Green-Trust.Org

Shell is investing heavily into fuel efficiency and alternative energy solutions. Please comment on how you perceive the traditional oil companies are moving towards efficiency and environmentally friendly solutions. Read more about Shell’s Alternative Energy Projects.

We recently picked up two sets of drinking glasses at Walmart. Called the ECOGLASS, it’s made by Anchor Hocking, in Ohio. Made of 35% recycled materials, it’s 100% recyclable, and comes in 100% recyclable packaging made from 25% post consumer waste, and sustainable ink. It’s a good solid drinking glass, not easily broken. Qty 6 glasses for under $8. Did I mention it’s lead free?

We had a great time at the North Country Energy Fair. We had about 20 people attend our “DIY Solar class”, 10 at our “Make your own biodiesel” class, and about 50 attend the off-grid water pumping and filtration class we presented with a panel of 4 others, including Jim Juczak of Woodhenge and Rob Roy of Earthwood. Rich Douglas covered wind pumping, Jim covered deep well hand pumps, I covered filtration, John covered solar pumps and Luke Martin covered well buckets. Rob’s presentation covered pedal powered piston pumps. We gave about 30 rides on our E-Zip electric bike, and everyone had a lot of fun with it. Our DIY Berkey Water Purifier was a big hit, as was the Nature’s Head composting toilet, and the MRSA and Swine flu resistant cleaning products. Tom Leue presented his Yellow Heat Veggie Furnace. You can find more info on these products at http://www.healthynaturalclean.com, and construction details on the DIY Berkey at http://www.green-trust.org/freebooks/.

A while back, we reported on a important little movie called “The Story of Stuff“. All about the process of manufacturing, use, and disposal of our “Stuff”.

Now another important work has come out called “Our Little World – The Climate Movie“. This is a must see, documenting where our products (and energy) come from, how far they travel, and the results of their manufacture. Do not miss these!

On a related note, here is one place all that “Stuff” goes when we are done with it, and sometimes before we get it:

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Trashing-Oceans-Plastic4nov02.htm

We finally got the AIR-X (400 watt) wind turbine raised today, just in time for a windy mini blizzard. It sits on 30′ of 3″ galvanised pipe, bolted to the side of the house. We used a backhoe to pull a rope, connected to the tower at the 20′ mark, over the top of the house, as we didn’t have the manpower to pull it ourselves. We put two other ropes on either side of the turbine to keep it from sliding perpendicular to the direction we wanted to to go.

I don’t have my anemometer up to check wind speeds, but the turbine is peaking at 300 watts and singing like a stool pigeon. I have the output of the turbine (the negative) running through a shunt connected to my FLEXnetDC battery monitor, so my Outback Mate tracks the power the turbine collects. My solar panels connect to another shunt, and my inverter to the third shunt. This gives me detailed information on my production and usage.

I have some of pictures of the process posted at http://sspence65.jalbum.net/AIR%20X%20Install/ and more coming shortly.

The Whisper (500 watt) is the next unit to go up, followed by the rebuilt 24 volt (was 12v) 1000 watt Axial Flux Turbine.

Recently we posted a document on how to build your own bucket based water purifier. Now, thanks to Ellen (http://confessionsofanover-workedmom.blogspot.com/), we have info on a bucket or tub based planter that feeds and waters your plants over time. A cool project for patio, basement (with grow lights), or back yard. Don’t let poor soil stop you from growing your own food. Read more at http://www.green-trust.org/freebooks/. We also have a eBook on worm composting in a tub at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/ you might find educational.

Melvin Martin was over last night. He’s greatly recovered from his accident, but still has a ways to go. We were discussing home built NiFe (Edison) batteries and how to make your own. These batteries have the ability to last 50+ years, and we have a bunch of info on them in the files section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/12VDC_Power/files/. We were also discussing human powered devices, specifically pedal powered water pumps, grain mills, and electrical generators. I have had a very good resource for this for 20 years called “Pedal Power: In Work, Leisure, and Transportation”, and just picked up a wonderful companion to it produced in 2008 called “The Human Powered Home”. Detailed drawings and parts lists for mixers, pumps, grinders, and many other projects where fuel or electricity may be in short supply, or you just need to lose 50 lbs. These books and more can be found it the Human Power section at http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/.

As we prepare our materials for the 2009 North Country Energy Fair (http://www.ncenergy.org/2009/), I wanted to share two resources we believe will be of great help to folks getting started on their journey making Biodiesel. The first is the Biodiesel Homebrew Guide by Girl Mark (http://localb100.com/book.html), and the second is Home Brew Biodiesel by our buddy Rick (http://www.b100supply.com/biodiesel_book_p/139.htm). Both are excellent guides on making processors, making biodiesel, and cleaning it up to match standards. For info on collecting and filtering vegetable oil, and using it straight in diesel engines, get our veggie oil guide at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/.

Our new Photo Voltaic Solar Panels arrived this week while we were in Ft. Benning, Georgia. We were there attending our Son’s graduation from Infantry Training.

The six Panels are 195 watt Sanyo Hybrid panels. These panels have a amorphous layer over top the mono crystalline layer, and work well in cloudy and overcast weather as well as bright sunny weather. It was in the high 20’s last night, and the sun is low on the horizon, so a 1200 watt boost to our existing 550 watts will be appreciated. This will greatly reduce our propane usage and generator run times, and keep our house batteries fully charged for longer periods of time. I’ll be posting pictures and desciptions as we install them, and will be updating our DIY Solar Power Installation ebook at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/.

We use a multifunction display from Outback called a Mate to monitor the operation of our charge controller, our inverter, and our battery bank. We have another shunt coming in so that we can monitor the wind turbine and solar independently. But what about logging and historical performance. It would be handy to be able to compare monthly and seasonal performance. Our Mate has a serial port on the side for connecting to a computer, so we are evaluating 2 software packages that will allow us to track and record the complete operations of our system.

The first is WinVerter-Monitor OB from http://www.righthandeng.com, and the other is WattPlot from http://wattplot.com/index.htm. We will let you know about the strenghts and weaknesses of both.