Greenited

This past weekend the little town of Plymouth, MI hosted the Green Street Fair. The Green Street Fair provided and opportunity for local Michigan based businesses and national companies to show off their greenness and educate the rest of us. Big names like Whole Foods, Toyota, and Lear were all part of the sponsorship but the really remarkable companies were the small businesses. You wouldn’t believe what products/businesses go green these days.

A couple of the booths that surprised me were organic house cleaning and car cleaning supplies, yellow pages recycling programs, turn your regular gasoline car into a fuel efficient car, purifiers to clean your dirty tap water, oh and trendy reusable bags to use for groceries. There were also large displays of all the electric and hydrogen powered vehicles on the market currently, some of them you could even test drive. And of course Vespa made an appearance and drew more of an audience than the Prius.

Like any good street fair it wasn’t just booths that were set up. The fair had a whole host of speakers at the event, musicians performing, crafts for kids, and live cooking classes of healthy organic meals. This one mile radius of downtown Plymouth was filled up with booths of companies who had some kind of product that could make us all “cleaner.” It really gives you hope that the solutions to improving our planet are out there it’s just a matter of all us getting on the band wagon and using them.

September 3rd, 2008 | Tags: Event, Fair, Green, Products | Category: Autos, Earth Day Everyday | Leave a comment

SCE recently announced plans to launch the nation’s largest solar cell installation. They will place solar panels on 65 million square feet of unused roof space on Southern California commercial buildings. The advanced photovoltaic generating technology will generate over 250 megawatts - enough to power 162,000 homes. The drivers for this project seem to be the increase in energy demand during peak times, increase in fossil fuel costs, and California’s goal of getting 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2010. “The scale of this project is unprecedented,” said Mike Peevey, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) president. “It clearly illustrates once again Edison’s leadership position in the development of new renewable technology.”

The solar project is a very innovative model for other cities to copy as this would be effective in even the most urban areas. There is no need for SCE to take up real estate that would otherwise be used for residential/commercial property as the panels will be on rooftops. I think the key issue is how fast other places can follow in Southern California Edison’s footsteps to implement the technology. SCE is quick at the execution since they expect the first panels to be up and running by August of 2008. The solar panels make most of their energy during peak times, on hot sunny days - which will offset consumption that occurs at the same time. This is exactly the direction we need to be going toward, I am hopeful that more cities will copy.

The Following is a list of cities that are able to benefit with similar projects (city size, sunlight, commercial buildings):

· Phoenix, US

· Las Vegas, US

· Denver, US

· Madrid, Spain

· Athens, Greece

· Bombay, India

-Vishal Shah

http://www.edison.com/pressroom/pr.asp?id=7002

September 3rd, 2008 | Tags: SCE Solar Edison | Category: Business, Home | Leave a comment

Water Video

The trend towards drinking bottled water in the past 10 years has been especially strange in the United States. People use about 60 million bottles of water a day, totaling up to over 21 billion over the course of a year. The bottled water industry is valued at $10 billion in the US alone, with a significant annual growth rate. There are hundreds of bottled water producers in all price ranges. According to the Wall Street Journal, Americans purchased more bottled water than beer or coffee in 2004. After seeing these types of statistics one must assume that the US has bad municipal water quality, Right?!?

Wrong! Tap water in the US has stricter regulations is ‘better’ for you and on top of that stops from manufacturing billions of plastic bottles. It is not quite clear why people believe bottle water is ‘cleaner.’

Here are the facts:

1)Is dis-infection required?

Bottled: No Tap: Yes

2)Confirmed E coli and coliform banned

Bottled: No Tap: Yes

3)Testing Frequency for Bacteria

Bottled:1/week Tap: 100’s/month

4)Must have filters to remove pathogens

Bottled: No Tap: Yes

There you have it; the guidelines for bottled water are much more lenient than tap both in terms of safety and quality. It does not make sense to drink only bottled water in an area where the local water supply is so pure. Companies such as Aquafina (Pepsi) admit to using 25% of municipal tap water in their bottles. Also, only 20% of the used bottles are recycled, and the rest end up in a junkyard. It is sometimes convenient to use a bottle of water, but at home rinsing and reusing will help make a difference - not to mention the cost savings from tap. Next time reach for the faucet not the Evian.

September 3rd, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Want to get something that is unique, environmentally friendly, and can really come in handy? There is a wave of new solar powered technology coming to your fingertips. Many of these products are used to power up you’re your electronics in an innovative way that can help when you are well off the grid.

Solio.com is a company that makes stylish portable solar powered chargers that can power up your camera, cell phone, ipod, or any other small device. Also they claim that your electronics will take the same amount of time to charge as using the plug in charger. I can think of many times when I needed to charge my phone while on the go, the Solio charger would have been a perfect solution. Another perk is that some of their models come with a battery pack, which uses the solar power to charge it up. You can then use the battery pack when it is dark to re-charge your electronics. The one downside they mention is that it is unable to create enough power to run a notebook computer. But who wants to use a laptop when they are on the beach, playing golf, or in a boat? It runs about $100 and can produce 6 watts, which isn’t too bad considering it is universal.

VoltaicSystems.com is another company which makes solar powered backpacks. You may be thinking why you would ever need power in a bag, but it allows you to charge your electronics anywhere your bag is. Voltaic, has numerous models of bags ranging from producing 4 watts of energy to 14.7 watts. The 14.7 watt bag is powerful enough to charge a laptop. Also the fabric used to make the bag is from recycled PET (plastics, bottles) which is lightweight and durable. Voltaic bags also have a battery pack that allows you to store the power, and seems like an ideal bag for someone into camping. Maybe next time you’re in the mall looking to get a Tumi backpack, you will think of Voltaic instead. Their price range is from $200 to $500 depending on the strength of their solar panel.

September 3rd, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Many economists believe that the US is in the midst of a recession. In total the US has lost about 156,000 jobs in the first three months of 2008. This scenario is having negative implications on many industries growth, profits and employment. As the country has experienced a slowdown in expansion, and a rise in unemployment much of the workforce is showing some uncertainty. However, there is an exception; the booming green industry seems to be doing just fine.

There has been tremendous growth in the green industry and green employment in the past year. High investment, government actions, and energy prices are a number of reasons causing high growth for green-collar workers. There is actually higher demand for this workforce than supply. The government has noticed this and in 2007 the Bush administration has signed a bill to spend $125 Million on green training initiatives for disabled, at-risk youth, and families in poverty. The program is aimed to help people develop necessary skill sets and experience toward green businesses.

Growth in alternative energy has been an even brighter spot in the green industry. Employment in the wind power sector has increased 100% over the past year from 20,000 to 40,000. GE alone is expecting $10 billion in revenues from wind turbines by 2010. Solar is on a slower pace compared to wind, but with the direction shifting from residential to larger utility scaled systems planning to open between 2009-2011, it has a likelihood of spurring jobs. The issue isn’t whether or not there will be job growth, the question is how fast. It is an exciting time for the green industry, reminiscent of the initial technology days. There are plenty of opportunities out there and green-collar workers are on the rise.

September 3rd, 2008 | Tags: Green collar workers | Category: Business | Leave a comment

Top 5 things you can do to make a change

1. Switch your Light Bulbs
2. Place your computer on Shut Down/Sleep mode when your not using it
3. Drive smoother
4. Use the Cold water setting in your washing machine
5. Stop Wasting

Take those incandescent light bulbs out and replace them with CFL ones. CFL use 25% of the energy and provides the same utility. Now the technology is good enough that it provides almost no noticeable warm-up time. CFL Lights are brighter and lasts longer - what is not to like? If every household in the US replaced their lights with CFLs then it would save about 13 billion pounds in carbon dioxide emissions.

1. Why have your computer running when your not using it. Computers are known to be high consumers of electricity, and by shutting down the computer when not in use, you can save over $90 a year.
2. It is true, accelerating fast and slamming on the brakes are not only annoying for your passengers but more expensive for you. More gas is used compared to if you were to drive as smooth as possible by coasting to a red light, and accelerating smoother. If there is a stop sign in front of you, try to ease up on the accelerator.
3. A simple task that does not require any work is by washing your clothes in cold water. About 90% of the energy used in washing clothes is used for heating the water. For most of your daily clothing wear cold water is more than enough to get the job done.
4. Try to waste less resources. Turn the faucet off when shaving/brushing. Turn the lights off in rooms that your not in. There are many things that can be done to stop unnecessary waste.

Hopefully this helps. It’s easier to do than you think, and will benefit everyone.

September 3rd, 2008 | Category: Autos, Business, Earth Day Everyday, Home | Leave a comment