and seems to avoid the moral imperative that seems to get many green proponents pegged as emotional extremists. Although, he does get pretty emotional about it all. Who can blame him?

I also recommend the TED presentation by Mark Bittman on the problems with the western diet. He explicitly avoids the emotional reasons to reduce meat consumption, and makes a strong argument for going (mostly) vegetarian.

Canning

2008-10-05T08:02:00.001-07:00

As part of our push to have more control over our food, we decided to preserve our own food. We started with all the apples from our recent apple picking trips and the one we get from our farm share. We made a couple batches of applesauce; and it was soon clear that our freezer wasn't big enough to hold it all. So we went out and got some mason jars.

We sealed our first jars yesterday, but not of applesauce. We stopped on the way home from the store at one of our local farm stands, the one we affectionately call, "the old guy." As in: "Lets go see if the old guy has any tomatoes we could save for winter." He did. We figured we'd preserve some tomatoes and some apple sauce. We decided to start with just a few jars and it turns out that our bag of tomatoes took 11 of our 12 jars.

It took some work and a fair bit of time, but it wasn't nearly as hard as we had expected. I had this image in my mind of it being very difficult, the sort of thing that only the most hard-core home chefs would tackle. We'll see if we did it correctly, but, in the mean time, it was simple enough that we'll probably go get some more jars and do the apples next weekend.

Gee...

2008-10-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

We went shopping on Saturday and at both the baby store and the food store, there were big displays of g-diapers. If you don't know about these, they could be described as somewhere between cloth and disposable.

The idea is that there is a cloth wrap (with built-in velcro...yay!) and a snap-in waterproof liner that holds absorbent inserts. The inserts are the only part you don't re-use, but they are compostable and flushable. The impact is clearly less than disposable, since, even if you toss the inserts, they are smaller and decompose quickly.

Of course, with the three parts, they are more complicated than disposables. Fortunately, though, they are not nearly as difficult as cloth diapers. With those, you have to attach the cloth diaper then fasten the cover over it. The g-diapers can be pre-assembled, so changing a g-diaper is just like a disposable. You just have to do some prep work.

I'm not sure of the best way to get rid of the liners, though. You should only really compost wet diapers, and I'd want a good tumbler before I do that. I'm not going to toss used diapers into a pile in my yard. Maybe if we had more privacy, but all the yards in our little group of houses just run together. Flushing is nice because you don't have to have a smelly diaper pail. But then you're using a gallon and a half of water with every diaper. That can't be good. Maybe the wet ones can just wait in the toilet 'til someone else comes along. We'll see what works.

Peanut Butter

2008-09-24T10:38:00.001-07:00

A friend of ours wondered out loud the other day if it was worth all the water it took to clean out peanut butter jars to recycle them. Would it be better to trash the jar and save the water and energy to heat the water? This is a tough question to answer. Water and energy are (in theory, at least) renewable, plastic (unless it's made from plant oils) is not.

You can reduce the water needed by using a good brush and some elbow grease. I also head that you can loosen the peanut butter by tossing it in the microwave briefly. I thought this sounded like a good idea, so I tried it out today. I thought the addition of a little water would prevent overheating.

I learned two things today. Don't put the jar in for 2 minutes or the plastic will start to melt and you'll have a big puddle of peanut-buttery water in your microwave. Also, make sure you get all the foil seal off of the rim first.

Not just a back-seat driver

2008-09-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

I heard a great quote about cars recently:

"The car is like your mother-in-law. You have to have [a] good relationship with her, but she cannot command your life. ... When the only woman in your life is your mother in law, you have a problem."

This is from Jaime Lerner's talk at TED 2007. If you haven't seen any TED talks, I recommend them. Here are some of my favorites. It's an annual conference that gives smart people a chance to talk about whatever they want. It's a bit smug and elitist, but they do a pretty good job of defining smart very loosely and getting some really interesting speakers. There are talks by folks you've heard of (Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Stephen Hawking, Frank Gehry, and more) and many you instantly want to know more about. Topics range from the environment, to education, to poverty, to the frontiers of science (the LHC, the ocean, space, medicine, ...), to entertainment.

From their about page:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

Insulating the attic

2008-09-21T17:37:00.001-07:00

insulation
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We foolishly failed to insulate the attic before last winter set in. We chose this weekend to try to fix that. We bought 22 bales of cellulose and rented a large heavy machine to blow it into the floor. Having hauled everything up to the attic, I noticed the instruction suggest leaving it outside and using the hose to get the insulation into the attic. Oops.

Ah well, what's done is done. So far I've got 2/3 of the fiber in and am nearly 3/4 done. We'll see how much less oil we use this year. It'll be interesting.

TV in the kitchen is paying off

2008-09-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

Part of our plan to try to reduce unknown substances in our diet is to stop using canned beans. Since our one-year-old doesn't like chewing meat and he's allergic to eggs, he gets most of his protein from milk and beans. So going to dried beans means we can get organic beans for much less than canned conventional beans.

We'd always been wary of the extra work of dried beans, but since we've moved the TV into the kitchen, it's much easier to do the extra work necessary to avid prepared foods.
Mandy made our first batch of chili from dried beans tonight. It was the best batch yet. It actually didn't take any extra work since it simmers so long, we didn't have to do anything but put extra beer and water in.

We also made apple sauce this weekend from apples we picked. It was wonderful. So far, things are good in home-made food land.

Go open a window

2008-09-18T10:11:00.003-07:00

It seems to be scary contaminant day. Another old podcast, this one from Scientific American, alerts us to the under-regulated horrors of scented products.

Basically, manufacturers are not required to disclose what they put in most products that aren't directly consumed, so they only list the nice things, like honeysuckle extract, and fail to mention the known carcinogens.

Force folks to take the long view...

2008-09-18T10:11:00.002-07:00

Make them live longer!

I'm kind of back-logged on listening to podcasts, so this morning, it was the Nature podcast from August 28. It ended with an interview with aging researcher Judith Campisi. (Not that she is getting up there in years, you can't tell these things on the radio, rather that she studies aging.) It was an interesting but mostly unremarkable piece. She describer her work with nematodes well. Cool stuff if you like animal biology. She thinks there is promise, but still lots of snake oil. She ended with a line that caught my attention, though.

"I am also optimistic that if humans really have to live more with the consequences of their actions, we might not have some of the problems we have right now."

BPA, C-8, and phtalates, oh my

2008-09-18T10:11:00.001-07:00

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been in the news again recently. There are also pthalates in PVC and many soft plastics and ammonium perfluorooctanoate from teflon. In our house, we stopped buying polycarbonate bottles years ago (before we moved to California) and use BPA free bottles for our kids. With the latest news cycle, though we realized that most canned foods are also lined with BPA containing materials.

It's a scary world out there right now. The biggest thing we can see to do is to limit the amount of prepared food we eat and remove the obvious toxins from our immediate environment. We've already dropped the hard plastic Nalgene and Avent bottles. Although both are starting to make non-BPA versions, I still feel more comfortable going back to the old polypropylene ones. They're not as pretty but pretty well tested. Most research labs store at least some things in polypro bottles. Someone would have noticed something by now. That's how BPA was recognized as a problem.

We are also going to try to limit canned food until we figure out how to tell which don't use BPA. Apparently it's banned in Canada. Maybe we'll make a monthly trip to Montreal to stock up. That gets at one of the problems we're facing. Last winter we decided to make do with canned veggies instead of fresh imported ones in an attempt to reduce our food-miles. Maybe we'll have to start canning our own stuff in glass jars with what's left of our free time.

100 mile diet for America!

2008-09-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

In the not too distant past, energy conservation and renewable power sources were just the concern of tree huggers and "cocaine sniffing sierra club yuppies." I think it was 5 years ago, I first read something arguing that energy conservation should also be the concern of hawkish conservatives. This was the first time I saw the term "energy independence". Now, with the addition of religious groups who see humans as the stewards of God's creation, there is some momentum to take on climate change.

However, as I've complained before, global warming is just one of many bad things caused by unsustainable practices. The reckless burning of fossil fuels is just one of many bad things we are doing to the planet and ourselves in the name of short-term profit. There are very few regulations on what can be dumped into landfills and waste water. Nor are there enough controls on what goes into food and consumer goods. This is a problem both for the planet because chemicals and antibiotics that we are dumping both commercially and from our homes will do bad things to ecosystems. It's also bad for people, because there has been no testing for what these chemicals do to people in small doses. This is just one more of many things that is going to come down harder on those without the resources or education to speak up for themselves.

Anyway all this is why we decided earlier this week to try to reduce the amount of prepared and mass-produced food in our diet. It's not the 100 mile diet, but it's more small producers and locally grown stuff. Not long after we made this decision, it came out that something else was contaminated in China. While the tainted Chinese milk likely was not a terrorist act, it underscored to us just how easy it would be to sicken and kill a whole lot of people by putting something in the food supply. The chain is so long with mass produced food that it'd be pretty easy to do.

In addition to making me a little uneasy, it got me thinking that, like energy independence before it, food security will be the next formerly eco-friendly idea to get taken up by the right in the name of national security.

Oh yeah!?

2008-08-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not really the type to pipe up and get into an argument when people say things like "there's just not enough sunlight for solar to replace coal" or "I don't by organic because it's fertilized with manure". My instincts tell me that these statements are wrong, but I'll lose the argument every time because I don't have all the facts at my finger tips. I can do research later and refute everything, but it's like coming up with the perfect retort for that bully long after he's gone. The first example came up recently, and I let it go, but I figured this blog gives me a chance to set the record straight (to no one in particular).

Last year, Scientific American published an in-depth article explaining just how we could power the entire country on solar. Granted it would be a huge investment, but it would work. It involves building huge collectors in the southwest and building a new transmission network to get the power where it's needed. One of the problems was how to make solar energy available at night, most storage techniques are untested, expensive, lossy, or all of the above. They propose storing heat in salt domes or something.

Two recent developments will alleviate most of these problems. First, researchers at MIT figured out an efficient way to use solar energy to directly separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Traditional electrolysis zaps water with a current to pull the molecules apart. This takes far more energy than can be recouped by burning the hydrogen. The new method is much more efficient. Second, Australian researchers figured out how to make fuel cells without platinum. That should reduce the cost of pulling the energy back out of the hydrogen.

Storing energy as hydrogen may also help the transmission issue. I don't know the numbers, but it could be more efficient to build a hydrogen infrastructure rather than transmitting electricity directly.

I'm on board

2008-08-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x1507911046/Draper-officials-aboard-train-idea

This would be very good for the town. The area has been suburbanized
over the last few decades and this could be a push back in the right
direction.

CBS News: The Decline Of Suburbia?

2008-08-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/07/eveningnews/main4329746.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4329746

This is not news to a lot of people, but the combined effects of
expensive gas, a weak economy, and increased environmental awareness
have started to put the squeeze on suburbs.

This doesn't mean that everyone is going to move into big cities, but
it does mean that future developments will look more like towns than
bizarre orchards of five bedroom ranches.

Much of the country developed backwards. Cities arose in isolation and
then people started flowing out to the burbs recently. Much of the
east coast, though, developed more slowly with many towns, a few of
which later swelled into major metropoli. The other towns remained and
were affected by suburbanization, but retained some character and
density.

With luck, the current forces will reshape population distributions
into something more sustainable.

Farm Work

2008-08-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

We went down to our CSA this morning to fulfill the work obligations for our share. Every member owes at least seven hours of work a season, and you can cut your cost in half by working eight hours a week. This is a feature that the CSAs in California lacked. There was no real connection to the farm for the subscribers, just a box that showed up every week.

It was pouring this morning, so we were the only folks out who weren't permanent staff. We were mentally prepared to spend a couple hours in the rain weeding or something, but there was plenty to do in the barn. We spent three hours clipping the dried leaves off of over 300 pounds of garlic. We didn't get wet, but we got a few blisters.

More on recycling

2008-08-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

Following up on the last post, it seems that Engines of our Ingenuity recently asked why some plastics are recycled and some aren't. They look at the problem with an engineering slant. The transcript also has a nice table of the types of plastics and their properties.

Economics of recycling

2008-07-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Robert Siegel did a segment on 'All Things Considered' last Friday on different municipal recycling programs in the DC area. His goal was to understand why the recycling guidelines are different wherever you go.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92913195&ft=2&f=1090

Some towns only take some kinds of plastic, others take everything but want you to divide out your paper from everything else. This piece does a good job of explaining how it's all driven by economics. There is not enough demand for products made from some types of recycled plastics, so it can only be feasible for a fraction of municipalities to recycle the higher number plastics. Also, it is more expensive or the city to separate things, but requiring citizens to do more means less will get recycled (people are lazy) and the city has to pay more to get rid of trash.

Diapers

2008-07-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

If you are a parent and have any thoughts about sustainability or the environment, you've thought about the great diaper dilemma: cloth or disposable. Conventional wisdom says go with cloth, but it may not be that simple if you add water and bleaching chemicals into the equation. Also, cotton is one of the worst crops from a "green" perspective.

We had Chris in cloth diapers for about 6 months while we were within range of a diaper service. Since then, like most folks, we decided it wasn't worth the effort. In theory at least, the time saved by using disposables should free us up to grow some of our own food in a garden or go cruise for reusables on the night before trash day.

We are currently attempting to potty train Chris at 20 months. We are having some success, but are aware, that we may fail and have to try again later. We figure, though, that if we can pull this off now, rather than when he is pushing 3, then we can save a whole lot of diapers. We'll see.

Irrationality

2008-07-11T11:08:00.001-07:00

I was flipping through AM radio on the way back from work on Wednesday (because my walkman/phone is broken) and, out of curiosity, listened to a few minutes of a right-wing rant against everything climate change. There were a few nuggets of truth mixed in with a whole barge-load of rubbish.

My first thought was remembering how I wish that the issue weren't so narrowly focused on climate-change. Sustainability is about everything on this planet. Climate change is about a single nutrient cycle (carbon) and one hell of a bad outcome if we mess with it too much.

Next, the host went on about how China and India refuse to accept caps until they match the per capita carbon output of the west. This was used to argue that caps will needlessly hamper our economy. However, the alternative is continue to increase our output so that we stay ahead of the developing world. Otherwise I don't see how letting the indians catch up to us is any better than meeting them in the middle. At some point in the future we'll all be on equal terms, it may as well be on a livable planet.

Finally, I noticed how emotional the arguments are. The scientific community is worried about climate change because it has constructed a bunch models, crunched endless numbers, and performed numerous experiments that say we are doing our best to bump the climate out of the stable state it's been in for a few millenia into a completely unknown region that will likely be warmer.

The thing is, the earth is so complex that it just might get cooler instead. However, if you shift the chemistry as much as we are doing, something will change. Our food production system will be challenged severely and if we can't respond sufficiently, billions could die or be displaced. The problem is, since our current state is so stable, once things start changing, it'll be too late to stop. So all this arguing over whether Katrina and the floods and fires can be linked to climate change is pointless. The details don't matter because (look up chaos theory) we can't predict the exact outcome even if we had them all right (which we don't).

The details don't matter for another reason, though. Models, predictions, and robust scientific theories aren't going to spur the kind of change we need. People are not rational. Science is the application of rational thinking to the natural world. It turns out this is useful. It is also very hard because people are not rational. To change behavior and future outcomes, sustainability needs to be sold with broad, sweeping, emotionally-charged arguments.

There is this idea among those who wish to keep the status-quo that capping emissions will hurt the bottom line. This idea is not limited to greenhouse gasses. Chemical plants that produce waste products fight regulation worrying that it will cost more to clean up than they can afford.

In the short term these fears are probably real, but in the broader view, there is no reason why emitting no waste products would cost more than emitting lots. Look at the word waste. Why do we want to waste stuff. Let's use all the resources we have as fully as possible, not just as little as we need to to make a quick buck.

I have lots of thoughts on how an unchecked market leads to these self-destructive short-term solutions (ask John Nash) and how governing bodies need tilt the balance so companies take the long view. I am not an economist though, so they are just my thoughts. Anyway, no-one cares about the details.

Sustainability means to many that resources are limited, therefore we should conserve them. People need to see the positive side of sustainability. Dumping gasses into the air, chemicals into the waters, and trash into the land is waste. That's not a judgment, that's the definition of the word. These are waste products. Waste is bad. Companies should be made to feel the cost of the waste they produce. This won't cost anything overall, we are just shifting the cost from society back to the producers of the waste.

Draper re-use (sort of)

2008-07-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

Next summer's Bruce Willis movie is being filmed all over the Boston area this summer. They seem to have built a set in the middle of the Draper complex and have been filming all month.

I haven't seen much of it, but there was a helicopter hovering over town a few days ago and there are lots of people milling about trying to spot the stars. This was taken from Jenny's window on the other side of the factory.

Run your car on water!!! Not really, no.

2008-06-05T15:23:00.001-07:00

One of the adds that popped up in gmail while sending out baby pics was to a web site that claimed you could run your car on water. I've always had a passing interest in perpetual motion machines and other claims that violate the laws of thermodynamics and everyone was napping, so I took the bait.

It is certainly oversold and borders on fraudulent, but it may very well improve the efficiency of your car. I'm still skeptical of those claims, but not on scientific ground, just on the level of hucksterism on the web page.

Lets start with the claim. Using just tap water, their system creates a special gas that can be burnt with gasoline in your engine. They have some fancy name for this gas. It is simply a mixture of Hydrogen gas and Oxygen gas in exactly the proportion needed to make water. This is done by pumping electric current through the water. It's a pretty well known process that may have been demonstrated in your high-school chemistry class, if your teacher, like our beloved Mr Merriweather, liked to blow things up.

The problem is that the energy needed for electrolysis is the same as the heat released when gas mixture is burned. Even worse, it is impossible to turn all the heat back into usable energy. So "Run your car on water!" is complete hogwash.

There are two points that might bail them out, however, since the fine print really only claims improved efficiency. First, the added hydrogen may improve the efficiency of the gasoline combustion by some process that I don't understand. The chemistry is beyond me, but I doubt its a big gain.

Second, and more significant, using the extra current from the alternator to build a reserve of hydrogen is analogous to the way earlier hybrids store energy in batteries to later boost the engine via an electric motor. This system is worse in that the combustion of hydrogen is less efficient than recovering energy from a battery and you probably don't have regenerative brakes on your car. On the other hand, the stored hydrogen won't leak energy and the system probably weighs less than the batteries and electric motor.

Sunshine

2008-05-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

Hilarious.

While I don't think CFLs are going to be the big negative that crop-based ethanol is turning into, I still think they are over-hyped. That's a bit unfair, actually. I'm all for their widespread adoption. The lights in our house that are on the most are all CFL at this point. I'm still waiting for LED bulbs to be a smidge more affordable and the rest of our lights will drop their incandescents. (Getting closer, though)

A week with Mimi

2008-05-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

Mimi was in town to help out last week. It gave me a chance to finish thing up at work while Mandy rested and recovered.

We started with indian food at the Gold Star in Framingham. Chris was a fan.

Mimi and Nonna took him shopping and came back with some cute stuff, including an Elmo sun hat.

Before she left, we stopped by EMC park in Hopkington.

Cellulosic ethanol

2008-05-21T05:38:00.001-07:00

One of the most intelligent things I've read on ethanol production lately comes from an anthropologist:

It seems to me that most of these drawbacks come from insisting on a monoculture, which -- if you have an efficient cellulose processing capacity -- I don't see why you care about. A real natural marsh or tallgrass ecosystem can't stand much mowing, but if you could tune a multispecies ecology for biofuel production, that would pose much less risk of invasive potential, and would be less trouble to look after. The tallgrass ecosystem was based on burning, anyway, so you should be able to maintain the soil while taking out hydrocarbons with minimal fertilizing.

Good insight, this. Cellulose is, for the most part, cellulose. At the point we commercialize cellulosic ethanol, it doesn't matter what the crop is. Just take whatever grows best locally and run with it.

I still think crop based biofuels are only a short term and/or small part of the solution. We can reduce our energy consumption many, many ways. We still need to eat. But if cellulose can be harvested from otherwise un-farmed land, maybe in lieu of prescribed burns, it'd be a win-win situation.

Greenovation

2008-05-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping the folks at GreenovationTV get up and running soon. They've done a bunch of reasonable improvements to their 100+ year old house to dramatically reduce their energy and water usage. These are tips I could use.

Some things I've been thinking about that they did include adding insulation to the attic and going geothermal. They also mention doing an energy audit wither with a pro or an incense stick (Just hold it near a door and look for drafts!) What I don't know yet, is if we should insulate the basement ceiling. I think so, but the furnace is down there and gives off some radiant heat. The attic is definitely the priority for now.

An environmentalist, a conservationist, and an organic farmer walked into a bar...

2008-05-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

... the realist ducked.

Yes, it's a bad joke. Sorry. I wrote the bulk of this last summer, but never posted it. I've added a couple things here and there and a conclusion. Enjoy.

Global warming is the buzzword of the year. Going green is all the rage. Cities and towns are drafting sustainability plans. Organics are already mainstream. Local food is so big, folks are on 100 mile diets. WholeFoods is just another grocery store with over-priced arugala. The assault on school food is making headway. Polar bears are the latest species to need saving. It seems like the wolves are OK for now. Condors are coming back and the pygmy rabbits are next. Environmental justice is picking up steam. We now know it's bad idea to build schools near freeways. People are beginning to realize that there are downsides to living in suburbs. We've learned some hard lessons about affordable housing projects.

For progressives, things are great. Except there is a small problem. We're starting to get in each others' ways. Conservationists are challenging wind farms because birds get killed. 100 mile diets often require driving from farm to store to market to collect a full menu and therefore rely too heavily on cars. Diesel engines are usually more fuel efficient, but produce ugly and hazardous soot. Should reclaimed land be returned to the wild, farmed, or developed? Cities are more sustainable, but whow do you learn to appreciate nature in a concrete jungle?

Fuel cell and electric vehicles just move energy use elsewhere. Biofuels use less energy, but require land. As we are seeing this year, food is becoming more expensive. New technologies reduce pollution and energy use, but populations still grow.

More problematic is that the goals are too simplistic. We need to reduce carbon emissions. Yes. Capturing CO2 may slow global warming, but it doesn't save energy. Alternative energies are great, but we still need to reduce usage because solar and wind sources are finite, nuclear has it's own issues, and the population keeps growing.

There is, of course, far more common ground than not, but choices are not as clear cut as we'd like them to be. It is still critically important at this point to just make the world as a whole aware that there problems. As we begin to focus on these problems, though, some hard choices loom. I believe a general philosophy of sustainability will guide us well. What choices can we make that will ensure we are still here in a century or two?

Garlic Mustard Pesto

2008-05-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

I heard this from the Environment Report. It isn't really a practical idea that will reduce your carbon footprint and we're not going to eat our way out of this particular minor ecological catastrophe. However, it's a fun illustration of a sustainable mindset.

Garlic mustard is a weed that is crowding out wildflowers and inhibiting seedling trees. Conservationists are pulling these guys out of the ground all over the northeast and tossing them in the garbage. Here we go again, throwing away anything we don't want. According to the story, that's a bit of a waste because they are edible. Brought to the new world by immigrants, they are apparently pretty tasty. The seeds taste like mustard; the leaves, like garlic; and the roots, like horseradish.

Yum.

Oasis

2008-05-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

It interesting that an country whose wealth comes largely from oil is doing something this radical.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/21/climatechange.energy

My guess is that they understand that sustainability isn't just about energy. It's about all our resources. They only have oil and sun and both are limited. But they also have wealth and some foresight.

Granted, Abu Dhabi is pretty much a beacon of capitalism and excess, but it's still a cool idea. Good for them.

Please don't...

2008-04-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

Clinton and McCain both are supporting a temporary break from gasoline taxes.

No!!!!!!!!!!

How long has it been since congress was jumping down the throats of oil companies about their record profits? Now these clowns want to make it easier for people to buy their products? The economy is sagging, so lets help out those poor oil companies.

The idea, I gather, is to help out struggling families that can't afford gas. That's great, but everyone is suffering, and this "relief" will disproportionately help those who chose less efficient cars or decided at some point that a big commute was OK if it got them more land and a supposedly better school system. The only big winner from this are the oil companies.

What about all the struggling families who can't even afford a car? What about those who decided not to use a car? The government is just going to bail out all the poeple who like their SUVs and their suburbs?

The economic realities of our unsustainable energy usage rears it's ugly head and congress wants to hide it. Why not, give half of this money directly to those in need. It will help them more than the tax relief will. Use the other half help folks in "sleeper suburbs" find either new homes or new jobs to reduce their commute.

Or simply redirect all gas taxes to fund better public transit and make all major highways toll roads.

Biofuel Folly?

2008-04-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of hype around biofuels over the last year or two. Any sane person can see that corn based ethanol and soy or palm based biodiesel are just plain silly. Switchgrass based ethanol is definitely a step up from corn (if we can ever commercialize it). Crop based fuels have the additional problem that we have to use land that would otherwise produce food (or remain virgin forest in the case of sugar cane or palm) to get these meager energy increases. The land is more valueable in other uses.

So why are we still hearing about corn? Because it can be done today. Never mind that it's not much of an improvement over fossil fuels. There is a big lobby behind it and it gets results now, even if the results are not worth anything. Thankfully, we're starting to hear some vocal opposition to these fuels from some sensible folks.

Photovoltaics and concentrating solar arrays can produce 100 times the energy per acre of corn ethanol. The problem is energy storage. Fuels are just more effective than batteries at storing energy for long times.

It seems algal biodiesel is the clear winner for biofuels. The energy produced per acre is much higher than even cellulosic ethanol, it uses much less water, and can be produced in locations with little or no agricultural value.

Decentralized Density

2008-04-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Advocates of sustainability often sound like they are pushing for either of two extremes. You can get a plot of land way off in the hills and do everything yourself, or you can move into a dense urban center so you can walk to everything. Each has its own issues based primarily due to reality.

There's just not enough arable land on the planet for 7 billion people to carve out individual plots of land. Also, you're not going to get everyone in the developed world to give up modern life.

As for moving to the cities, there are many hurdles in getting people to move to dense centers, but I think most of these could be overcome. Many are afraid of higher crime. Many people (like me) who care about sustainability also care about the environment. It's hard for us to leave it all behind. This is the real issue with moving everyone to the city. How do you get subsequence generations, raised in the urban jungles, too care about these issues? Ironically, it doesn't seem sustainable socially.

My solution is to focus on many, small dense centers. Economics will continue to support the large urban hubs, but we need to shift satellite developments from sprawling subdivisions to dense, centralized communities surrounded by a combination of conservation and farm land. These centers could be linked by mass transit to the big hubs. They'd provide all the green benefits of living in a city while still allowing residents easy access to open areas.

I'm sure this is not an original idea, but it never occurred to me in California. Having been back in Massachusetts for a while, where the country side is dotted with town centers that developed before the automobile, it's clear to me now. I'm not sure how we get there, but I think it's possible. It should almost be easy in this area.

Am I part of the problem

2008-04-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the commuting post, I've been questioning my current lifestyle. It's not horrible. I think we are doing a really good job with our food. Most of it is either organic or local or both and we only eat our occasionally. We are working on making the house more efficient. It's more than 100 years old and no one ever bothered to insulate the top or bottom, so we've a ways to go. We are making progress, though. Anyway, it'd be more wasteful to start from scratch with a new house.

What nags at me is that we live an hour outside the city and I commute in 2 to 3 days a week. It's not horrible, but the last two years we were in Berkeley, we drove 10 to 15 thousand miles each year. This year will probably be more like 20. We are going the wrong way. I might bike to the train in good weather, but I wouldn't seem my son at all on those days (and leaving his pregnant mom home with him for a full day isn't fair). In the future it may become a more common thing, but not right now.

But there was a reason we chose Hopedale. We're actually in a fairly densely settled area. I just chose to work in a different place. When we are home, we often walk downtown to breakfast. When the weather was nice, we walked across town to our friends' house every few days. We can walk to the drugstore and to Shaws, we just have to make the commitment to. In the nice weather, we often walked to DQ for soft serve.

So I take a hit on the commute, but this is not a bad place to go green. Maybe the train will bail me out and complete the deal. Or Ed can double my salary and we'll move into the city.

Upstaged by global warming

2008-04-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Al Gore and global warming have put the idea of sustainability on the map. Combine it with the instability of many of the world's oil producing regions and the idea of energy independence and we are on the verge of turning a corner to the tipping point (to steal and mangle a few phrases) on how we view energy usage.

However, sustainability goes beyond energy usage. Yes, the combined threats of global warming and rising oil prices make it the most important component at the moment, but there is more to sustainability than being carbon neutral.

For the last few decades, our society (meaning the US primarily, but also most of the westernized world) has become dominated by disposable things. It is cheaper to throw something away and replace it, than to get it fixed. This is WRONG. It does cost the consumer less and makes money for most everyone else involved (except for the folks who repair things), but in terms of real resources and energy expenditures, it should be the other way. Instead of a few hours of work, we're spending all the materials and work involved in a new product (plus distribution) as well as all the work and resources (land) devoted to disposal. So we are wasting energy, land, and physical resources because it's too easy to just throw something away. That was true twenty years ago when the current torrent of toxic electronic waste was just beginning.

An (amazingly) overlooked resource that doesn't affect global warming, but will affect billions of lives, is water. It's been called the oil of the next century.

Land is another good one. Why is suburban sprawl invading the flood plains of the Sacramento River? The land is among the most productive in the world and the homes will be washed away in the next 50 years without a question.

Sustainability is about more than just being carbon-neutral. (And don't get me started about paying to be carbon neutral...). Its about conservation of everything. It's a law of physics, people. You can't create matter and the earth is only so big.

Commuting

2008-04-10T04:28:00.000-07:00

I recently heard through the rumor mill that the owner of the old railroad right-of-way through Hopedale recently acquired the rest of the old Grafton line. Will there be a train from Milford to Worcester in the future? Will it connect to Franklin and Boston? That would be pretty cool.

I've been driving to work a lot lately. I'm not sure I've ridden the train in the last month. At the moment, there is not much chance of this trend reversing much. I initially felt pretty guilty when I realized this, but it occurred to me that a 2 hour commute on 2 trains with a 20 minute drive is only marginally better than a 1 hour drive. Neither is good. That's why I'm glad it's only twice a week.

When me made the move to Hopedale, I had in mind a job at EMC or one of the many small tech companies in the area. The job in Cambridge was too good to pass up, so I took it on the condition that I only had to come in half time.

I'm not sure if this makes sense for the long term though. The commute is fine. It's long, but 2 or 3 days a week is not that much and I get some good time to my own thoughts and my podcasts. (Mandy doesn't do talk radio). When I think about the energy used to get me that far, I wonder if it's the right choice. I'm probably doing better than a lot of people, but I'd rather be out front, not in the middle of the pack on this.

MBTA

2008-03-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

The Boston commuter rail stops in Franklin. It's about 15-20 minutes from here and takes a little over an hour to get to South Station. I like taking the train, because I can sit an work for most of my commute. Taking the train nearly doubles the time it takes to get to work, though, so it doesn't buy me any extra productivity beyond the fact that I often just work well on the train some days. I think there are fewer distractions.

The big north east cities seem to all have a commuter rail system that is separate from the subway lines. I can only speak of Boston, NY, and Philly from experience. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. and the San Francisco Bay Area do not. The rail systems there double as commuter rail and subway, and do neither particularly well. The difference, I'm told, is that there used to be factories in the towns surrounding Boston which built railways to carry goods into the city and the port. Years later, the MBTA uses some of these lines to ferry workers from the same little towns into Boston.

We're pretty far out here in Hopedale, by Boston commuter standards, but not absurdly so. My drive time is under an hour if I avoid peak times. It's not something I'd want to do more that half the time, but it's nothing compared to hat people in the Bay Area endure.

What annoys me is that the MBTA doesn't come here. Hopedale and Milford (about 100yds from here) both had factories back in the day and the rail right of ways and most of the track still exists. It would be an easy thing (relative to laying new track somewhere) to extend the Franklin line into downtown Milford or Hopedale.

They did a feasibility survey a few years back and concluded that there are not enough riders. Come on! Have a little foresight, please. Milford is one of the bigger towns around and already has a pretty dense downtown just blocks from the old depot. Hopedale is tiny, but the regional hospital is about a 1/2 mile from the old depot and the Draper Factory is standing vacant looking for a reason to be re-purposed.

An MBTA stop may be too much for Hopedale, but it would be great for Milford. The way things are right now, it's hard to live in this area without a car for every adult. There aren't tons of jobs downtown. Most companies are in office parks off of 495. The same is true of most retail. In contrast, the residences downtown are pretty dense. So residents there get all the claustrophobia of a downtown with few of the conveniences.

If Milford gets a rail line, it can take advantage of its density. If not, it will likely continue to grow just in the suburban areas. There are the areas that are being hardest hit by the housing crunch. Meanwhile stuff near downtowns has not crashed the same way. Even in Hopedale, the downtown duplexes are still holding most of their value.

Hybrid selection

2008-03-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

I heard an interview with a car salesman who talked about people coming into showrooms asking about hybrids, but leaving with a conventional vehicle when they learn about the price difference. This seems to be the conventional wisdom: consumers want to feel good about what they buy as long as it doesn't cost much extra.

I'm not disagreeing with this in general, I think it's true to some degree. But I believe it's an oversimplification and a cop out for producers. We bought 2 new cars in the last year. (I know, not very green of us.) Sure enough, both times we went in looking at hybrids.

The first time we went shopping, we were looking for a vehicle that could hold us, 1-2 kids and some number of dogs comfortably. We loved our Matrix, but we had out grown it and were about to drive across the country. We looked at the Prius, but it didn't offer much over the matrix in ability to get car seats in. We also looked at the Highlander hybrid, but it's much bigger than we needed. We settled on the mazda5. It's a cool little car. Not much bigger than the Matrix (a foot longer and an inch narrower), it has 3 rows of seats and sliding rear doors. Exactly the car we needed and nobody else makes anything close to it. Forget about finding anything that size in a hybrid.

Once we got here and settled, it became clear that we needed a commuter car. The mazda gets much better mileage than any minivan (because it's much smaller), but not what I wanted to commute in. The Prius was higher on the list this time, but still, a much bigger car than we wanted. We went to a Honda dealer to look at the civic hybrid, but this is also a large vehicle these days. We left with a Fit. This is a great little car and still gets high 30s for highway mileage. Again, show me a small hybrid hatchback and I'd have bought it.

The problem is not that people won't spend a premium to get a hybrid. The problem is that people won't spend a premium to get a car they don't like. The Prius points to this. People who really care about fuel economy tend to think it's a cool design and it flew out of the dealerships.

A lot of our peers (young folks starting families) care about the environment but also don't care for traditional concepts of what a car should do. I consider a sedan a waste of space. With a smaller foot print, a hatchback can hold more stuff. Look at the newer car models of the last decade that aren't SUVs. When we bought our toyota echo 8 years ago, the small hatchbacks for sale were: the Golf, the Focus, and maybe the PT cruiser was out already. Now VW added the Rabbit, the Echo has been replaced by the Yaris which has a 3-door model, the scion comes in 2 flavors, the Aveo, the Aero (Suzuki), Kia has one, the Fit, the versa, the Matrix, and the crossover vehicle is huge now. The only hatchback hybrid is the Prius and it's aimed at the full size market.

Make a small hybrid hatchback and it will sell. Hell, Toyota has a Mazda5 size minivan in Japan. Put synergy in there and ship them to the US. They'll sell.

Rain Water

2008-03-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

We got a couple small puddles in the basement from this weekend's rain storm. It the second time in the last few weeks. In the back of the house, the rain coming down the rain spout from the roof doesn't quite make it over the crest of the hill and pools under the porch and seeps into the basement door.

One easy fix would be to fit a longer pipe to the bottom of the down spout to direct the water farther from the house. But at the point we're diverting rain water, how hard would it be to set up a rain barrel under the porch? There is plenty of room, and it would only take about 10 feet of pipes to get the water under there. Additionally, all but one of our non-lawn garden plots are downhill from the porch, so we wouldn't need a pump to use most of the water.

So add a rain barrel to the list of home improvements for this summer. I still have to insulate the attic and build some shelving in the basement. Also, the downstairs bathroom is functional at this point, but still need paint and a towel bar and some shelves/cabinets. I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting...

Small Town

2008-03-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

I took Christopher down to the library this afternoon and on our 4 block walk, we passed 3 groups of people. Everyone stopped to say hello. Even the mom parked in a car full of kids talking on her cell phone stopped long enough to say hi. It's really a nice feeling.

March started with a few inches of snow, but most of it melted within 12 hours. It's been pretty nice out for a couple days and Christopher just wants to run around out side. On our way back from the library we stopped for a wagon ride around the yard. He collapsed into a pile of tears when I told him it was time to go in.

Updates

2008-01-15T05:59:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit distracted lately by work, Christopher, and home improvement, so I haven't posted much here. We've been adding a half bathroom downstairs. I found an old door in the attic that had to be stripped of old paint before we could put it up. I tried scraping it off, which created lots of, probably toxic, paint dust. I tried using something called PeelAway that I found at Home Depot. It works really well, but despite claims of being non-toxic, I was coughing al night after using it. I also tried SoyGel. Goes on really easily, works well, and didn't make me feel sick.

The other thing on my mind occasionally is politics. This quote is from an article by Ronald Bailey on the candidates' views on evolution is not related to anything, but too good to not pass on.

My favorite response from any candidate about the evolution/creationism debate was from former Sen. Mike Gravel (Alaska). When LiveScience asked the senator if he thought creationism should be taught in public schools, Gravel replied, ""Oh God, no. Oh, Jesus. We thought we had made a big advance with the Scopes monkey trial....My God, evolution is a fact, and if these people are disturbed by being the descendants of monkeys and fishes, they've got a mental problem. We can't afford the psychiatric bill for them. That ends the story as far as I'm concerned."

Snow

2007-12-03T06:22:00.000-08:00

We've now made it into the winter. I don't know f this qualifies as the first snow. We had a dusting a week or so ago that stuck in places for a few hours, but not everywhere. Last nights accumulation was enough to bring out the plows, but I don't think we even got an inch.

The snow coincided with the first night we had our new programmable thermostat. I bought it last weekend, but didn't find the time and motivation to install it until yesterday. It took all of 15 minutes. That includes looking for a screwdriver. The unit cost $25 bucks and will turn the heat up in th morning, down in the middle of the day, back up in the evening and down again over night. We've been trying to do it manually, but we keep forgetting to turn the thing down at night. If you don't have a programmable thermostat yet, I recommend getting one.

The best part was having the heat on when I was trying to get out of bed. The floor was already warm. It was great.

Next up: insulation. It turns out neither the roof, the attic floor, or the basement ceiling are insulated. We must be wasting huge amounts of heat. I think the roof is the biggest problem and we are going to try to get that done in the next couple of weeks.

I'm not sure about the basement floor. It's not as cold down there since it is half buried, but it's only half buried. Also the heater and ducts create some ambient heat that comes up through the floor. You can easily find the ducts by feeling for the temperature differences in the floor. I think I should finish weather stripping the doors first. That will probably make a bigger difference.

The Rough Guide

2007-08-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

I just bought a copy of The Rough Guide to Shopping With a Conscience. I had been looking at it, thinking it would be good to have on hand as a sort of reference, and I needed one more thing to get free shipping from Amazon. When it showed up, we wife remarked that it may have been better to borrow a copy from the library rather than kill a tree for a book on how to shop greener. She has a point.

She's actually proven to be a better at some aspects of personal conservation than I am. She's not quite as motivated as Ia m by the bigger plight of the global environment, but she's better at seeing the cost of day to day things. I had assumed that I'd be the advocate of all things green in this new endeavor, but she's been doing more than her share so far. And I still haven't gotten a compost bin set up. I'll do it tomorrow. Really.

Food energy

2007-07-31T06:13:00.001-07:00

As I've mentioned before, I've been wrestling with the best way to buy food. What is more important? Local, organic, something else? Apparently my kitchen is where I should focus my efforts. According (supposedly, some very light digging failed to turn up the actual study) to researchers at the University of Michigan, home food preparation and refrigeration is the biggest resource hog in the food chain. Transportation ranks fourth. Maybe the PM of New Zealand has a point, but then, local food doesn't need to be packaged nearly as much, so perhaps the transportation and packaging sectors should be merged.

Fire

2007-07-25T15:52:00.000-07:00

The Uxbridge mill fire a couple days ago makes every small town in New England with an old mill building a bit nervous. Especially towns like Hopedale, where the building is vacant. The Milford Daily News reports that the Draper Mill's owner has put in some effort to minimize risks.

Corn based ethanol

2007-07-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Environmental groups finally seem to be speaking out against corn-based ethanol. I guess they finally feel that the alternative fuels movement has enough momentum that it's safe to start picking off the bad ideas. Corn just doesn't have the energy content to be effective. Generous estimates say you get about 1 and 1/3 times the energy from corn based ethanol compared to the (non-solar) energy that goes into producing it. In the process you lose a bunch of food.

But it's not all bad that there has been a big push for corn-based ethanol. It's going to push the development of infrastructure and ethanol burning engines. This should further spur the development of cellulosic ethanol, and when that arrives, we will be ready to take advantage of it.

Keep in mind, though, that alternative auto fuels are only a part of the solution to the energy problem, with is only part the large global issues we are facing.

Public health and the environment

2007-07-19T09:15:00.001-07:00

Living on Earth last we re-aired an old episode that I had not heard. It opened with an interview of Dr Richard Jackson of UC Berkeley and formerly the CDC. He sounds like quite an impressive person. He has been working hard his entire carrier to understand and manage the effects of environmental pollutants on public health. the topic was perchlorates in ground water interrupting thyroid activity. When asked what at-risk individuals (reproductive age women, in this case) can do, he gave a multi-part answer: First, pressure your local government to make sure you water meets the standards and pressure the government to increase the standards. Second, make sure you get some iodized salt every day, and third, (if you are pregnant) take pre-natal vitamins.

I thought this interview was worth noting because this man is clearly committed to this cause and his patients, and is passionate about public health, but he provided practical advice for listeners and a rational analysis of the situation. I was impressed.

And the green grass grows all around, all around

2007-07-05T08:28:00.001-07:00

I've now heard twice that everyone is wrong about watering lawns. Apparently, according to some research in Michigan (or was it Minnesota?), if you sprinkle a little water on your lawn in the heat of the day every day, you get a greener lawn with half the water than if you soak the roots twice a week at night.

Now I have to figure out how to avoid the evil eye from the neighbors if I implement this plan.

The Environment Repot

2007-07-05T07:11:00.001-07:00

Now that I'm back to work, I'm listening to my iPod regularly again. I've hacked iTunes with a network of smart playlists to get a randomized playlist that is a mix of my favorite songs that I haven't heard recently, a few songs I haven't rated yet, and a smattering of podcasts.

My podcast list is evolving slowly. I started with all the science shows I could find and added some short general news clips for variety. A lot of the science shows were redundant, just different people's views on the same headlines. I really like "This Week in Science" from Davis. The hosts are a good mix of intelligent and funny and aren't afraid to get into their personal opinions, and can do so without preaching. I also like "Living on Earth" which gets more into environmental issues. Both are great shows, but both shows are way too long. TWIS usually does an interview in the second half-hour that I usually skip. I like their take on the headlines better. Both shows have been dropped from my regular listening because I just don't have that kind of time.

The Environment Report is my top science/environment podcast. Usually about 20 minutes long, they do 3 to 4 stories that are always well researched and produced. The journalists are easy to understand and always engaging. Good stuff.

Saving the world

2007-07-03T11:02:00.001-07:00

Climate change as a political issue seems to have reached a tipping point before it reached a real tipping point. It remains to be seen if we've gotten there in time. At the moment, there is lots of rhetoric and small-time action. Some individuals and companies are taking it upon themselves to "green" their lives and operations. Many world leaders are talking about emissions goals for 10 to 50 years from now.

This is all very nice (and I'm part of it), but it's not going to solve much. Many journalists and bloggers are pointing this out. My composting toilet will be cool, but it's not going to solve anything on a global scale. I can make my house zero-energy and low-water, but there Earth will still boil over. Many leaders are trying to leave the climate change solution up to individuals and corporations. While many are answering the call, it's not enough.

But many authors worry that green consumers are assuaging their conscience with organic cotton and carbon offsets for their SUV and leaving it at that. While the recycled plastic decks aren't going to save the planet, they are being noticed by businesses and politicians. At the moment the green-product marketplace is probably still minuscule compared to the rest of the economy. But a conversation has begun.

What's important now is that all of us who realize the need for change continue to speak out, both with our voices and out pocket books. We need to remind our leaders that this is a real problem. We need to remind manufacturers that we care enough to pay a little bit extra. I also think it's important to convince our peers that they should pitch in as well.

I think this is missed in the media. The crazies get covered (and have their place). The 50 mile diet families and the like get lots of buzz and start conversations. But one of my goals is to make modest changes and demonstrate to friends and neighbors that drastically reducing your impact does not mean drastically changing your life.

When I mentioned the composting toilet plan to my mother-in-law, I got quite a look. I can argue the evidence till I turn blue, but seeing it in action will have a much better effect.

Moved in

2007-06-30T14:42:00.001-07:00

... almost.

M is out buying a kitchen table now and we still need shelves. It's hard to find book when their in boxes stacked in the closet. Coming in to all this, I was excited to get my hands dirty and build some things. Then reality set in an I realized that with a new job and the baby, I just don't have that kind of time. So far, I built a shelf. It's a nice shelf, but not two weeks worth of nice. I need to have a realistic time frame in mind for future projects and prioritize a little.

I'm starting with shelves. There's lots of junk in the basement that needs to be off the ground in case of flooding and the attic is a mess. Then I can get into the fun stuff. I want to build a compost tumbler. They seem to cost more than $200 to buy and I should be able to build one for $20 if I can find a good container to start with. I'm not sure where to find old steel drums, but a Gatorade cooler would work, too.

We've decided to leave the kitchen alone for now. That leaves finishing the attic and adding a half bath as the big projects. The plumbing is going to be tricky for the bathroom, so we're contemplating a composting toilet. I thought that would be a harder sell, but M was on board at the first mention. I had a whole spiel prepared.

My mamma likes Obama

2007-05-31T14:44:00.001-07:00

This is horribly off-topic, but too funny not to pass on. The 8th graders at Frick Middle School in Oakland presented their year-end projects last night. They were tasked to research past reform movements and leaders and then pick a current problem and propose a solution.

One student's solution was to elect Barrack Obama to lead us in a new direction. He even came up with a slogan: "Tell your mamma to vote for Obama"

I think he should print up some bumper stickers and sell them.

technorati tags:off-topic, politics, obama

In the balance

2007-04-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

In the current hype about global warming. Many issues are getting rolled into one and some are getting overlooked. Global warming is one side-effect of non-sustainable resource use. Of course it is a huge issue and needs to be dealt with, but there are many issues that are all interconnected and I think it's important to keep in mind all of the challenges, not just the popular ones.

Environmental public health is another huge concern. This was bigger back in the 70's when Earth Day started, and is still important despite fading from the headlines. Biodiversity loss is another concern, but unlike the first two issues, is harder to make an economic case for. Although, I believe biodiversity is important, there is not a straight line from biodiversity to our continued survival. Resource usage and waste are issues that go well beyond global warming and energy use. Water is going to be a big issue in the future. The American dream includes a big lawn, even in places where the water has to travel hundreds of miles to get there. Food is also going to be a problem as more farmland gets turned residential (or even into energy crops).

These issues are all inter-related and good solutions will help alleviate many of these problems at once. However, we have to be mindful of solutions to one problem that make others worse. Currently, there is concern that diverting corn to auto fuel is a waste of good food. This is probably true since corn is a relatively poor source of ethanol. The reason it's popular is that the technology is ready to go. Cellulosic ethanol should be much more efficiently produced once we figure it out. But do we use corn in the meantime to get the infrastructure up and running or do we use the funds currently going to corn to fund research in to better technologies. And in either case, how do we make sure that food doesn't get diverted from those who can't pay as much? This will also lead to more monoculture agriculture, which impacts biodiversity.

There is a lot to think about when trying to save the planet, but in the end any action is good. We just need to make the extra effort to find good solutions.

Trader Joe's veggies

2007-04-28T22:24:00.001-07:00

TJs is one of the things that will ease the transition to life in New England. In the winter, (and fall and spring) when good local produce is hard to come by, they will still have their great frozen goods. Another post will discuss the trade offs involved in getting good produce. Local is always good, but setting up a climate controlled greenhouse to grow strawberries in Massachusetts in winter will possibly use more energy than growing them in Chile and shipping them en masse. New Zealand makes this argument about their sheep. The third option is to freeze or can local produce in season. Canned is likely the best option from an energy standpoint, but it doesn't taste as good. Freezing takes energy to maintain, but not only do folks like TJs do it better than I can, but their (I'm guessing here) large scale freezers are probably more efficient than the little thing above my fridge.

On a slightly related note, I've always thought it was odd that TJs wrapped all their fresh veggies in so much plastic. It seems like such a waste and put a ding in my glowing image of them. I just noticed the other day that the plastic is made from corn and is compostable. Cool. I am definitely setting up a compost heap in the new place. I want to take and old oil drum and turn it into a rotating composter.

technorati tags:personal-sustainability

DIY soda water

2007-04-27T19:24:00.001-07:00

M saw in the Berkeley Parents Network advice emails a thread about making your own soda water to reduce the number of plastic bottles. I will definitely have to look into this once we've moved. It sounds like you buy CO2 cartridges and a special bottle. I'm guessing the cartridges are re-usable.

In looking for ways to green my life, I'm trying to start with the worst offenders. The first thing to minimize the non-recyclable and non-compostable trash. Soda bottles are recyclable, so they would be lower priority, but if this also saves us money (this stuff adds up and we are addicted to it), then it may be an early move. I'll post the details when I have a plan.

technorati tags:personal-sustainability

2007-03-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) use much less energy than incandescent bulbs to make a similar amount of light. These bulbs are touted as an easy way to reduce energy consumption and quickly put a dent in greenhouse gas emissions. They have some well known problems: they warm up slowly, give lower quality light, are more expensive, and contain mercury. None of these are show stoppers. The latest bulbs warm up in seconds and they are getting cheaper. They also last longer. Recycling bulbs properly (mostly) mitigates the dangers of the mercury. These are all reasonable sacrifices for saving the planet.

Many governments are considering laws to ban incandescent bulbs. This is just plain ridiculous. While well intentioned, this is not the way to go about solving our problems. Even if CFLs were the perfect replacement for incandescents, it would be a questionable move. However the issue is not that clear cut. When you look at it more closely.

First, the higher cost corresponds to the increased resources and energy required to make these bulbs. Second, people are not recycling these bulbs consistently. I just recently found out that I needed to. (Of course, none have burnt out since then). Third, these bulbs are more sensitive to conditions and are not well suited to some uses (outdoor, refrigerators, ...). Again, I'm not sure these reasons are show stoppers either, but they certainly suggest that an outright ban on incandescents might be unwise.

The argument is also made that CFL bulbs must be left on continuously to achieve the lifetimes touted by manufacturers. I'm not sure I buy this for two reasons. First, I have seen no data and the argument seems to only appear when people are making the case for keeping incandescents. Second, I'd bet incandescents have the same problem.

Don't get me wrong. I think incandescent bulbs should get phased out. However, I think in the long term, LEDs will provide the answer. Even more efficient and longer lasting than CFLs, they also give a better quality of light. I want to build one of these.

For now, though, I don't have an answer. I'll try to do some research on CFLs before we move into the new place. I don't want to go buy a house full of CFLs to find out I wasted my money, but I don't want to waste energy on incandescents because I bought into the establishment FUD. I'll look into it and post more later.

Alternative Engery is not Sutainability

2007-03-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

Last month, the journal Science devoted an entire issue to "Sustainability and Energy." The issue's opening essay begins with:

Perhaps the greatest challenge in realizing a sustainable future is energy consumption.

The rest of the issue deals with alternative energy sources (mostly solar, bio-, and nuclear) and carbon sequestration. These are an important part of sustainability and climate change in particular, but these energy sources are all finite. Unlike fossil fuels, solar energy won't run out, but there is a maximum that can be collected, whether through photovoltaics or bio-fuels.

Energy consumption must be reduced. If not, then, when oil does run out, no amount of fancy engineering will be able to fill the gap with solar. Nuclear would then be necessary. The only true solution is to find lower energy ways to operate. This will and must take many different forms. From more efficient machines to better distribution of resources to fewer luxuries.

Factory Heating

2007-03-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Living on Earth covered the ongoing restoration and reuse of an enormous old factory building in Lawrence, MA. Sounds like Lawrence faced, on a larger scale, a similar situation to the one Hopedale is in now. The old mill in Lawrence is being, re-used as office space. I worked in a restored red-brick mill in Cambridge a few years back. It was a really nice space to be in. These buildings generally have large windows and lots of red brick. In the hands of a good architect, it's hard to go wrong aesthetically.

What's important in restoring these buildings is to try to preserve the sense of community that still exists in these towns. Turning the Draper building into office space just moves Hopedale closer to being another suburb of Boston, albeit with nice architecture. To be fair, architecture can give life to an otherwise boring place, but the town has much more going for them in terms of history and local culture.

The Lawrence mill is having a huge geothermal heating and cooling system installed. This is an extremely efficient way to climate control a space and efficiency is critical for a gigantic old building. The LOE coverage does not draw a clear line between this kind of geothermal installation and one that would actually generate electricity. he one in Lawrence still requires an electric pump to transfer the heat. The distinction is the same as between solar water heaters and photovoltaic solar panels. in both cases the former reduces overall energy costs, but does not produce usable power. They are also generally cheaper. When I was growing up in Texas, the electric company was advertising heat pumps, which I gathered were just smaller versions of what's going in at the Lawrence mill. I'm a bit surprised that such a system is still newsworthy.

Energy use should be significant portion of any plan to restore the Draper Building. Poorly implemented, it could be a huge energy hog. It's a large, old building. Done well, it could be an example of good design. I would argue for some sort of green certification. Maybe a green roof could be used to reduce heating/cooling costs. The dam that creates the Hopedale Pond is on one wall of the factory (it's an old mill), and could be used to power the pumps in a geothermal heating/cooling system.

Ending Trash

2007-03-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

WorldChanging pointed me to a Fortune Magazine article on trash. Garbage is a big problem when thinking about sustainability. If you create waste that is not recycled or reused, then your processes are not sustainable. It seems some cities and businesses are making great strides towards reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. There is apparently a company in Tennessee that turns plastic hangers from WalMart into resin pellets that get used by manufacturers to make molded plastics. Paper recycled in San Francisco becomes packaging for goods made in China.

This is something everyone should think about. Every community and business should figure out how to keep their waste and byproducts from ending up in landfills and other dumps. If your town doesn't have compost service, start your own and lobby your local leaders. Also important is that the infrastructure is built up so that using recycled materials is more economical than digging them out of the earth. It may make sense to throw some incentives in (although I am generally very wary of incentives). It's also important to consider your trash when buying things. Try to avoid styrofoam when possible. Look out for plastics that are difficult to recycle.

I've started watching what we throw away here. A huge part of our garbage is food scraps. Berkeley is finally starting a composting program next year. We'll be gone before then, but I plan to set my own bin up when we move into our new place. Plastics that Berkeley doesn't recycle are probably next. I try to be careful what we purchase, but it's hard to always be vigilant. If we were charged by weight or volume for our garbage, I'm sure I'd think more about it.

The Draper building

2007-03-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

The Draper building is a large, decrepit factory in the middle of Hopedale. Closed since the 1980's, it's been partially demolished, but still physically dominates the town. It is currently owned by a more-or-less anonymous developer. The town has put together a committee to explore possibilities for re-using the site.

I think this is a really interesting project with amazing potential. It is getting underway just as sustainability and green construction are going mainstream. This Old House is building a green house in Austin. Corporations are installing green roofs on new buildings. Also, developers and planners are starting to come up with promising ideas for fostering healthier communities through design.

The town has a history of emphasizing education, community well-being, and the environment only slightly derailed by a century of factory life. The space is big enough to have residences, office space, community services, and anything else that might make sense. It's centrally located in the most densely populated area in town. The surviving structures are the red brick kind that look great when renovated.

The reuse of the Draper building will be a major theme of this site, but I won't pretend that I can come up with the best plan. I want to start by researching the history and the current stake holders. What were the ideals of the original utopian community? How did the Draper corporation behave as a corporate citizen? Who lives here now? Who owns the building now? What other developments have they been involved in? What has the reuse committee done so far?

I also hope to profile similar projects elsewhere and reflect on what Hopedale might learn from them. I don't think this situation is uncommon in New England.

The Earth Is Ajar

2007-03-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

I (will) use "sustainable" and "green" frequently in this blog. Even though I am a bit wary of them because they seem to be buzzwords at this point and will no doubt be stale far too soon. However, they concisely convey the idea of intelligent, thoughtful use of resources, a practice that will always be important even if the language changes.

The Earth is a closed system. Nearly. It's an open system but mostly in some trivial or negligible ways. Energy comes in from the sun at a fixed rate and is radiated as thermal energy. And only the occasional small probe clears our gravitational well. All the physical resources we'll ever have are already on the planet and the sun won't get any brighter.

While we haven't run out of land yet and there is still oil in the ground, these resources will eventually run out. The population is growing. Quickly. Energy use is growing. Quickly. People need land to live on. People need food to eat. Farmers need land to grow food. Everyone needs energy. Alternative energy is great. Global warming is a big deal. But even if we somehow manage to cease all CO2 output and undo a century of damage without changing energy usage, we will still have serious problems in the future.

Technology is seen as a cure-all by many. It will, of course, be a huge help. But complex natural systems are not linear. When you push an ecosystem to the brink and it collapses, you can't just back up to the point of collapse and expect everything to go back to normal. In engineering terms, this is called hysteresis. It will be much more cost effective to solve these problems before they assert themselves.

Life on earth is a billion years old because systems evolved to recycle every last scrap of anything. We won't make it another hundred unless we follow suit. It is inevitable that solutions to these problems will be turn up eventually, humans are too resilient to be killed off entirely. We're like roaches in that regard. But unless we are proactive about finding the answers, billions of people will suffer or die before the answers find us.

Neither

2007-03-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

The other day a friend of mine stopped by Whole Foods for something small. When she answered "Neither" to the standard "Paper or plastic?" query, the cashier stopped and said, enthusiastically, "Right answer!" They are a little over the top at the Berkeley Whole Foods.

We usually go with plastic. I need bags to pick up after the dog, anyway. So, I might as well use the shopping bags. Every once in a while I'll get paper so I have something to put the recycling in. Unfortunately, the little bits of plastic that pop out of the handle of those bags started turning up in the nursery, on the baby's toys, and on the baby. Not good. In fact, that's very, very bad. So, no more plastic. But there are not that many uses for paper bags, so it's time to go canvas. I always meant to, I just never bothered to take them with me.

It's funny what it takes to motivate change sometimes.

Not all that evil

2007-03-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's getting harder and harder to hate WalMart. At least as an environmentalist. They've jumped on the organic foods bandwagon and in doing so helped put organics on the map. They've made a commitment to greening their operations. Most recently, they've announced a program to illuminate the environmental impact of consumer electronics. This is really promising, and I hope that something similar becomes standard. It would be great to see the electronics industry start to go green.

There are still some good reasons to hate WalMart (working conditions, suburban sprawl, homogenization of culture, and so forth), but they have the power to effect real change. We should expect the same of all the other major corporations. Not just their competitors, but other corporations, particularly those whose brand is their most valuable asset. At the moment, it seems like pressuring corporations to change is likely to be as effective as writing a letter to your representatives. So do both.

Introduction

2007-03-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

Unless something goes horribly wrong, I will own (jointly) my first house by the end of May. For a number of reasons, we have chosen to move to my wife's home town of Hopedale, MA. I'm excited about this move for a number of reasons. And not just that we're buying our own house.

Hopedale has an interesting history that still influences the town today. Founded as a utopian socialist commune in the 1840's, it eventually transitioned into a model factory town dominated by the Draper Corporation. Closed in the 1980's the Draper factory still lies vacant in the center of town. The town recently formed a committee to find a new use for the dormant building. It is an interesting time for the town as the reuse of the Draper property will redefine the identity of the town for at least the next few decades.

Meanwhile, I'm getting my hands on a one hundred plus year old house. It needs some cosmetic work, which I'm excited to get into; but I am more looking forward to the chance to apply sustainable thinking to my own house. I can't do anything drastic, but there are many mall ways to green a house that don't involve rebuilding from the ground up.

Here I will post ideas I have for both these projects and my thoughts about sustainability in general. I am not a planning expert or architect; I have very little experience building anything or working on a house; and I have no real experience with green design. However I have some theoretical training in ecology and complex systems that is crying out to be put to some practical use.

A New Hopedale

Surfing the red tide

Retrofitting Suburbia

More random links on sustainability

Giant batteries

Yet another dimension to sustainability

Micro hydro?

Cool recycled house

Nudging communities towards sustainability

Protein sources

Some chatter about commuter rail

Super bugs

Fish

Another good TedTalk

Micromanufacturing

A mark against frozen foods

Trash man

The last biofuel standing

BPA is everywhere!

Exit strategy

Curtailment

The original green revolution

No Child Left Inside

Blue is the new green? WTF?

Food fight

The Little White Market

It is that easy

Hot, flat, and crowded

Canning

Gee...

Peanut Butter

Not just a back-seat driver

Insulating the attic

TV in the kitchen is paying off

Go open a window

Force folks to take the long view...

BPA, C-8, and phtalates, oh my

100 mile diet for America!

Oh yeah!?

I'm on board

CBS News: The Decline Of Suburbia?

Farm Work

More on recycling

Economics of recycling

Diapers

Irrationality

Draper re-use (sort of)

Run your car on water!!! Not really, no.

Sunshine

A week with Mimi

Cellulosic ethanol

Greenovation

An environmentalist, a conservationist, and an organic farmer walked into a bar...

Garlic Mustard Pesto

Oasis

Please don't...

Biofuel Folly?

Decentralized Density

Am I part of the problem

Upstaged by global warming

Commuting

MBTA

Hybrid selection

Rain Water

Small Town

Updates

Snow

The Rough Guide

Food energy

Fire

Corn based ethanol

Public health and the environment

And the green grass grows all around, all around

The Environment Repot

Saving the world

Moved in

My mamma likes Obama

In the balance

Trader Joe's veggies

DIY soda water