Affordable Renewal Energy

Author Archives for A Siegel

Solar Pool Cleaner Cuts Energy Use by 2/3


Swimming pools are not, generally, the most environmentally friendly item you’ll find. Lots of chemicals to clean them, the electricity to keep the pumps running, all the energy to heat them, all the water used up to fill them … all in all, not the most climate friendly lifestyle choice.

But options are growing to cut your pool’s carbon footprint. Solar pool heating systems have been around for awhile and pay for themselves quickly through reduced fuel use. Now, another solar device is coming on the market, the Solar Breeze solar-powered pool robotic skimmer.

The Solar-Breeze provides pool filtering and chemical management. It eliminates the need for swimming pool pumps, which can mean a drop of perhaps two-thirds in annual operating costs through stopping that pull from the electrical grid and replacing it with free sunpower. In addition, the manufacturer claims that chlorine usage can be cut by one-third using a Solar Breeze.

Germany Requiring Renewable Energy for Every Building


Buildings are responsible for about one-third of global energy use. But there are many ways to change that equation, strengthening building codes is one clear arena. In my community, for example, 20 years ago, the ceiling "R" (insulation level) requirement was R-13, today it is R-38 (though expert guidance is ‘at least R-45′ and most of us who care about energy strive for above R-50). That sort of change leads to significant reductions in energy use.

Well, the German government has just announced new building codes that will change the landscape when it comes to distributed renewable power: starting 1 January 2009, all new homes built in German will have to meet 14 percent of total energy consumption for heating and domestic hot water with renewable power.

Offshore Wind at an Affordable Price


Offshore wind is a relatively underexploited resource, with obstacles ranging from Cape Wind-like NIMBYism to the high infrastructure costs (and thus total costs) for installing systems out at sea. The idea of going toward floating wind turbines has been around awhile and BlueH Group looks to be one step closer to making that idea a reality.

Blue H offshore wind farms, are planned to be far out at sea, virtually invisible to the naked eye from shore. At such locations, the winds are stronger and are more constant, ideal for generating large quantities of clean and inexhaustible electricity.

Rather than installing the wind turbine foundations to literally be built into the seabed, however deep it might be, Blue H is "adapting the concept of submerged tension-legged platforms developed by the oild industry … and designed a platform large and stable enough to support a tower and a wind turbine."

According to Blue H, the Submerged Deepwater Platform (SDP) technology:

  • Reduces the overall weight of the structure (claiming a 60+% total reduction for a 5 mw system, from 2100 to 800 tons)
  • Can be built onshore / in a port and towed into place, 10 miles or more offshore in deep waters (more than 50 meters in depth), reducing the specialty requirements for heavy equipment like crane ships.
  • enables placing the wind turbines/farms far enough offshore to minimize NIMBYism and to be able to getting even better wind
  • can be dismantled/moved with little environmental impact

Under-AquaBuoy: Wave Power Generator Lost at Sea


Well, a brief update on the Aquobuoy. It is no longer bobbing in the waves off the Oregon coast. In fact, it is well underneath them.

the 72-foot-tall buoy began taking on water late last week and sank just one day before engineers were going to remove it.

And, well, it is interesting that, it seems, every renewable energy approach out there has its version NIMBYism. In this case, the crabbers:

Al Pazar, chairman of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, said the mishap validates the concerns of the fishing industry.

"We’ve got a big chunk of iron laying at the bottom of the ocean which will probably gobble up a bunch of crab gear," he said. "It’s just another place for things to collect and make a big mess."

There’s no word on why, exactly, this happened. But it looks like it’s not as big of a disaster as the crabbers would have us believe. The buoy uses no lubrication, so there’s no associated chemical spill, and it’s still anchored to the sea floor, and will be recovered in spring.

Save Thousands with a New House Fan


Part of the EcoGeek home-improvement guide from A. Siegel.

Bit by bit, I’m EcoGeeking out my 1950′s home. First the SEER16+ HVAC, then the light tubes into my laundry room, and now, the AirScape Whole House Fan (WHF).

Since I bought my home, a decade ago, I’d been plagued by my old-style whole house fan (WHF). However old it might have been, this vertical fan sort of moved air (well, if I closed all but one or two windows), was an eye-sore coming down stairs (a large dusty grid facing me), and was quite annoying when it came to changing weather (climbing into the attic to move the cumbersome home-made insulation into place). The fan was there and often used (we really wanted to cut our energy use) but certainly wasn’t the favorite part of the house.

A Better World Through Better Windows


Well, this is an invention that I’ve been waiting to have happen … and, sadly, it comes just too late for my own recent window replacement. The KSD Window from Eco-Logical Innovations (the U.S. sister company of ÖKO-LOGIC GmbH in Germany) is "the every season window with the right spin."

The KSD window has three panes with high insulative value. The innovation is in that center pane. It has heat reflective capabilities, in one direction. Thus, in summer, flip the window with the green side facing out and there is minimal heat gain, reducing the cooling burden. In winter, flip it the other way, and it reduces heat loss (while allowing solar heat gain during the day), reducing the heating load. GENIUS!

No word on how much the windows will save the average home, but we’ve seen some insane numbers for energy loss through windows, so we wouldn’t be surprised if it was substantial.