A Deeper Green

So last night a received a text from a friend asking which was a better choice for heating your home, wood or coal. So I figured now was a perfect time to return to my blog and post an Ask-A-Brekke So, without further ado, which is better to heat my home, wood or coal.

The Short Answer: Wood!

The Long Answer: Wood is a better choice for heating your home for several reasons. First, wood is considered to be a sustainable resource. If you cut down a 20 year old tree and you plant a brand new tree the same day, in 20 years you’ll have a new tree to enjoy or burn or whatever as you wish. Also, wood only releases the carbon that it has accumulated over its lifetime.

All of this being said. There are still several problems to burning wood. Cutting down trees has impacts on the ecosystems that those trees exist in. Even “waste timber,” which is usually branches and other cast-offs from from the timber industry, have ecological merit. When you remove mature trees and replace them with juvenile’s there is a loss of food and habitat. Additionally waste wood is typically broken down by fungi and insects in a forest habitat, eventually becoming healthy, nutrient rich soil. Removing “waste” wood can upset that cycle.

Also, burning wood in a fireplace or wood stove is a fairly inefficient way of heating a home. A large portion of the the heat escapes up a chimney or stove vent.

So, obviously, if your only choice for heating your home is coal or wood, opt for wood. But looking into passive heating as well as solar or wind energy to help heat is always going to be a better choice.

Thanks for asking, and remember, you can leave a comment or an e-mail with any other questions you would like me to help answer

originally posted on www.examiner.com

So the US Department of Energy ranks that Great Lakes region as a great place to build wind turbines. The region is especially well suited to handle offshore wind installations. The wind near and on the lakes is comparable to the wind on the great plains.

This would seem like a great thing! In an area that is currently struggling economically there is a great source of jobs just waiting to be tapped. Education programs surrounding wind power have been popping up all over the country, and with a few wind installations projects in the Great Lakes there could be a fantastic market for people with the right skill sets.

The downside is that there is a still a lot of opposition to wind power, especially from residents of the region who are nervous about the aesthetics of wind farms and the noise pollution associated with turning turbines. There are additional concerns about the safety of wind turbines for area wildlife that have plagued the viability of wind facilities for years.

At a conference last fall I sat in on a very interesting talk about the effects that wind turbines had on terrestrial life where they were built. The problem with the data is that there is simply not enough of it. And it is difficult to tell if the potential benefits of wind turbines will be able to outweigh the potential problems that might be caused to wildlife.

The fight for and against wind power in the Great Lakes is being played out in slightly different was in places all over the United States and throughout the world. Alternative energy needs to be a part of our future, and wind energy is a part of that alternative energy future. But obviously, there are still a lot of concerns that need to be addressed, in Chicago and the rest of the Great Lakes and the world.

So, I had a great and inspiring time at MEEC. I didn’t have internet in my hotel room, due to a router issue, so was not able to update like I was hoping too, but hopefully this little round-up post will be sufficient.

At MEEC I was able to attend a variety of sessions on everything from becoming a beekeeper, to keeping middle school kids optimistic, to wind energy. I honestly can’t pick a best or most interesting session, but I can tell you this: I have so much more to learn!

The presenters at these programs were phenomenal, and brought so much of themselves and their knowledge to the conference. I found myself being challenged by them in every session. Challenged to become a better educator, challenged to become a better co-worker, and challenged in my current understanding of environmental issues.

One of the biggest things that I was confronted with at this conference was how many people have real reservations about the effects of wind energy on wildlife. These concerns go beyond bats and birds, but also to animals like salamanders and turtles. I was also amazed to realize that there is still so much that we don’t know about these effects that wind energy might have. This will probably become a separate post after I do some additional research on my own.

Basically, what I would like to leave you with is how energized and excited I am after this conference. The people I met, and the people I talked to gave me a great rush of enthusiasm for the work that we all do, and made me all the more determined to be successful.

Thanks MEEC!

This morning I came across this article from the Lake County News-Sun.

The Waukegan Water Plant is doing some feasibility studies looking into the possibility of adding wind turbines to their buildings. As these buildings are right on Lake Michigan and subject to some very strong winds much of the year this seems like a great idea.

The article mentions talk of being able to cut the plants external power usage by 25% if the turbines are installed.

I plan on keeping an eye on this development and hope that they can come up with a way to make this work!

Starting off my weekend with the International Coastal Clean-up on Saturday was fantastic. We did a great job collecting, and even though I did get sunburned (I need a hat for work!) I still had a great time.

I am hoping to have some pictures from the event a little bit later, but for now feel free to read my more in depth article at examiner.

And because it is a happy Monday I leave you with a link to an article that made me smile from Ecogeek, oneupmanship in renewable energy will pretty much always bring a smile to my face.

Today, www.ecogeek.com has up an interesting article on a wind farm in Texas that is using radar technology to shut off turbines if there is a danger of birds being hit. As the article points out, wind farms that are over land are often far below where birds are flying to begin with, and wind farms are certainly not the only man made hazard that birds encounter as they migrate. This means that annually about 7,000 birds are killed by contact with wind turbines. The number seems big, but is actually not that significant.

Wind turbines come with many problems, not just with birds, but with bats and a plethora of other issues. All energy sources seem to have their pros and cons. Personally, I favor solar energy (especially passive solar) simply because it seems that that’s what the sun is there for, to give this planet and its passengers energy. Plus once you make a solar panel it mostly stops being an environmental problem or really much of any problem.

I of course mean nothing against wind. I think wind power will be needed in higher and higher amounts as we progress toward a renewable energy world, and that is why I am happy to see programs like the one in Texas, where we are finding solutions to the most pressing problems with wind.

I personally still worry about bats though. This technology might be adapted for use with bats, and I know there are other solutions to that problem working out there, but after awhile it all starts to feel more like a technological band-aid rather than a solution to our problems.

On that less than happy note, I bid you adieu. Have a good day! And I promise, I still think wind turbines are pretty darn awesome.

There is a special place in my heart for the farmers of this world. They work long and hard hours for a pretty unpredictable income and they put delicious food on my table. For that they all get a tip of the hat from me.

I once volunteered a couple Saturdays of my time at an organic farm and was blown away by the amount of work required of these men and women. I also happen to have a 150-acre family farm (or at least my mom and my great uncle co-own the farm so its kinda mine-ish?). We don’t farm it, we rent it to some people who farm it for us.  There is a little creek with small trees growing on it that runs through the center of the property. It’s a beautiful place.

All of that being said, I will get to the point of this entry. I’ve heard and read many stories about ranchers in the more southern and west states adding windmills to their ranches. I mean if we are talking about land that feeds cows and doesn’t do a whole lot else why not add a windmill or two right? But, I have always wondered why the use of alternative fuels isn’t more widespread among farmers. They have all that land. I always assumed, rightly, that it had to do with the prohibitive costs of making the switch on a personal level. But as alternative energies march into cheaper territory it looks like some farmers may be jumping on board, in a big way.

Read an article about farmers in New York looking at energy alternatives here.

I can’t help but wonder if this can’t be made into something more fantastic. I mean why not pay farmers to use extra land or roof space to provide energy needs for surrounding areas? Farm subsidies, as far as I can tell, end up paying farmers to not farm pieces of land, why can’t they also help farmers produce their own energy, and why can’t they stabalize a rate for those farmers to sell extra energy? These are all things I hope get addressed as parts of the answer to our energy issues in the near future.

And in case you were wondering, my favorite type of alternative energy is solar (all types, but especially passive, just cause its nifty how things work). I also like kinetic energy, but its a bit more unwieldy and requires people to be moving to create power and therefore is less useful. I know, you totally wanted that bit of personal information on me

Probably you should be watching this.

I am hoping to get my viewing in, although I might have to DVR it for later.

The program is based on a book  about how “solving” global warming can help improve the world. Of course, these are all very well-known things and have been pretty well gone over, but the fact that this particular book is now a Discovery Channel 1-hour special makes me excited. Looks like it will be heavy in how alternative energies mean more jobs and better average quality of life as well as a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So yay! Be sure to tune in tonight if you are able.

Find that article here.

So, wind energy is mostly a rural thing, or an offshore thing. Occasionally you hear about the odd wind turbine in a more residential setting, but this article talks about the advent of more wind turbines in urban settings. It seems pretty cool.

I’m not really sure how viable the whole thing will end up being, but I guess that’s why they are doing the experimental bits now.