Please welcome today’s guest poster, Jocelyn Anne.

We often overlook one of the biggest opportunities for going green, and that lies within our very own garage. The garage, sadly, often gets forgotten altogether. We store stuff in it, park the car in it, and then generally forget all about its existence.

As we look ahead to winter, I’d like to suggest a number of ways you can green up your garage. If you’ve no idea where to begin, here’s a simple list of items and ideas you can look over to see which changes you might be able to incorporate for yourself.  Read more…

Sometimes I think we’re moving toward a world where everything is run by either Google or Apple. That doesn’t sound so terrible to me, provided both companies remain ethical, but here’s something that doesn’t dispel that thought: Google is getting into the solar panel business.  Read more…

I live near the University of Tennessee, and like many college campuses, UT is one that’s very car-centric. Sure, lots of younger students live on campus in the dorms, but many others live a short drive away from school and don’t take advantage of our city’s public transit. It doesn’t help that Knoxville is nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, and attempting to bike those hills (and in the Southern heat and humidity, no less) often does not make for a fun outcome.

But like any great college campus, UT is doing its part to change the culture and integrate more green practices into everyday campus life. Currently the university is testing out a first-of-its-kind electric bike sharing program that I think has real potential to catch on. The program is somewhat similar to bike-rental programs in large cities, but instead of just renting a bike, a student uses their college ID to check out an electrically charged battery from an automated system that plugs into the bike. The bike works like a regular bike requiring the rider to pedal, but the electric charge kicks in to power a small motor when pedaling gets more difficult, say when you’re riding one of the massive hills on campus.

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Please welcome today’s guest poster, Jamison.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidg/2168751427/lightbox/

Let me tell you a very odd story from our friends in China. China was having a problem in their poor farmland areas. They were losing massive amounts of forests and decided they had to take some sort of corrective action. So they decided to reintroduce biodigester technology – the process of converting organic waste into renewable sources of energy — to the countryside. They built a design that cost about $450 and started installing them for farmers. A third of that cost was covered with government subsidies.

The farmers were expected to provide the labor (digging the hole for the system) for the project, but basically it’s a large underground tank, a bit larger than the average American septic tank. As waste from humans and livestock flows into the tank, it breaks down and produces methane, as all organic waste does, and these biodigesters make it possible to produce more than enough biogas to run their households without need of additional fuels.

The effects have been staggering — most farmers who have the systems have managed to move their incomes from below the poverty line to incomes two or three times above it. Women have been freed up from the painful task of hunting for firewood. The forests around the farming villages have started to replenish themselves. The farmers have the byproduct of the biogas, which is a very effective fertilizer that can then be used to help improve their plant growth to increase their yields.  Read more…

This past Tuesday, you may have heard that the US House of Representatives voted to uphold new standards for light bulb efficiency, set to be enacted next year. If by chance you didn’t, it’s probably because you’re too busy running around town stockpiling every last incandescent bulb you can find before the government sticks it’s nose in your business once again to tell you what you can and can’t buy. You’ll probably store them next to the lawn darts on a shelf above your extra barrels of DDT. Read more…

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirmikester/4497065770/

Here’s one simple green upgrade I’ve made in my lifestyle: A few months ago, I started turning off the power strip that connects my TV, DVD player, video game console, and satellite receiver before going to bed every night. It’s a super easy thing to do, and the only (very slight) drawback is I have to wait about three minutes for the satellite receiver to fully power up the next time I want to watch TV. If you have cable, that probably wouldn’t even be an issue.

Now, you may be thinking: But the stuff in my entertainment center isn’t sucking energy when it’s turned off, right? Wrong! Electronic equipment continues to use power as long as it’s plugged into an outlet. You may hear or see this referred to as “vampire power,” and a good way to keep it at bay is to use power strips for everything you plug in, then turn off the strip when you’re not using that thing. It didn’t take me long to figure that out after my satellite receiver was installed — I only had to put my hand near it to realize it was hot when it was on. Really hot. Like, can’t-touch-it-for-more-than-a-couple-seconds hot. I can feel the heat radiating outside the wooden entertainment unit that houses it. Anything that generates that much heat has to be sucking massive amounts of energy.  Read more…

Please welcome today’s guest poster, Cooper Elling.

It’s summertime, thank goodness. It was a long winter for me personally, and I feel the summer is a time to make some decisions that are much more eco-friendly. Take a look at some of these tips for everyday occurrences where you can make the right call and feel good about it!  Read more…

Please welcome today’s guest poster, Brady Daniels.

It requires a great deal of energy, namely fossil fuels, to power the world’s modes of transportation. Most of us realize that the pollution created by our vehicles damage the environment and cause health problems. Promising new technologies may be the cure, but for now, the world’s population can help out by using the most environmentally-friendly modes of transportation available.  Read more…

On Monday I became a bike commuter for the very first time, and I can’t say that I was perfectly prepared for it. First, I don’t have anything resembling a roadside repair kit to fix problems with tires or chains on my 10-mile trip to work. I also had never ridden the route I took to work Monday before actually taking it to work. Sue me. I discovered a far superior route option the day before my maiden bike commute and I had to take it. The photo at the top of this post was my original route. It’s also not a very bike-friendly road. Four lanes of traffic, about half of which is log trucks or other tractor-trailers.

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Please welcome today’s guest poster, Jamison.

Cogeneration system at Camp Ederle in Vicenza, Italy. Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/europedistrict/3426323346/

I want to introduce you all to a relatively new technology in the green world. For years now around military bases and other government facilities in the United States, you can see silver pipes running around the facilities. If you were the curious sort and asked the right people, you’d have found out they are steam pipes to carry heating to the different buildings in the facilities. The appropriate term for this kind of technology is cogeneration. Basically, rather than just attempting to heat a building, the fuel is taken and burned to generate electricity first, and then the leftover heat from that process is used to heat buildings instead. The further north you go, the more profitable the exercise becomes. These systems tended to be very large-scale to justify their existence and also tended to be limited to very large institutions.  Read more…