2nd BiWeekly Post - New Orleans MIR

This weekend I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with Sarah and her coworker Kaile. We drove up and stayed with a friend of a friend and it turned out really great. As soon as we got there we dropped our stuff off and hit up a parade right near Tulane University. Not exactly the most eco-friendly of a holiday. The place gets trashed and beads are literally everywhere. But its a good to relax about that stuff once in a while I guess.

The next day we decided to go west of Tulane and New Orleans to check out the above ground tombs. Here is a shot of Kaile next to some of the Tombs.

Just randomly after breakfast we happen to be stumble upon a really interesting looking house. It was so interesting and we had taken a wrong turn to get there so we got out to check it out. After further inspection I saw it had Solar Panels, Solar Hot Water Heaters, and Rainwater Harvesting... this was not just a normal house. (Its pictured below)

So after some encouragement from Sarah, I went up to the front door (I mean what I figured was the front door... it wasn't that clear) and hoped for the best. What we got was beyond the best. The man inside was the Architect of the building (his home) and his company (Conchordia) had designed 2 of the house designs for Brad Pitt's Make It Right Project we were about to go see! So he took us around the house and showed us all the wonderful ways he had made his house more sustainable. He designed his house to be a lab, where he could see which techonologies worked and which did not. The house was LEED Gold I believe.


After we thanked Steven for showing us his lovely house we headed to the 9th ward to check out The Make it Right Project.

The place was totally devistated, there was nothing on this flat piece of land except 6 or so new houses from the MIR project. There was a group of people hanging outside this house below.
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They were very nice and actually offered to show us around the house. Gloria, I believe was her name, was given the very first house in the 9th ward and she was able to tell the Architect exactly what she wanted (where as everyone else has to pick from the 13 eco-designs). On the inside the house was pretty normal, but there were a lot of bedrooms and people living in this house. They gave us home cooked Ribs and told us to stay but we were ready to move on and felt they had been kind enough (I tried ribs... 2 bites).

The trip was really great and I am really interested in going back to the 9th ward a year or so from now to see the progress that they have made. They are suppose to build 150 houses and they have funding for 90ish houses so far. Don't forget to check out the website for MIR and more of my pictures on facebook.



DCgreen

1st BiWeekly Post - DC Car Show

Earth 911 is a great site for your questions about how to dispose of things you don't need anymore. For instance, I just looked up motor oil and it went into the hows and whys to recycle used motor oil.

Green Yahoo is another site I just came upon. Its a collection of green blogs.



So this weeks story....



On Sunday, my Dad and I went to the DC car show. We almost could have gotten away with not paying because the main attraction (that I wanted to see - The Green Cars), was at the entrance before they collected tickets.

There were a number of green and "green" cars. Electric cars, propane powered cars, dieseal cars, plug ins, hybrids, biofuel and solar powered cars.

Here is the i MiEV from Mitsubishi

Cool little car, going to be all electric, I couldn't find a lot on it because most of the info was in Japanese.

We saw the old Rav-4 Electric Car that Toyota did years ago in response to California's 90's EV standards.














So then there were a bunch of other "green cars" (like biofuels and weak hybrids) and they were boring. So we did pay $20 for parking downtown and $12 each so we decided to get our money's worth and check out the main show rooms.

Inside we were able to walk through and pick out the hybrids and concept cars staggered between the SUV's and junk.

Here is the Chevy Volt

It was weird that they wouldn't open up the hood.

My dad and I really liked this Hybrid SUV. The Saturn Vue Hybrid. It is out right now (2009 Car) and in a year or so they are going to have a V6 plug-in version that is going to get even better mileage.

I found a site where this company took this car (2006 version) and made it a plug in that gets 150 mpg. Here is it


This was my Dad's favorite. It in the Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid. Suppose to get 100 mpg. It is a 2011 car so a little ways off but possible worth the wait. Video here


And My favorite was the Tesla Roadster. It was really cool to finally see this car in person. The black model was all the way in the back and we thought that was so strange. Even when we got to the middle and found this red one, no sales person was telling people about it.

Side note - here is an article about Tesla getting $350 million in a few months to start production of their new car the model S.
Article Here

And Finally to show I am not a cold heartless only electric car person.... here is a nice petro car.

Ford GT i think.



That's It see you next week.


DCgreen

The Story of Stuff

This is a great video i just came across in a blog called jetsongreen.

Its called The Story of Stuff and it is a 20 minute video about the cycle of consumption in our country and the world, how it works and how to break that cycle.

A lot of what troubles people (and me) about this green revolution is "will this really change things." If I take 5 minute showers.... if everyone takes 5 minute showers will this change things? If I don't eat meat am I changing things.

I struggle with these questions (and others like them) everyday. Please Please Please watch this video. And then share it with a friend so you can discuss what it means and what needs to be done.

I just wrote my family an email with the subject "If you love me you will watch this video." I did that because I think this video hits it on the head what is wrong with our current trends in consumption. Also it is in a very easy to understand and visual way.

Enjoy the video.



DC


Quote from the site: "The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Wind technology's future

Wind technology could be big in the United States soon.

Attached at the end is an article and 10 min presentation about the state of U.S. energy and foreign oil by an oil man named T. Boone Pickens. Watch it its good.

The article following talks about how we can power 84% of peoples cars with electric energy when people charge their cars at non peak hours. This means 84% of all cars are plug in hybrids or Electric vehicles and we dont need more power plants to supply this new electricity demand if people charge at night when people are sleeping.


Jetson Green Article

another follow up article

10 Things You Should Know About Natural Gas Vehicles



DC

Fully Electric Factor Cars in 2009-10?

I can't WAIT. For these cars to start hitting the road in substantial numbers.

We are hopefully looking at about 5-10 fully electric cars by 2010. Some of them you can pre-order and some are still in the testing phases. Here are a few of them for you to check out.

The Tesla electric car
Two Seat Sports Car

0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds
135 mpg equivalent
220 miles per charge
2009MY Roadster base price: $109,000


NEW! The Six50
A hybrid 2+2-seater (Electric and Solar Powered)

62 miles per charge
75 mph top speed


The Phoenix Electric SUT
4 Seater Pick up Truck (and they have an SUV model as well)

100 miles+ per charge
75 mph top speed (factory set)
On-Board Vehicle 6.6KW Charger: 5 to 6 hours
Off-Board High-Power 250KW Charger: Under 10 min. to 95% SOC



The Mitsubishi iMiEV

80 mph top speed
100 mile per charge
2010 in US... under $20,000


The Subaru R1e
two-seater city car

65 mph top speed
50 miles range
2012-13 in US... under $20,000



BYD (Chinesse Batter Company)'s E6 Electric Car
5 seater

100 mph top speed
186 mile range

Keep a look out for these cars hitting the road soon. Also check out Zap Cars, Tango T600, and the unimpressive Chevy Volt.



DC


UPDATE: I just found this site with 30 electric cars. I like my list better because the cars I chose are more updated and they are cars that will be mass produced commuter cars. A lot of the cars in this other article are slow neighborhood cars or concept cars that will never be sold to consumers.

Old Man MacCready

Paul MacCready is a very very interesting man. Intelligent and creative he has won countless awards.

He was an inventor, most know for his flying machines. He designed a plane that was bike powered plane, the Gossamer Albatross, that flew 22 miles across the English Channel in 1979. In 1981 the Solar Challenger, flew 163 miles on 400 watts from photovoltaics. His solar powered car, the Sunraycer, crossed 2,000 miles of Australian desert. (This was part of the inspiration for the EV1, GM's fully electric car.

In 1990, he and his team designed the Helios (youtube video). The Helios has about 62,000 solar cells across the wing. The solar cells collect energy from the Sun and convert it to electricity, which runs the 14 small motors, which turn the 14 propellers.

"On August 13, 2001, remote-control pilots on the ground used a computer to fly the Helios Prototype to an altitude of 96,863 feet. That's over 18 miles straight up! Before the Helios Prototype, the highest recorded flight of any aircraft was about 85,000 feet. This was done in 1976 by the SR-71 spy plane, the fastest jet in the world. Only rockets and rocket-powered airplanes have gone higher."
source

Paul gave this speech at TED a few months before he passed away.
Video-21minutes(very cool)

DC

Zero Energy Project

After about two weeks of brainstorming, we have come up with a project for the summer.

Project:
We are going help design Donna Shalala's guest house to be a Zero Energy Building.

Background:
Donna Shalala as well as many other UM teachers are going to be moving into a new neighborhood in Coral Gables called Four Fillies Farm. Her house is going to be too large to do anything major with sustainable design, but the designers expressed interest in designing the guest house to be Zero Energy. The guest house will consist of a garage for her driver? and an apartment on the second floor.

The Plan:
We are going to focus on 2 topics:
Rainwater Harvesting and a
Integrated Energy System

We are going to be exploring permeable pavement, roof rainwater harvesting, pvs, solar water heaters, and reflective roof technologies.

Food for thought!
Starting 2016 all new homes in the UK will have to be zero-emission for heating, hot water, cooling, ventilation and lighting.

California is planing on doing the same for 2020.

DC