Lately everybody seems to have videos on their websites. Usually I find it distracting from the real information I am trying to get. But, every once in a while you find a video that you feel everybody should view. If you want to know more about how the government is handling global warming you need to watch this fun and informative video. Take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference for you planet.

The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.

• Dakota Roche with a Skateboarding Motivation Tip Today's post is by guest blogger, Dakota Roche. Hey folks, my name is Dakota Roche, I'm a professional BMX rider, but I also enjoy skateboarding quite a bit. I started skating when I was 3 years old and have loved it ever since, in fact, I strongly believe it has......
• Watch Portugal Vs Brazil (POR Vs BRA) Soccer Matches 2010 World Cup Live Streaming Online? Watch Portugal vs Brazil (POR vs BRA) Soccer matches 2010 world cup live streaming online? Live Brazil vs Portugal stream from South Africa World Cup Soccer BRA vs POR June 25, 2010 Video CaseCrown iPhone 3G 3GS World Cup Series Case - Three Lions England 2010 (Wireless Phone Accessory) newly......

I don’t usually like to get political or get involved in the discussion of the national economy, but… It just seems to me that when a company from a foreign country comes in and buys a large portion of an American company it threatens our national security. Just my personal opinion. Now I am reading how companies from Japan and Germany are coming in and buying into American renewable energy to take advantage of new renewable energy initiatives (http://bit.ly/B5Byb). Are we selling ourselves and our wind overseas? I would love to hear your comments on this.

• Solar Energy & New Discoveries The day may not be far off when the use of solar energy becomes a norm. There is now a deep conviction among experts that given a few years time, solar power will be in high demand that the cost will go down, inexpensive enough to undercut the prices......
• Making money with an eBay Store, Part 2: What is it and do I need one? (This post is part of a series on Making Money with an eBay Store. The Introduction and table of contents to the series is here.) In the Introduction I mentioned some of the fruits of starting a side business, especially the feeling of empowerment over one's financial life that it......

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller

 Sometimes people don’t vote because they think “one vote can’t change anything”. I think the 2000 election proved that wrong, but some people still don’t believe. Now is your time to be counted by your elected officials. If you want this country to move forward with cleaner energy contact you Congressional Representatives and Senators today. It only takes a minute but can help save the earth a life time.

 Click here to email your U.S. Representative and Senators about the NAT GAS Act today!

• Senator Hutchison Misleads Texans on Her Bad Vote MIDNIGHT VOTE IN WASHINGTON: The cockroaches come out at night, along with this Congress apparently. Many people have looked to Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as a defender of conservatism. However her midnight vote for cloture on the healthcare bill reveals a different side of her. Apparently at night she......
• What is Solar Energy? by Walter Hull The Sun is like a giant power station, making solar energy for us each and every day. Without this daily dose of solar power, Earth would not be even close to the same. Literally the difference would be like night and day. The term solar energy is......

Thumbs up to Ken Salazar and the Department of the Interior, they have issued five leases to private companies to explore offshore sites for wind energy. All these sites are off the shore of New Jersey and Delaware. I hope this is only the beginning of government being proactive in helping private enterprise develop off shore wind sites.

Here in Massachusetts, where I live, Cape Wind has been fighting an uphill battle, at their expense, to get government approval for a project in Nantucket Sound. Eight years of pushing for wind energy is too long if we are actually going to make wind and renewable energy a reality. In order for individual states to meet any renewable energy quota we need more positive government actions like this.  

Lets all pray that the government will continue to put their money and decisions where their mouth is.

• Green Home Improvement Tips The green home improvement movement is very strong these days.  It seems that no matter which direction you look, you’ll find some new article being written about it.  Some of the articles are written by people that are very gung-ho about ecologically friendly home improvement.  There is nothing wrong with......
• How To Integrate Feng Shui & Green Living: Ask Maureen K. Calamia /caption] Feng Shui developed about 4000 years.  It originally is an art form that was developed by the Chinese civilization to enhance the positive life force energy "chi"  within the living spaces. What makes Maureen's Feng Shui consulting unique is that she combines the Green living concepts with Feng Shui. ......

In a June 1^st article by Dan Cook, in Arizona’s The Daily Courier, he wrote about a Habitat for Humanity home that had been built as a “net-zero energy” house.  The idea is to use smart building products and techniques, as well as alternative energy sources, such as solar, so that the house does not use any energy from the grid or fossil fuel. This is a whole new niche in the building industry and there is an unlimited amount of products and services to choose from. The problem is that builders and prospective  homeowners, we don’t know which products are proven, or will work in our situation, or have a chance to see the product installed or talk to a builder who has actually installed the product.

That is why I found this article interesting. If the companies offering these great new innovative energy saving products donated them to Habitat for Humanity, we would all benefit. First the company would win, getting actual exposure to the public with their product, as well as goodwill, for donating the product. Any builder interested in the product could donate their time to help install the product at the Habitat for Humanity job site. This gives them goodwill for helping, but also gives them experience with new products and techniques that they can sell to their clients. The homeowner wins because they are buying a product that they have seen work and are having it installed by someone who has had experience with the product. The recipient of the Habitat for Humanity home wins with lower or no utility bills. And last, but not least, the environment wins every time we do not use fossil fuel to power our world. This could be the ultimate win-win situation.

• Solar Power Your Home For Dummies By Rik DeGunther As energy prices keep going up, many homeowners are starting to investigate cheaper alternative energies that can be easily installed, and run on a daily basis. Whether you’re trying to cut costs, or you just want to go green, solar power is often the first choice of many homeowners. The......
• Gel Fuel Fireplaces: A Frugal Home Heating Alternative You've all heard the predictions about home heating costs going up this winter. Combined with the current state of our economy, the idea of paying more to heat your home might be enough to send some people over the edge. As a result, people are looking into alternative home heating......

According to Boston Business Journal, Boston’s Museum of Science announced this week that it will be putting a wind turbine laboratory on its roof. Apparently they have already done wind studies for a year and have come to the conclusion that there is not enough viable wind in their location to create any meaningful electricity. They already have two turbines up and intend to put up three more of varying shapes and sizes ranging from 7 feet to 40 feet. The idea is to “demonstrate small wind turbines that could be erected on small businesses and homes”.

The problem is that small wind turbines cannot be erected on any building, ever. Mother Nature is a very formidable force to deal with. Any and all wind turbines have an incredible vibration; this can cause both structural and noise problems. Roof top turbines have been known to cause nails to vibrate right out of the roof. While the museum roof may be substantial enough to withstand this, with a full time maintenance crew, the average home is not engineered to withstand these forces. 

Second, there is no usable wind on a roof. When you see a small wind turbine on a roof spinning wildly, it looks like it would be generating plenty of power. The truth is, all that spinning is the turbine trying to find a steady wind in a very turbulent area. Wind is invisible, and most people don’t understand what they can’t see. Think of a stick lazily drifting down a calm stream, making slow but steady progress, then there is a rock in the way, the stick goes around the rock but gets caught twirling in the eddy behind it, there is a lot of movement, but no progress. Wind is the same way, once it hits an object, such as a house or a tree; there is wind turbulence behind the object. Another way of looking at this is a sailboat in the lee of a bluff. You feel the wind on your face, it feels strong, but the sail is slapping madly and the boat is going nowhere. A wind turbine is the same way as it searches for the wind in the turbulence.

The Boston Museum of Science would be doing the public a huge favor by teaching the physics of wind and turbulence using smoke chambers and roof mock ups to show how a nail or a screw can be loosened due to vibration. They should teach the benefits of clean wind energy when placed in the right location and the uselessness of putting it in the wrong location. With all my heart I hope the Boston Museum of Science is not advocating building mounted turbines, not only would they be putting the public at risk physically and promoting a waste of money, they will be putting a black mark on wind energy when these turbines never produce any meaningful electricity.

Look for an upcoming blog on proper wind turbine location.

For more information check out the Warwick Wind Trials data on building mounted turbines.

• Green Home Makeovers that are Easy and Affordable Are you looking to save the environment, but you cannot afford costly options like solar panels? Are you looking for a way to cut down on your energy costs, but are not all together sure about installing wind turbines in your back yard? Don't worry! There are plenty of things......
• On Individuals Spending Millions Installing Alternative Energy Sources. Last night I was watching the season premiere of The Green on the Sundance Channel and after it was over I was thinking about one of the stories that was in the episode. The entire episode was about the future of power and covered things like wind power, solar power......

Haven’t you always wanted to go to a convention and find out more information, but you just couldn’t justify the time and expense of going? Now is your chance. Virtual Energy Forum is offering a free two-day converence on clean energy. No plane trip, no hotel room and no credit card bill!

Just sit down at your computer and wonder through the convention. Catch a live presentation by a keynote speaker or ask a vendor some questions. All while sitting at your desk, you can learn the latest about the most important issue facing the world.

This is your chance to find out how you can make a difference in clean energy without wasting any of your energy. Sign up today for free at Virtual Energy Forum. They can’t make it any easier than that. Set the date June 24th and June 25th, 2009.

• The Best Free Registry Cleaners Available One of the things that I find most unacceptable is to have a computer that is not working its best. Most of my work is done on the PC, so I expect my computer to work excellently. However, as much as I wish for it to work fast and efficiently......
• Nasa scientists braced for 'solar tsunami' to hit earth [/caption] The earth could be hit by a wave of violent space weather as early as Tuesday after a massive explosion on the sun, scientists have warned. The solar fireworks at the weekend were recorded by several satellites, including Nasa’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory which watched its shock wave rippling......

Great news on wind. The American Wind Energy Association had announced 2,800MW of new wind energy installed in the first quarter of 2009. This is awsome news for renewable energy and puts us on our way to reaching President Obama’s goal of 25% of our electricity coming from renewables by 2025.

But we still have some major obstacles, the largest of which is the lack of updated, smart grid transmission lines. Unfortunately, most great land wind in areas with smaller population densities. We need to get this great power to where it is needed.  We need a renewable energy standard (RES). Everybody who wants a cleaner, healthier future needs to write their Congressmen, their Senators and President Obama and demand what we voted for, a RES today.

To read the full AWEA report click on this link: http://www.awea.org/publications/reports/1Q09.pdf

To contact your elected officials click on this link:http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

• Green Home Makeovers that are Easy and Affordable Are you looking to save the environment, but you cannot afford costly options like solar panels? Are you looking for a way to cut down on your energy costs, but are not all together sure about installing wind turbines in your back yard? Don't worry! There are plenty of things......
• What Is Geothermal Energy & How Does It Work? Dear EarthTalk: How are heating, cooling and electricity produced by geothermal energy? I don’t understand how it works. The term “geothermal” is derived from the Greek words for Earth (geo) and heat (therme). In essence geothermal energy is power harnessed from the Earth itself. Heat from the Earth’s core, which......

Anybody who follows renewable energy news, more specifically wind power, knows that there has been a lot of controversy with the permitting of Cape Wind’s proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. After a seven year battle, the farm has now been cleared by Minerals Management Service in their Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) to lease federal waters in between Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. The final permitting process will probably take place this spring.

As you can probably assume, I am for wind power. Why else would I write this blog if I was not 100% behind renewable energy? But I have a problem with this one. I am from Cape Cod and the Islands. This is not even a case of “not in my backyard”; as a matter of fact I am looking into putting a wind turbine in my backyard. The problem is with the economy and the location of the wind farm.

I, like most of my neighbors, survive on the three month tourist trade season. Other than those three months there is not a lot going on in our economy. It is cold and windy (great for a wind farm) and nobody wants to come and spend money. Large corporations are scared off by our exorbitantly high land prices and taxes, so they are not providing year round jobs. We rely on the tourist trade.

Our tourist trade is based on two things our beautiful beaches and our excellent boating. Both of those will be in jeopardy once construction begins on the wind farm. Every south facing beach on the Cape will have a view of the behemoth structures, including a ten story building, instead of scenic vistas. Even each of the islands will have a great view of the turbines. Supposedly, part of the permitting states that both commercial fishing and recreational boating will not be barred from using the area around the turbines. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that some knucklehead won’t try to sabotage construction. If that happens there is a good chance a majority of Nantucket Sound will be deemed off limits due to terrorism concerns.

This loss of our single largest natural resource is going to cause a huge loss in tourism dollars which translates to job losses in an already down economy. There will be loses among commercial fishermen who will have less area to fish and will have to travel further to meet their quotas. Jobs brought in by the wind farm are apt to be union and out of state jobs, they will not be filled by the locals. On top of which, electricity from renewable energy costs 2-3 times more than conventional electricity, so an already strapped economy will get a double whammy with higher electrical costs.

If Cape Wind fails, as other proposed marine wind farms across the country have, who will pay the price? Will the government bail them out? Who will clean up any construction in progress or towers that are no longer being maintained or used? Once Nantucket Sound is gone it is a natural resource that is gone forever.

No I am not against the wind farm; I am against the location of the wind farm. South of Martha’s Vineyard there is a little island called No Man’s Land. Most likely anybody who lives west or north of the Cape Cod Canal has never heard of No Man’s Land. During the Cold War this little island was used as a military ordinance testing ground. This area is no longer used, yet is and always will be, off limits to the public. The island is surrounded by shoals, as is most of the waters south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. These waters don’t make for great boating, but they make for shallow installation of towers and actually better, unobstructed wind for a wind farm. Why has this never been a consideration? Money. It would cost more money to install a cable from there to one of the islands and then to the mainland. It is all about the wind farm’s bottom line, not the residents of Cape Cod who have to live here.

Senator Kennedy, a Cape Cod resident, has been highly criticized for being against Cape Wind. Many consider him an elitist, too old or senile but he has done nothing but stand up for his constituents. He was elected to represent the best interest of the people of Massachusetts and that is exactly what he has always done and even continues to do now. He is not against renewable energy. It was his brother, President Kennedy, who was hailed for having the forethought to save a good portion of the Cape from development when he proposed the Cape Cod Natural Seashore. Now his brother is being chastised for his forethought to save Nantucket Sound. Senator Kennedy is for what is best for the people of Cape Cod and the people who enjoy vacationing here.

Sometimes when looking at what is “right” we also have to look at the big (and small) picture and find what is best for everyone. In this case wind energy is best placed south of its current proposed location so that it can benefit the environment as well as the people it serves.

• Solar Energy Is Not New. The following is a guest post by Nan Fischer, a Certified EcoBroker specializing in green real estate in Taos, NM. Check out her website www.nanfischer.com, and follow her on Twitter for a daily green news feed, www.twitter.com/nan_fischer. Nan writes about green building, solar energy and the environment on her blog,......
• Earl sideswipes NC, takes aim at New England [/caption] CHATHAM, Mass. – A weakening but still dangerous Hurricane Earl steamed toward the gray-shingled cottages and fishing villages of Cape Cod on Friday, disrupting people's vacations on the unofficial final weekend of the short New England summer. Packing winds of just 80 mph, the storm swirled up the Eastern......