New Power Grids - a short summary

Recently a lot of articles about new types of power grids have been surfacing. Yes, we are talking green power here, but in a totally different new kind of way. Interestingly enough I've been thinking of some of the ideas myself. I'd like to give you a quick and easy overview of how such a new power grid could look like.

Let's start off with the question that most people have: What if the wind does not blow and there's no light for the solar cells?

Very simple solution, lets use surplus power (in times where not all the power is consumed) to pump water from lower levels into higher basins (just like any other hydro electric dam), and in times that we need more power than we can generate, we simply use hydro electric stations at those basins to create the power we need. According to research, Norway has the potential of generating 4 weeks worth of power for Europe, which would be more than enough to provide bridge a power lulls.

The biggest problem with this type of power grid is that we are currently using AC (alternating current) in our overland lines to transport power, which cannot travel the long distances required for providing areas with power that is being generated many hundred kilometers away. A few companies are currently building new power grids that will use DC (direct current) which can travel much longer distances.

It's now just a matter of creating these power grids. Anything is possible, we just need to will power to do this now.

If you would like to read up on this more detailed, you do that here:
The Economist: Where the Wind Blows
Long Power Connecting between Norway and the Netherlands
Long Power Grid in Scandinavia (with Map)

Wave Power Generators in Norway (another way of harvesting nature energy)

Even the Annoying Kid!

Revolutionizing your phone

Every now and then, someone actually scraps all of the blueprints and re-invents an already existing technology.

Ooma is a new way of using your home phone. Hopefully this one will take off... or, do we have to go even deeper and rethink it even further... can someone come up with an idea?

Well, until then, lets hope that ooma does a good job, I'm pretty sure the women will dig it, once they find out who the creative director is :-)

Let's go for a walk...

... But where are we walking to? If you're interested in walking some more, but don't really know what's all close by, just go on "Walk Score". You might be surprised what you'll all find within your neighborhood.

Le Nouveau TrailerTrash

Wow, who knew that even trailertrash is rethinkable. I actually wouldn't mind to be called trailertrash living in this one. Can it be that the walls are even made out of straw bales?

The only thing that comes to my mind is... can this still be called a trailer? As far as I noticed there's only about 60% of the subfloor that are from the original trailer. It definitely inspires me though.

Check it out and you'll wanna live in one of those.

You don't think farming is rethinkable? Watch this. It is!

Green Music

Did you ever think about the fact that iTunes actually sells much greener music than your local record store? By buying music online, you are cutting down on emmissions for transportation and manufacturing of packaging.

There's also many other companies that sell mp3's that are well worth checking out.


Klicktrack offers DRM free music with much better compression rates than iTunes and Klicktrack is working toward compression free quality (full CD quality). Please check them out.

Live Earth Wrap Up - Everyone 50+, please listen up!

Saturday has been an interesting day. Apart from the fact that Toronto totally dropped the ball on the Live Earth broadcast at Yonge Dundas Square, I have had some really interesting conversations with people at the show.

I've noticed an alarming trend though. A lot of people were complaining about that show and how this could not be environmentally friendly. I don't think that we will stop promoting concerts, because we have this global climate crisis. We will just have to adopt new thinking, and this event has demonstrated it.

I must say most of the critics were 50+ and after very little explanation they have noticed that I am very passionate about reducing greenhouse gases ("Who knew that their sound guy was a treehugger") - they were all hoping to have a self glorifying talk about how this global warming "thing" is all just a big hoax.

I urge all people (not only 50+), if you don't think this is a true problem to reconsider your opinion on that. To all people 50+, please think of the younger generations, because we will one day have to figure this mess out. You might be able to experience the beginnings of this crisis, but if we don't change our habits right now, we - the younger generation - will have to deal with problems of truely global scale!

Thank You for listening.

Even concerts are rethinkable!

Hi Everyone,

I'm just watching the live earth concert in Australia live on msn. It's so amazing to be able to watch a show live on the internet from Australia, and see that people are coming together in one cause.

I've been reading a lot of comments online about how people are upset at the fact that someone would promote a big show like this to promote environmentalism. All I have to say, you didn't read the live earth page properly, check out the green policy. Have a close look and you will discover that everyone has been asked to do their part of making this event a green event, even the hosting company, which claims to be the "only truly green web hosting company".

I'm a live sound engineer and I so happen to do the sound for the live earth broadcast in Toronto tomorrow morning. I'm proud to be part of it too, and by the way, I live in St. Catharines, but I'm taking the greyhound bus to Toronto, because my wife is already there and it would be silly to not take public transit to the show.

I've included a picture of the show in Australia (at the top). Did you notice something? Maybe not, but I did right away. They are using LED lighting, which means that they are only using about 20% (it's an estimate, it could be even less, lighting is what uses loads of power compared to audio) of the power that a regular concert is using.

So please, have a closer look at the live earth page, they recommend to use green power, environmental materials for their banners, reusable materials for the catering, etc.

Even concerts are RETHINKABLE!

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Lets remind them in 2, 5, even 10 years!

More than 150 large corporations just pledged to reduce their carbon emissions according to this news article on Reuters. Lets not forget about this pledge and remind them of their own goals. Something is happening and it's good!

Carbon offsetting rethinkable

EVERYTHING is rethinkable. Even Carbon offsetting.

Yes carbon offsetting is the big craze right now, you can virtually offset anything. I recently found this add in the tube in London advertising a carbon offset mortgage, but is carbon offsetting the best solution? Wouldn't it be better if we did not even cause the CO2 emissions in the first place?

So many of the environmentally friendly "solutions" are really just a transition to whatever technology we should use, i.e. electric car. Since we don't have the technology readily available yet, we can at least do something in the mean time, i.e. carbon offsetting, using a smaller car, reducing the usage of carbon emitting technology, using co-generation heat power units, etc. All these "solutions" should never be our final destination, and we should only be satisfied when we find the technology that is truly carbon free.
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Find out more about those topics:
Wikipedia: Carbon offset
My smart is carbon offset with a Clean Air Pass
BBC News article on how carbon offsetting is not the solution!
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Do we need to rethink our weather?

The answer is clearly: YES! According to reports, the weather is getting more and more crass all over the world. Even if winters become harsher in Canada, it does not mean that the average temperature is not rising, in fact it's rising at a faster rate all the time.

It really is time to rethink our actions that influence the weather change.

[image source: dailymail.co.uk]

Coffee is kicking my ass

Hi there,

I just found some coffee at a store got my attention. Probably because the name kicks ass. It's actually called Kicking Horse, but there's a donkey on it and there's talk of Kick Ass Coffee. Very cool.

I'm always torn with coffee. As an environmentally sensitive individual, should we be buying any coffee at all? All the transport that causes lots of CO2 emissions, in fact the kick ass coffee is brought to BC, where they roast and package it. Then it goes on a long trip to Ontario (for all those who don't know: 3 681 km) until it reaches the store.

The label on the coffee states that it's a "Product of Canada", which does not mean that it's grown in Canada. I don't think coffee could actually grow in Canada. If it would I would buy it. According to an article on cbc.ca "Under current federal regulations, goods can be stamped with a "Product of Canada" label if 51 per cent of the production costs are Canadian." This would mean that roasting and packaging (+administrative cost, maybe even transport) would be +51% of the actual product. Interesting!

Don't get me wrong, I really love coffee, but I feel very convicted to have it. Well, at least Kicking Horse does a lot of good claims about themselves. "We can change the way the world thinks." Everything is rethinkable!

Cheers, lifting my cup of coffee for a toast.