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The Green Living Store located in the Lakewood district of Dallas has a wonderful plethora of hardware, goods and products for the eco-minded metroplex dweller. They also have a good selection of links and resources and below I have placed a snippet of an article they carry on their website, about compact flourescent lighting, that you will find informative..Source: Green LivingURL: http://www.green-living.com/.
Compact fluorescent Lights (CFL) use 75% less energy than an incand
escent bulb to create the same amount of light (same number of lumens). This means that a 13 Watt CFL is equivalent to a 60 Watt bulb and 18 Watt CFL will replace a 75 Watt bulb. Less energy consumed means less use of natural resources and less pollution. Also, CFL bulbs have lives of 8,000 to 10,000 hours, which means that you will replace an incandescent with a life of 1,000 hours 8 times for each 1 CFL! If you've tried a CFL in the past you might have thought it was too large for your lamp; now the mini-twist CFLs are actually smaller than a normal incandescent bulb..
Did you know that the standard incandescent bulb really hasn't changed much since the bulb design was improved by Edison in 1879; in fact only 10-15% of the energy it consumes is emitted as light, meaning the other 85-90% becomes heat - meaning each one is a little space heater in your home. The Energy Star program says on average 7% of our home's energy use goes to lighting, but 45% goes to cooling and heating. Incandescent bulbs use excessive energy to create light and then cause you to use energy to remove their heat from your
home. With electricity rates rising every month, now is the time to start using less..
Here is a comparison of the cost to operate an Incandescent bulb vs. CFL bulb using TXU's "price to beat" of $0.12 / kWh
.
Incandescent 60W; 800 lumens; 10 hrs per day; $ 2.16 per month; $ 25.63 per year.
CFL 13W (60 W equiv); 800 lumens; 10 hrs per day; $ 0.47 per month; $ 5.55 per year.
Incandescent 75 W; 1100 lumens; 10 hrs per day; $ 2.70 per month; $ 32.04 per year.
CFL 18 W (75 W equiv); 1100 lumens; 10 hrs per day; $ 0.65 per month; $ 7.69 per year .URL: http://www.green-living.com/
The DFW Metroplex Alternative Energy Caucus has officially been Googled and can now be found by its key words. The web log is located at http://dfw-alt-e-caucus.blogspot.com/ You are invited to click on the link and find links and information for the beginner through advanced student of Alternative Energy Issues and Information. This web log is aimed primarily at grass roots metroplex citizens and proactive elected or appointed officials and any others wanting to learn about the subject. .Any news or informational contributions you may care to send which would further the goals of the mission statement on the home page, will be greatly appreciated, as well. The good news is that no matter how small your contribution, the grass-roots accumulative effect becomes very large, indeed. . While you may not live in the DFW Metroplex, there are abundant resources that you, too can use to start proactive activities in your own city and there may be instances whereby you may actually benefit by NOT being in the Metroplex; such as an opportunity to participate in the establishment of a solar photo voltaic farm cooperative utility, outside the cityplex, for DFW Metroplex Dwellers that have code issues with their city that do not allow or for the most part hinder or at the least have little support for some form of alternative energy usage in their building codes, city facilities and vehicle fleets and city master planning. .As such it is fair to warn you that the moderator of this web log has determined that Metroplex City Councils and County Boards have been somewhat slow to create initiatives or the creation of broad changes to city and county planning that would accelerate the implementation of the fast paced changes that are currently in demand. The reasons are simple, they have received no signal from their constituency (You and I) for a need to change. .This web log's purpose is to change you and me (the constituency) such that we are knowledgeable and conversant on this subject. For example, after extensive study of wind and solar maps and reams of scientific data, the moderator determined that wind turbines are not cost effective in the Metroplex but Photo Voltaic Arrays are abundantly so. .Current events and predictions by economic experts and climate engineers make our need to use alternatives to reduce our carbon emissions and to reduce the economic impacts coming, in the wings, an imperative activity. These cascading changes are caused by the world's emergent economy's use of fossil fuels in competition with America, in ever spiraling billions of barrels and metric tons. That accelerating competition for fossil fuel is already impacting our economy. It will never get better so long as fossil energy is the fuel of choice for individuals and nations. In concert with these changes, our city's and states legislatures are currently far behind the curve as to the impending need to liberalize their governmental use of alternative energy for their services and facilities and likewise their need for revamping of codes and policies that encourage the citizens that they minister to to phase over into alternative energy in their daily lives. .In a nutshell: .As things stand, we are tasked with the chore of awakening ourselves first and then our elected representative to the problems that are building up by our use of the current economic energy models. The goals of this web log are three fold: 1) Fast Flow education on the topics of Alternative Energy. 2) Fast Flow education on the problems of Carbon Emissions and Fossil Fuel Dependency and current or new methods to change over to Alternatives. 3) Fast track two way communication with our elected officials as to practical solutions to the first two items above to affect changes to our city's energy usage for both the city and its constituency and for county boards and state legislators, as well. .The world may very well be taking away our opportunity to have made changes to our energy usage especially the conversion to alternatives methods of energy production and the control of carbon emissions, to the point that changing will no longer be cost effective and anything less than a disaster for citizens living in the metroplex within the next decade or two if we do not change first. .We need first of all to get educated and then you and I need to become voices for alternative solutions that are needed to change our energy model in the near future. Your participation is vital, please do. This is an alternative grass roots activity so I have enclosed a grass roots picture..Welcome, y'all! http://dfw-alt-e-caucus.blogspot.com/ .Please, forward this invitation to your email list, especially proactive contacts and State Legislators, County Board Members and the city council members and City Planners of your city. You may also send those addresses here by making a CC to us of your E-mails to them.
Sustainable Elementary School Design Demonstration Projects.Studies have shown that schools incorporating passive solar features, such as daylighting, use less energy, student grades have improved, and attendance is higher. .- Energy Smart Schools.According to a study conducted by the Alberta Department of Energy in Canada, students benefited significantly from attending schools where daylight, rather than traditional artificial lighting, was the principal source of internal lighting. The study found that students enrolled in schools where daylighting was prevalent exhibited among other things: reduced absenteeism by 3.5 days per year, increased concentration levels, a significant reduction in library noise, better scholastic performance and more positive moods induced by natural light..- McKinney ISD .The Roy Lee Walker Sustainable Elementary School project is a prototype design commissioned by the State Energy Conservation Office of Texas (SECO) to be one of the first sustainable school projects in the state. The school's design incorporates many environmentally friendly design principles, including rainwater collection, day lighting, wind energy, solar energy, the use of recycled building materials, outdoor teaching spaces, water habitat and landscaping sensitivity. Finally, the design fosters "Eco Education," a term that describes the incorporation of environmentally sound facility design into the school's own educational curriculum. .The Roy Lee Walker Elementary School was completed in July, 2000, and opened for school in August, 2000. The photos were taken during and after construction, between December 1, 1999, and August 17, 2000. The American Institute of Architects named this school to the Earth Day Top 10 List for Environmentally Responsible Design Projects. The district is currently using sustainable design for their next two elementary schools..The McKinney district built another elementary school, Wolford Elementary School, which also opened in August, 2000. The school was based on the design used for the previous 7 elementary campuses in the district, and will provide us with an excellent comparison for both the energy and educational impacts of the sustainable design. .The sustainable building practices at Roy Lee Walker Sustainable Elementary School include: building siting and orientation; optimizing natural lighting, providing for task lighting and specifying high-efficiency electric lighting; establishing an energy budget for each project; specifying locally or regionally produced products; designing to minimize cut-off waste and providing for recycling during construction; specifying materials and finishes with low or no volatile organic compound emissions and providing adequate ventilation; considering energy, water, materials consumption, transportation and impacts on natural systems when selecting products and materials; minimizing impervious surface and providing infiltration and retention of storm water; landscaping with native vegetation; and looking for opportunities to provide shelter or habitat for compatible species as well as to restore waterways, vegetation and habitats.
Dates: Jun 02, 2007 - Jun 09, 2007
Event: Solar Classes in North Texas
Time: All Day
Description:.
Doug Livingston of the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, CA will be conducting a 4 day grid connected solar boot camp for installers and electricians. He will also be giving 2 – 1 day seminars for builders, home owners and businesses that are considering solar.
.
URL: http://www.ckdsi.com/Solar_Training_Classes.php
PEV's ( Plug-in Electric Vehicles ) qualify in the "Storable" category, especially if they re-charge during night hours when traditional utilities usually and otherwise would shut down many generators due to a lack of enough load to remain on the grid. However, PEV's or hybrids retrofitted with higher than stock capacity storage batteries will have worn out tires and batteries which will have to be dealt with as pollution bye-products. Those items appear already to be the source of a tremendous recycle industry even as we speak, so that is not an unsolved problem, after all. Plug-in Vehicle's don't (and probably should never) generate net grid electrical energy. That would actually contribute to fossil fueled energy pollution while recharging from their engines and drive up the spiraling costs of electricity in the long run. Hybrids with extended battery capacity should be computer programed to just maintain batteries that have discharged down to 10% untill they are back up to 20% of full charge from engine charging. They should leave the100% charging capacity job to a more efficient, external plug-in net-grid charging system; usually done at night. PEV's battery ranges should be at least 60 miles, which will accommodate almost everyone's daily distance requirements. City PHEV buses and services vehicles would probabley benefit by 100 mile range battery systems. Modern battery packs are also capable of 100,000 recharges in 15 minutes. More if slow charged at night. If one were to install photo voltaic grids on one's home or business and gained their regulated credits for creating sufficient excess energy to the net grid during daylight hours to both power their building during the day, sufficient to cover both day and night time hours, the average cost of the array and accessories in today's' money (2007) would average $45,000.00 per unit. The amortized payback would be, on average, 25 years, in order to enjoy the cost of having a plug-in ("Non-polluting," "Storeable") energy vehicle and a home powered with ("Non-polluting," "Sustainable") Photo Voltaic Array. In addition, one would also have to make an expensive conversion to an existing hybrid vehicle to a higher costing, longer lasting battery set. Extended Warrantee providers will snap up any voided warrantee threats on vehicles with retrofitted batteries and plug-in charging systems. Utility regulations are not up to speed for the above, at first expensive but doable scenario to be in play, anywhere, at this time. Alternative Energy Vehicle manufacturers are not installing extended range battery systems or inverters for plug-in capability, either. Which is why one will have to go the extra expense of converting current hybrids to plug-in capability on their own initiative and of buying an extended warrantee from a third party insurer.
Co-operative Photo Voltaic Utilities are in their infancy at this time. (These are: "Non-polluting," "Storeable" and "Sustainable" energy resources.). PV and Solar Energy in any form is considered pollution free. Solar energy can be stored in batteries as electricity. Focused-heat generator systems can store their energy in insulated tanks as heated water. One can also store heat in earth mass or used to make other storage capable energy resources such as hydrogen through electrolysis. While there can be no solar production during the night except with heating arrays that store heat energy in large reservoir systems or when very heavily overcast, it is a regular, predictable source of energy ever day and as such is "Sustainable." Currently, the major drawback to Photo Voltaic Electricity is its upfront expense per kilowatt hour to build and install. Payback for current PV efficiencies, can take in excess of one, two, sometimes three decades. Government credits and grant methods for converting over to "off the grid" Photo Voltaic systems are historically always in a condition of hostile forethoughtful calculation; doomed to dry up at the precise moment legislators perceive that the public climbs onboard with its acceptance of energy alternatives. The point here is that one cannot depend on Congressional Programs or the Fed to carry through on any energy platform that would sooner or later dry up any legislators campaign contributions from the energy boys. The history of solar in the U.S. is strewn with the bodies of still-born solar energy programs and other alternative energy policies. Alternative initiatives must be grass-roots to be effective. That means you and I must make the changes and tell our elected officials to get out of our way while we do them. Wind energy, built with revenues by utilities having their risks guaranteed by clever approval wording by legislative and state regulatory bodies, have mostly been funded by oil companies as a means to secure cheaper energy to pump out otherwise expensive, deep shale oil in the state of Texas. Wind energy is actually only cost effective in a very low percentage of Texas countys and those areas are too far for the metroplex in North Texas to benefit by them except by netgrid purchase credits from Green Utilities such as Green Mountain Energy http://www.greenmountainenergy.com/ , as an example, which adds about a penny to its wholesale purchase cost of wind energy, making it competitive but not the cheapest electricity one can buy from the netgrid. The oil pumping industry is a competitor for that cheap energy, as well. On the horizon are marketing groups that are putting together utilities that install individual Photo Voltaic systems on a per house basis and leases back their operations such as to reap the energy credits while having their operational costs paid by the individual home owner via locked in low electrical rates. Essentially the individual electrical user pays for their electricity at whatever their current locked in rate is, but to the Photo Voltaic Utility, much like a co-operative electrical utility does. The individual home's Photo Voltaic grids are sized before installation according to the amount of energy used by the rate payer on the year before having the Photo Voltaic system installed and that rate is the lock-in electrical rate they contract for. The PV Grid is sized to produce a surplus during the day such that the homeowner can draw energy back from the net grid at night without penalty. Any additional electricity above the normal draw amount would have to be purchased from the net grid utility at their prevailing kilowatt hourly rate on a monthly pay per use basis. At this point there is no reason that individual cities could not start a city sponsored cooperative Photo Voltaic Utility at any time and anywhere in the metroplex or outside the metroplex except for the lack of the will of their voters, in their districts, to start a green utility. Energy predictions in the crystal ball: Some predictions place net electric utility grid kilowatt hourly rates as high as $.25 per kilowatt hour in less than two decades as the world market economies adjust to ever larger demands on an ever smaller or more costly to recover energy resource. They also forecast peak usage hours between 11 am till 6 pm at rates going as high as $.39 per kilowatt hour during summers with no insurance that there will not be rolling blackouts in spite of these prices. . Therefore it might be advantageous for a home or business owner to convert to Plug-in or augmented Hybrid Vehicle transportation and invest in self-sufficient Photo Voltaic systems or at least join a Photo Voltaic Electrical Co-op. These two distinct solutions work synergistically, as well.
J. Warren Richardson
First words: I want you to know something I discovered over the past few weeks about the DFW Metroplex's alternative energy-production potential.
First: Average winds speeds are just too slow to make wind turbines cost effective in this part of Texas. Wind energy is not a viable option here. Second: However, clean solar energy is abundant in the metroplex. 100,000 Kilowatt Hours are being generated by the DFW Airport every year; proving that we do in fact have adequate solar kilowatt hours per square foot (3.6 to 4.7 KWH per square foot yearly bracket) for this area. More than adequate to phase over to photo voltaic generation in order to reduce fossil fuel energy consumption. However, most of our cities are only using spot photo voltaic arrays to power signs or temporary lighting rigs where running standard netgrid connections would be cost prohibitive to install. In the area of large vehicle fleets, again, the DFW Airport's fleet of busses, transporters and utility vehicles uses compressed natural gas (CNG) to reduce vehicle pollution to 5%. Again as a model that by initiative, large operations can reduce pollution while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. (DFW Airport is rated as the most popular large airport in the U.S.A.).
The primary reason for so little policy or operational utilization by our city and county governments, to reduce the pollution and dependence of netgrid power appears to be conservatism on the part of our city and county council boards in the metroplex. Change threatens those who would do nothing rather than make waves and risk voter loses. As such it is incumbent on we, the constituency of our respective city's, to make known to our elective council board member's that it is our wish that they become aware that we want them to phase into the use of green initiatives and policies that promote less dependence on fossil energy with its pollution and unsustainable upwardly mobile costs.
Clean, sustainable energy is no longer just a fad or a wave of the future. The City of Austin, Texas is making history by its policy changes and initiatives and could be a model by which our own local county and city governments could implement first strike efforts onto the books for each city and all the counties in the metroplex. Austin's actions are not the actions of our capital city but as a Texas city, independent of state level support or mandate. We can and should all follow suite and make our councils aware that we are tired of the rubber stamp energy and economic models that will only lead to more pollution, more dependence on dirtier electricity for our homes and businesses and more fossil or bio fuel for our cars.
We need to make Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles the vehicles of choice for our city busses and utility services. We need to change our building codes to make it worth while to put photo voltaic arrays on our businesses and homes. We, ourselves, need to make it known that we want alternative energy in our daily city lives and are activley planning to purchase upgrades to our homes and business and vehicles that will reduce our carbon emissions and increase our energy efficiency, as well.
This blog is a chance for you to become educated on the subject of alternative energy. Take advantage of the links to an ever growing number of blogs and websites that have abundant, good information about the practicalities of alternative energy. Be a part of this change. Please, contact your respective council members and forward your thoughts about alternative energy to them and this blog and include their email addresses, here as well. Together, we can build a coalition of metroplex city councilmembers and constituents that can effect very real cooperative and effective change to the policies and initiatives that are the tools of government on the local level.
J. Warren Richardson a Grand Prairie Constituent
