Tour of the Wilson Natural Home

Hi everyone,

I quickly wanted to leave an update. I've been really busy with all the work over at Ukoonto. So if you want to keep in touch about things that I do, please go to Ukoonto's webpage to follow all the work going on there.

I also quickly wanted to post about an awesome house just outside of Toronto. It's called the Wilson Natural Home. For more info and a video click here. The Wilson Home is going to host an open house on October 19th 2008 and you will definitely find me there. It's so interesting and this is exactly what I would like to do. Our little house has just been the beginning.

Alright, maybe I'll see you at the home

Cheers, Hans

Pro's and Con's of Local Sustainable Economy

This morning I stumbled uponthis blogpost, that talks about a book that describes a fictional story about a small town that relies completely on the local economy. Something that I've been thinking about a lot... but wait. You might be asking yourself, why would we even do/want that? What are the advantages? What are the downsides?

Advantages of a more locally sustainable economy:

• More "High-End" Jobs - Is it not sickening that hear such stories of grocery store owners whose business' have been destroyed by Walmart, only to be hired by Walmart for minimum wage?
• Lower Emissions - eliminating long hauls will decrease the embedded carbon emissions in products
• Happier Neighborhoods - I feel better when I know who I am helping when I buy a local product. It feels empowering to know that you helped "Bob", that you know personally to stay in business.
• Better Quality Products - the US and Canada have strict regulations on product quality which are often undercut by companies that import. One example: paint finishes on toys.

Disadvantages of going local:

• Product Cost - things will cost more. Production in the US and Canada is more expensive, but do the advantages not offset the disadvantages. (As oil prices rise, we might soon be at a tie though. Our money will go towards paying for the product, rather then the transport.)
  
• Somewhat More Inconvenient - we might not always be able to quickly jump into one store and get everything we need.

There is so many more arguments for both sides. It's up to you to decide weather you want one or the other side. Judging from recent trends in or economy though, I would say we need to strive towards a more local economy to be sustainable in the future


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A recent article in thestar.com: Oil costs eroding globalization: CIBC

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image by bonedad

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Public Transport: Germany vs. US

I just found an excellent blogpost about public transport in Germany, specifically in Berlin. I've lived in Berlin for some time and I love public transport in Berlin. It's not perfect by any means, but I guarantee you that you do not need a car in Berlin.

Anyways, I'm linking to this post (which links to another post, that links to another post :-)), there's nothing to add or to take away, why should I try to rewrite it.

- Blog Post at "Obscene Desserts" -

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Consider the Embedded Carbon Emissions

This message goes out to all radical environmentalists, please don't take this offensively, since I consider myself one of you as well, this also works as a reminder to me:

I understand that Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is one of our highest standards that we should follow and I'm sure that buying a super fancy clothes line does not fall under that moto.

I recently bought a clothes line from cordo clip, I could have bought the old school line with regular clothes pins (which by the way is almost as expensive), build some goal posts to hang the line up and done. My wife has loads of linen to dry and this one will really cut down on the time used to hang clothes and sheets up for drying.

Here's what I really want to point out though: Please support Canadian business'. The financial risk taken by a company in Canada is much higher than a Chinese business (because of much higher labour costs and taxation). Cordo Clip is made in Canada and such a product would usually come from China. This means, the carbon footprint to make this product is most likely smaller than something made in China. Also, we employ people locally and the product saves some serious energy when used (air drying your clothes saves almost as much energy as taking a car of the road).

So please consider the "embedded carbon emissions".

A perfect case study: Zero Emissions Purolator Truck

This weekend at the Green Living Show in Toronto I had the chance to talk to the developers (Unicell) of the zero emissions delivery truck. The truck is fully electric and has some more features that are really impressive.

As I understand correctly, Unicell was approached by Purolator to develop a modern delivery truck for urban zones that is not only economical, but also much healthier for the operators and the environment.

First, the team observed what a delivery truck really does in one day of operations and they found out that the truck only drives for about 60 km's and makes about 200 stops in 10 hours per day.

The team built a fully electric truck, that kneels and has very low ground clearance, eliminating the steps that the operator/deliverer needs to take every time he walks into and out of the old style (box) trucks. This reduces the wear on the driver, speeds up his work day and the reduces the risk of injury (therefor also the down time of sick operators, which is very costly in a large company). The doors also open and close automatically, which enables the operator to use a two wheel dolly of and on the truck. The truck was used for 7 weeks in the fall of 2007 and all the operators really liked it. The batteries for the electric drive train never ran out.

This truck is a very good example of a company that thought an old concept through and created a product that is much more economical, and healthy for employees and the environment.

The following videos show the truck in action.




I would also like to add, that Purolator also uses another company called Azure Dynamics to retrofit their already existing fleet of box trucks to be hybrid diesel trucks, which cuts down on the carbon footprint of the fleet.

Last but not least, here is some food for thought, for some really advanced environmental solutions. The team from Unicell explained to me that these kind of trucks can be used for a very advanced electrical grid. This is a very theoretical scenario, but very possible in the future.

One of the problems of having an electrical grid that relies on wind, hydro-electric and other renewable energy sources is the availability of the power in the grid. If the wind happens to blow a little less and therefor not provide as much power as needed, some energy needs to be stored. This is where a large fleet of these kind of trucks comes in: In an extremely smartly designed electrical grid, the electric batteries in the trucks can provide power back into the grid. It is very well possible to know, that the trucks don't need the energy stored in the batteries at a certain time (ie: on weekends or at night) and feed it back into the grid and still be fully charged by the time the truck is needed.

Join In and Switch Off

Earth hour is going to start in just 50 minutes here in the Greater Toronto Area in Canada. One last call to join in and shut all electrical units off in your house (I'm simply shutting the main breaker panel off), between 8pm and 9pm to make a stand for energy consumption and global warming.

Please click on the link below get to the earth hours webpage for more info:

http://www.earthhour.org/

Cheatneutral: Offset all your Cheating and Become Cheatneutral

This is funny. It's extremely geeky, definitely worth browsing by though.



PS: You can also watch Cheatneutral on Joost (the channel is green tv )

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A new twist on an ancient design: the clock

This is such a prime example of thinking outside the box. Nothing super fancy, nothing world revealing, but a really good idea: why does that hand need to move on a clock? It doesn't, check out this inverted clock design.

Find more about it here! (link)

Food for Thought - 192021.org

I didn't have access to this blog for a long time. I just noticed that I was able to log in again, Here some food for thought with a beautifully designed webpage.

[click on picture]

BP: Beyond Petroleum

What if oil companies don't even believe in the future of oil anymore?

This is not just any oil company I'm talking about. This is one of the multi-billion oil majors that is starting to invest in alternative energy sources. To be exact: $8 Billion per year (according to them), which is really considerable if you look at what they make per year: $22 Billion income (according to wikipedia.org).

Think about what that means for the oil industry and what it tells about the oil reserves.

Read up on bp's webpage about this.

Wind Energy as an Investment in Niagara

I thought I would quickly report on a little observation I made some time ago. Whenever I drove through Vineland I noticed what look like a wind testing tower just up the escarpement in Niagara. I finally had the time to stop and ask about it, and in fact it is a testing tower that has been standing there now for almost 3 years, recording data about the wind.

Mark (of Mark's Automotive) owns the tower and it was really interesting to talk to him briefly. As I understood he never intended to put up a turbine, he' was simply recording the wind up on the escarpment to sell the data (which he did). He resold the tower and it seems as if the investment paid of for him. He referred me to a guy called Ken Baigent who he calles "the number crunshing guy" behind this project. I'll contact Ken soon and see what more interesting things we can find out about wind energy in Niagara.

With some luck and the work of some business savy people we might see a wind turbine erected right outside of Vineland in the Niagara region.