Meadow Musings: Earthy Goodness

You're reading this blog, so you know that we build websites using solar power. Well our blazing new news is that we just upped the ante: we now we offer solar web-hosting! That means that in addition to creating websites using solar power, we can serve websites up to visitors on the web using the power of the sun.

Who was our first client for this total solar-powered web solution? Ourselves. We moved the hosting of webmeadow.com away from a conventionally-powered host to our current digs. So webmeadow.com is now powered by the sun!

Why does solar hosting matter? Serving up web pages takes a lot of energy, just like building them.

To put servers into perspective: when I worked with the Internet Archive, they had a server room chock-a-block full of computers (around 600 I think) to serve up their data. All those computers produce lots of heat, so in addition to all the server power, it took a huge amount of air conditioning power just to keep things running.

The company that we've partnered with powers their servers AND their air conditioning with solar panels. And they've even designed their server room so that it needs less air conditioning than traditional designs (complete with a living roof of drought resistant plants -- it reduces their cooling and heating requirements by over 50%).

A smart choice all around, and we're excited to be part of it!

Tate pointed us to this article in the San Jose Mercury News and asked what we thought of it.  Well, here's what I think of it: man o man, people are so dumb.

Here's the story:

1. Between 1997 and 1999, a couple in Sunnyvale planted a bunch of redwood trees in their backyard.  Looking at the overhead photo, it is pretty clear that they did this so that their neighbors did not have a direct view into their living room.
2. In 2001, one of those neighbors installed 10kW worth of solar panels on his house. 
   
3. Now the trees are tall, and they shade a bunch of his solar panels.
   
4. He invoked the little-known California Solar Shade Control Act, which is now levying stiff fines on the tree-owners for not cutting down trees that shade solar panels.
5. The court found against the tree-owners, but they are appealing the ruling.

This is dumb on so many levels.  

• Did solar-panel-guy think that trees weren't going to grow?  If there are trees almost shading your site, then within a few years they will shade your site.  By definition, that makes it a bad site for solar panels. 
• For the amount of money that 10kW of solar panels cost, you'd think he could buy some common sense. 
• The law says that trees that were there before the panels were installed are OK, except that it also says that if they grow to cover solar panels, then they're subject to removal/fines.  So... trees are ok, as long as they don't grow?  The law really should have some sort of "reasonable growth" clause.

Personally, I'm totally with the tree-owners on this one.  Mr. Solar Panel was dumb to put his panels under baby redwood trees, and I'm pretty sure it's not fair to fine your neighbors for your stubbornness.

Have you ever read Backpacker Magazine?  It's really great.  We got a subscription through one of those "Your airline miles are going to expire soon" things, and it's one of the only magazines I actually like enough to pay for it when our free year runs out.  Every time I read it, I feel like going outside and hiking somewhere.  (And I don't even like backpacking!  I like sleeping in my own bed.)

Their most recent issue is the 2008 Gear Guide, and they have a special section in it for "Green Gear".  But it's not like most 'Green Product' lists.  Instead of pointing you to all the fanciest bamboo-underwear and recycled-vinyl bags, they actually give you information! Backpacker has done research and compiled a report card of what exactly each 'green' company does.  FiveTen, for example, uses all kinds of scrap and recycled rubber in their shoes. Chaco buys wind credits to offset their energy use, and pays employees to bike to work.

I think it's extra-cool to know exactly what companies are doing to earn the Green label.  Not only does it allow you to support programs you particularly like (hmmm... should I buy from the company that recycles fleece, or the one that is powered by reclaimed methane*?), but it also puts companies on the spot.  If the best a supposedly-green company can come up with is "Our brochures and packaging are 50% post-consumer content", it's not very impressive compared to a company like GoLite (carbon-neutral!  Product recycling!  Alternative transport!). 

Way to go, Backpacker!  It's nice to learn more about these green companies, and decide for ourselves which ones to support.

* CowPower is a supremely great name for a methane program.

Over at TreeHugger, there's a post about SC Johnson's new "GreenList" label.   TreeHugger contends that this is a classic case of greenwashing -- the Greenlist Certification was developed by SC Johnson, so of course they pass with flying colors.  The products are not what most people would label "green", however.

If you read through the Greenlist website,  it's a decent program.  Basically, all raw materials get a 0-3 rating (3 is "best", 0 is "will kill you and your dog"), and they try to make sure that all their products are using 2- and 3-rated products.  So, for example, Windex has been reformulated so that it no longer uses a 0-rated solvent, so it spews fewer VOCs into the air.  And the company made the radical move of using brown instead of bleached-white paperboard for packaging.  (And who rates the ingredients?  Why, they do!)

However, a pretty leaf label does not magically turn "Toilet Duck" into an earth-friendly cleanser.   Glade Plugins will never be anything less than completely foul.  It should be a crime to call that smell "vanilla".  

I started out writing this post thinking, "I dunno, TreeHugger was a little harsh.  At least they're doing something".  And then I got to the "Get the Facts" page on SC Johnson's site, where, in response to a question about whether Glade Plugins have ever started house fires, I read: 

No. It's an example of the kind of irresponsible urban legend that gets forwarded around the Internet and disparages brands.

Oh, CRY ME A RIVER, SC Johnson.  Poor you and your poor disparaged brands.  Those kooky internet forwards sure are hurting your business.  (It did not help that the next page I read was how they're so green they've received awards... from the President!) 

That is, frankly, not a great reason for me to conclude that they are only greenwashing with this silly label, as opposed to actually committing to real change.  GreenList may be a fine program, but it's not fine enough to convince me.  

According to NextEnergyNews.com, there are plans afoot to build a big 30-story tower-o-farms in Las Vegas.  Part food production, part tourist attraction.  

I am a sucker for futuristic farms, especially in tower form.  Look how great that artist's rendering is!  Look at those tiny little lab coats!  Frankly, the article is a little sketchy, what with zero references to actual companies involved (and doesn't this seem more like a Dubai project than a Las Vegas one?), but still!  I love it.  

When we lived in New Zealand, we took the bus everywhere and pretty much always had a bag (backpack or otherwise) to carry a map, snacks, and other essentials.  Often, when we bought something at a store, they would make us take a bag (rather than just putting the new shirt or whatever into our own bag), even though we had a reciept in case someone thought we were stealing.  It always struck us as odd, especially because in NZ grocery stores,  they don't bag your groceries for you -- you do it yourself, into whatever kinds of bags you want.

Well, apparently the inanity has crossed the pond.  There's a post over on Consumerist about a shopper being forced to take a plastic bag at Macy's.  Basically, the clerk told the customer that she had to have a bag, otherwise they wouldn't let her out of the store.  Poppycock, really, because what are they going to do?  Detain you for not-shoplifting?  But still:  what lame customer service.  You'd think Macy's would be up on the trends and be marketing fashion-forward* reusable bags.  But I guess not.

* I got a yarn catalog the other day that touted a line of yarn (100% acrylic, ick!) in 37 "fashion-forward" colors.  Now I fear that all of the yarn I already own is fashion-backward.  (Fashion-rearward?)  So sad. 

This week at webmeadow HQ, we got another foot of snow.  We love snow, because we figure:  if it's going to be so freaking cold out, at least there's slippy slidy stuff to play in.  However!  In the winter we run up against a tricky problem:  compost.

Compost!  You know the stuff -- also known as "I am voluntarily choosing to have food rot in this pretty crock on my kitchen counter".  You put your food scraps (onion papers, dead lettuce leaves, etc) into the pretty crock each day, and when the crock is full, you take it outside and add it on the big compost pile in the yard.  Then you add grass clippings and raked leaves and whatnot to the same pile, and next spring, out comes lovely fresh dirt for your garden.  It's the ciii-ircle of life.

That's all well and good in the summer.  But in the winter, when the going gets tough and the tough get snowing, trudging out to the (completely buried) compost pile every day when the little scrap bowl filled up was just not cutting it.  We needed long-term storage, so that we only had to make the full compost-trek once a week or so.  The obvious answer was to start storing the scraps in the big blue bucket under the sink.  But, hey, you know what happens if you keep 3 gallons of food waste tucked in a plastic bucket for a week?  Yowch.  Not pretty, and very smelly.  

Here is our incredibly low-tech and yet completely-awesome solution:  wheat bran.  Not Bob's Red Mill kind of wheat bran, but Poulin's kind of wheat bran, which comes in 25lb bags for about $6.  

(Look at that drama!  Bran in the snow!)

We sprinkle a generous layer of bran on the bottom of the big blue bucket, and then every day or two, we add a new layer of bran on top of the scraps.  It absorbs the weird oogy liquids that come out of rotting foods, and allows us to leave the compost festering under the sink for at least a week without any ill effects.   

Nothing smells, and the wheat bran will compost with the rest of the food.  A field guide to the above picture:  a layer of wheat bran covering:  two grapefruit halves (empty), a few paper towels, and some sort of be-stalked thing in the corner.  V'GER, is that you?

In fact, if you're like us (and do far more eating than lawn-mowing and leaf-raking), the wheat bran will probably help with the fact that you never add enough of that all important "dry matter" to your compost piles.   So, until spring comes:  add bran to your compost, and only venture out into the snow for sledding*!

* And feeding the ducks. 

The good folks over at Inhabitat wrote the other day about the Eastgate shopping center in Harare, Zimbabwe.  Keen observers of webmeadow may know that I lived in Zimbabwe in 1998, and spent many an hour in that very building!

Eastgate is a neat place because, as the article points out, it was designed to mimic the ventilation system of a termite mound, and as such stays at a pleasant temperature all year round without any external heating or cooling systems.  I remember someone telling me about this bio-mimicry design while I lived in Harare, but never learned any details about it at the time.

 

 

The post does not point out (though I will!) that Eastgate also serves as a very good meeting spot if you are gathering friends from various suburbs of Harare, as it's pretty much equidistant from all the major combi (mini-bus) terminals.  

Also, there was an internet cafe on the third floor, and a super-tasty deli on the second.  And, a joy for all us visiting Americans:  Mateo's, a great Italian restaurant, in the primo ground floor location.  They had fantastic garlic bread.

The termite-mound-inspired ventilation is sort of an urban and arid equivalent to passive solar design -- not every building has (or needs) great solar exposure, but there are still ways to use boring ol' physics and crawly ol' termites to make your building more comfortable and efficient.

It's December, and you know what that means?  'Tis the season to get LED light strings and great timer-plugs.   I love timer-plugs, and this time of year there are tons available -- ones that you can program, ones with "I swear I'm not out of town, so don't break in and steal stuff" randomizing schemes, ones that turn on automatically at dusk, and more.

However, there was one kind of timer switch that I couldn't find at all -- the kind where you say to it, "turn on now, then turn off in an hour."   I've been wanting this kind of timer for a while, mostly for the rechargable things in my life, like cordless drills and other batteries.  It's also great for things like iPods and cell phones -- unless the battery is totally dead, an hour or so of charging each day is more than enough to keep them full.

I couldn't find the kind of timer I wanted, so I decided to make one myself. 

Materials and Tools: 

• One power strip (or extension cord if you only want one timed outlet)
• One surface-mount plug box
• Two clamp connectors (sized to match your box)
• One timer switch (meant to be wired directly into your house, to control things like bathroom fans)
• Two of those plastic twisty wire connectors

You can get all this at Ye Olde Home Depot (though if, like us, you've been dabbling in electrical work, you probably have a bunch of it hanging around).  You'll also need a wire cutter/stripper and a screwdriver. 

How To:

1. Cut the cord on the power strip, then separate out the three wires on each side and strip the last inch or so.  Then remember that the timer switch actually has a strip gauge on it, and cut those little copper ends to match the gauge.  Look, that little pile of copper bits looks just like Christmas!  Try not to embed too many little copper guys in your thumb, because that smarts. 

    

2. Screw the clamp connectors into either end of your box, then insert the cord.  Use those little twisty things (do they have names?  Oh well.)  to connect the green wires to each other, and the black wires to each other.  Look, you're going to maintain the grounding wire connection*!  How safety-minded of us!

   

   *Truth be told, as far as we can tell, the grounding in our house plugs doesn't actually ever connect to, you know, the ground.  I think our house was built by monkeys. Drunk monkeys.
   
   
3. The white wires attach to the top-and-bottom of the timer switch.  For our switch, we inserted them into little side holes and then screwed in the connection screws on top of them.  Then stuff all of that stuff into the box and screw the timer into the box itself. 

   

4. Put the timer cover on (ours screwed on with a little tiny nut, then the dial itself slides onto the post), tighten all the screws on the clamp connectors, and voila!  A timed power strip!  We tested ours with LED lights, because I love those little guys.  (Who knows why you would ever want to put LED lights on a timer.  They only use 1 watt!  Leave them up (and on) all year! Bother the neighbors!)

   

This is one of the easiest wiring projects we've ever done (even though one of us* ended up needing a band-aid), thanks to the generous box size (easy to stuff wires into) and the nice flexible wires (easy to stuff).   It was fast and easy, and I'm looking forward to it helping us save power from now on!

* Not me. 

It's Halloween!  Let's talk about phantom loads!!

Phantom loads are secret energy-sucking vampires in your house.  There are two main types of phantom loads:  1) devices you're not using but are still using power, and 2) devices that look like they're off, but they're really not.

Things in category one may include: the battery recharger for your cordless drill,  your modem/router (at night), your printer, etc.  You probably only use your printer once or twice a day, and if it's a home model, it probably doesn't take very long to warm up.  And recharging batteries only take a few hours, but the charger is using power as long as it's plugged in. 

In category two we have items like:  your TV and DVD player, stereo, and pretty much any piece of computer equipment.  These things all have "off" buttons, but when you turn them off they're still really on.  If you can turn your TV on with your remote, it's sucking up a ton of power just waiting for you to press that button.  Computer equipment pretty much always takes power, even if it's in "sleep" mode.

In our house, these two categories would add up to about 200 watts, all day long! That is crazy-talk, people.  For most people, that doesn't amount to much money -- a few dollars a month, maybe -- but that's not really the point, is it?

So what to do?  It's pretty easy: use powerstrips.  You're probably using them anyway (who has enough plugs in their house?), so when you're done with something for the day, cut power to the whole shebang by turning off its powerstrip.   

For example:  when we're done with our computers for the day, we turn off the powerstrip that feeds the computers, monitors, modem, and router.  There's no point in powering any of those things at night.  Similarly, the printer and some other peripherals are on their own power strip, and we don't turn them on unless we actually need them.  

(If you want to go extra-bonus fancy-pants, you can use plug-timers as well.  You know these things; people use them around the holidays to tell their decorative lights to turn on at 7pm (then off at 10pm).   If you have something rechargable, like a toothbrush, razor, or drill battery, plug it into a timer and set the timer to turn on for only a few hours each day.  That's plenty of time to recharge, without the extra waste.)

So have a great Halloween, and go kill yourself some power vampires!   (Also, don't forget to eat way too much candy and get a tummy ache.  Good times, good times.)