Green Building and Renovating: Part 1

GREEN HOME SHOW #35: Green Building and Renovating: Part 1 Things that hurt the environment

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The following content is from THE GREAT GREEN HOME SHOW #35.

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The content of the GGHS is solely the responsibility of the ECF and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of WILM, its sponsors or Clear Channel Radio.  Any rebroadcast, reproduction or use of the Great Green Home Show or its contents without written permission from the Green Fox, Paul Hughes, Doug Hunt, Aunt Jean, Brenna Wallace, Brooke Chase, the Watson Brothers, The Snap and the Sin City Band is strictly prohibited.

Overall Segment #1 – 9:00

Music & Introduction – 4:00

Introduction – Good Morning!!! Welcome to another edition of the Great Green Home Show... your best resource for learning how you can save money and energy around the house and around your world. We’ve got a great show today that will include all of the usual stuff… sketches, tips, Green data, etc… we’ll also be talking about green building, green renovations, green appliances, and more… we’ll be giving you costs, payback periods, annual savings, 10 year savings and the return on investment for all sorts of home energy saving improvements... and that doesn’t even include the Equity value this adds to your home...so we’ve got that going…

As always, we feel fortunate to be in a position where we can bring you this information every week and we will continue to put it out there with the best information available... last week’s show on green finance and green mortgages was a great success... if you missed it, just go to archives at wilm.com... keyword green... pull it up and listen…I’m Doug Hunt and next to me is my co-host, Paul Hughes. Anything new in the green universe this week?

Paul: Well there is always something new… New Tech: Blackle: Google has a new service desktop. In an effort to save electricity Google has come up with a black background search engine. In an effort to reduce electricity used worldwide for back lighting the Google search engine screen, Google is now offering a search engine with a black background.

In January 2007 a blog post titled “Black Google would save 750 Mega Watt hours a year” proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine.

It looks like Google took the challenge and created a black background search engine. Although relatively new it is already racking up watt hours which have been saved since its inception. You can check the ticker at the bottom of the page and every time I use it I noticed a change, this is quite satisfying. I guess because we are a culture used to instant gratification this type of marketing and energy saving scheme will hopefully set a precedent. All new energy saving devices should have a digital or analog readout where one can see their daily contribution to saving the planet.

So far is rated at the bottom of the page Google has saved over 420,000 W hours of energy since its inception.

We encourage you to set Blackle as your homepage, or set it at the top of your favorites or as a desktop icon. In addition to helping us all save a lot of energy, every time Blackle comes up on your screen you will be reminded that every little bit of energy savings adds up. I also get a really good feeling when I use it and it helps me to remember to do the other small things during the day that will save additional energy.

NUMBER 2. In my never-ending crusade against the insanity of Agro-based ethanol, there is another researcher Ken Vogel of Scientific America who has written an article and done research on the efficiency of agro-based ethanol… He writes that the federal government is foolishly subsidizing the ethanol industry since university and other studies show that corn ethanol actually takes more energy to make and deliver than it produces. But, Ken writes, ethanol could be a useful alternative fuel if it's made from prairie grass instead of corn. A University of Nebraska study says that when they paid farmers to grow prairie grass, also known as switch grass, they were able to grow enough to produce more than five times the energy they had invested in the form of Diesel gas for tractors and nitrogen fertilizers made with petroleum. Growing corn consumes far more resources.

Biofuel made from prairie grass and woodchips is called “cellulosic ethanol”. Switch grass ethanol has many advantages including that it emits less greenhouse gas when burned and that it doesn't raise corn prices to the developing world. The biggest obstacle says researcher Ken Vogel, is that the government has been emphasizing corn ethanol and right now he says there are no bio refineries built that handle cellulosic material.

Although it's not a great idea to use our agricultural soils to try to replace the gas for our transportation instead of using the soil to feed ourselves. It is easy to see that this form of ethanol is much more profitable and less harmful to the world's food economy. Conservation, walking, carpooling, riding a bike...and Mass Transportation/. Is better than Switch Grass.... More later in the show.... hey Doug, tell us a little bit more about that great Green Expo here on March 29, 2008... .

Doug: “ The Great Green Expo” on March 29, 2008 at the Chase Riverfront Center. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited. We’ll have around 150 green vendors, there’ll be speakers, auto manufacturers and all kinds of cool stuff for the kids. Everyone needs to attend… again March 29, 2008 at the Chase Riverfront Center. Be there!!! Before we get started, we need to thank our sponsors… Paul?

Thanks to: – CMI Solar Electric......Energy Services Group....... Suntrust Mortgage of Christiana...Myecoagent.com and Option Insurance Group. Also, Mark Unruh for the great music…. and listen to Scott Birney’s program on WVUD - 91.3 FM on Fridays…

Protect us Doug…

Today’s Topic - 4:30

Ten things you can do to help destroy the environment.

  1. Nothing…just doing nothing…(you know when your head is in the sand…your ass is showing and everyone but you can see it)…
  2. Buy a new gas guzzling car… (you’ve earned it… drive now… drive fast… life is short… so are oil supplies)
  3. Don’t call or write your congressmen, local and district elected officials... and by all means, don’t look up their environmental and energy voting records… (get involved, your kids will admire you and only blame you slightly for the long hot summers after you are gone) Lobby these guys (the Congressmen) hard we need $$$ for alternative energy infrastructure NOW)…
  4. Buy throw away stuff, the cheapest stuff, on sale stuff… and follow fashion dictums religiously... (buy solid repairable long lasting appliances and apparel)
  5. Leave the lights on, turn up the heat, don’t replace weather stripping and insulation…just keep warm… (wear heavy clothes around house in winter)
  6. Leave the Tap on, take long hot showers and water your car after you wash your lawn… (low flow shower heads and on demand hot water…let the car go and use rain barrel technology for the yard and garden, check into grey water technology...)
  7. Drive everywhere…whenever you want something, just get in your car and drive... (ride a bike, plan your trips, carpool, use mass transit, walk… yes walk…)
  8. Do not discuss the environment with your children. Imagine you live in a bullet proof tv world.... (plan family projects, join stream clean up or Beach clean…great way to spend a meaningful afternoon with your family….then go home and beat the crap out of your kids in Wii Bowling)
  9. Invest in oil refineries, coal gasification, gold, silver, styrofoam manufacturing, nuclear power, plastic bag companies, etc... (oh well you get the point… look into socially responsible investing and do your research)
  10. Do not listen to this show anymore, turn off the radio now…we are worse than green scientologist and have been known to instill a sense of environmental empowerment and hopefulness in even the most uninitiated Exxon, General Foods and, Clear Channel Executives….

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