Unabashed

I have a question for all of you learned and brilliant people: Why do the GE CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) bulbs bought from Lowe’s suck, but GE CFL bulbs from Wal-Mart rock?

I’ve been trying to replace all my bulbs, but that fluorescent-white light just penetrates my brain (not in a good way). I converted all my closet lights long ago, via three trips to Lowe’s, trying every CFL they had (even the bulb that says “Warm Light” was awful. That white light is in no way at all WARM, you lying bastards) but I’m wanting to do every light in the house. And then when I bought this new house (over a year ago now), I realized that one of the overhead lights had a CFL bulb in it that was virtually indistinguishable from the regular bulb occupying the other side of the fixture. So I called up the previous owners of the house and asked them where they got the bulb.

“Wal-Marks,” she said, with a cigarette hanging limply from her mouth (I’m kidding. She doesn’t smoke). “They’z outta them other’ns,” she said, spitting a spatter of tobacco juice from her snuff-filled lip (I’m kidding. She doesn’t dip, either. And, actually, she doesn’t talk like that, either; she’s a very, very nice and mannered retired English teacher).  

So anyway, I went to Wal-Mart and bought some CFL bulbs, brought them home and am now in the process of replacing bulbs as they blow to the new, oranger CFLs that I can tolerate. But why the big difference between the light? They’re both marked GE CFL, they both have “Helical” printed around the trunk…I don’t get it, and I can’t find any explanation for it on the ‘net. Anybody have any idea?

Image by Jeremyhall

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: bulb, bulbs, CFL, compact, fluorescent, lamp, light

 

I’ve expressed my displeasure of the current solar market before. Now the folks at MIT are pledging to revolutionize the technology for the very near future. For me, this is both great news, and not so great news. Supposing MIT is successful and in a few years announces a breakthrough in solar power, making it–as promised–abundant and affordable, the burning of fossil fuels, and potentially even nuclear power, will quickly go bust. That’s a lot of jobs going away, worldwide, including, potentially, mine (Though I’m not in the power generation business myself, the company I work for is owned by a Fortune 500 energy corporation.

On the other hand, it would mean that mankind’s carbon footprint would, what, half? It would shrink astronomically, regardless. And let’s face it, if we all had our own power generation resource, we would be more independent (to me that’s a good thing). If my power went out due to a storm, I’d have the materials and skill to get myself back online and wouldn’t have to wait for the power company to get to my street. Sure, I might still be down for a few days, but I’d have something to keep me busy, right?

So what will our lives be like in 20 years? Speculating that MIT’s pledge is a smashing success and cheap, renewable power is available worldwide, the world will change. Everything will change. Our lives, for better or poorer, will change. This could be the foundation for what will become the Singularity, the dawning of a new civilization. Things are happening rapidly, hold on!

Now I think of it, maybe energy companies need to think about getting into the solar panel installation market. It seems like it would be a conflict of interests, but if solar really becomes the Next Big Thing, they’re going to need something to fall back on, quickly.

Photo from Flickr.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , electricity, Energy, grid, MIT, power, renewable, solar, sun

Joel Johnson over at BoingBoing is camping in the woods for a week–er, four days–in Harriman State Park in New York, with the intention of blogging using only solar power while he’s out. Sounds like fun to me. Keep up with his progress (or lack thereof) at BoingBoing.net as well as his Twitter account. He also has a Flickr account, so maybe he’ll photolog his journey as well.

This is an interesting project to me, and finally gave me reason enough to get a Twitter account of my own, even though I’m not much for texting…we’ll see how it goes. Follow me, or friend me if you like, on Twitter (as with every other social networking service on the internets) I am mattmitchell8. 

I’ve got two headlamps from Coghlan’s, the 0843 and the 0841.

I’ve got my Amazon Kindle with a copy of Walden on it. (Which I’ve never read.)

Got my knife. Got good socks. Have lightweight, silkie thermals for the evening. Have the most beat-up ball cap around. Have sunscreen. Have fire. Have cables, spare batteries, and trash bags just in case I need to cover something up.

Got my tent, the Hubba Solo, again on multiple recommendations from readers. I haven’t set it up yet, which means that it’s a certainty it will be missing parts or that I’ll have to do so in a freak Hudson Valley hurricane. Oh well — it’ll be good comedy, right?

I’ve got my camera and the Gorilla Pod.

I’ve got rhythm.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: blog, blogger, boingboing, Joel Johnson, solar power, twitter

                                                                               Photo by stormygirl

I’ve been looking into converting my home to solar power and, believe it or not, the subject has become depressing. Faced with power bills in the $300+ range, I thought a little investment up front might serve me well in years to come. Scratch that: a photovoltaic (solar panel) power source for a house the size of mine would cost nearly, if not over, $100k. Too bad I’m not in California, where the state government offers incentives as much as 50% for folks switching to solar power. For a $30k to $50k investment I can definitely see long-term advantages, especially when you consider the day you finally pay off the loan, and your power bill is nil. But for $100k, it would take longer than the proposed life of the product to break even, making it, unfortunately, a very, very bad sell. No matter what my carbon footprint is, I simply can’t afford to do it.

One article I came across in USA Today does give a little hope in coming years, however:

The outlook for solar, though, is getting much brighter. A few dozen companies say advances in technology will let them halve the price of solar-panel installations in as little as three years. By 2014, solar-system prices will be competitive with conventional electricity when energy savings are figured in, Deutsche Bank (DB) says. And that’s without government incentives.

If that happens, solar panels would become common home and business appliances, says Brandon Owens of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

The infuriating part of all this is that there’s little or no hope of Alabama ever offering any incentives. Alabama Power is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, employer in the state, and they have a powerful lobbying network set up to ensure Alabama stays firmly attached to the grid. The “open-door policy” of the governor’s office, which is firmly closed, won’t give a guy like me an ounce of attention, so without a lobbying network it’s pretty certain that things are not going to change. I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I like it very much.

I long for a future where citizens can be self-sufficient and still comfortable. I want the best of both worlds, yes, to cut myself off from the grid but to enjoy all the benefits of being on the grid. Well, one thing’s for certain, despite the desire of corporate America to keep movements like this in check, it’s already got grass-root momentum, and the technology is advancing. I just have to bide my time. You’re on notice, Alabama Power, I’m actively looking to unplug from the grid.

In other green-living arenas, I’m also looking into a system that will allow me to re-utilize my shed gray water for toilet flushing and watering the garden/lawn, and maybe a rainwater collection system for the same. With global warming and drought conditions in the South, It’d be nice to know I had a water reserve that could keep me going for at least a little while should times get tough.

Also, I’ve got an old lawnmower that I hear will make a good generator for emergencies with only a small investment.

written by Matt Mitchell

More gems from Mr. Edelman:

On things our government should be talking about but aren’t (and for the record, I agree with this point 100%; and maybe we all do):

We need an alternative energy Manhattan Project.The New York Times‘ Thomas Friedman has been yelling about this for a couple of years now, and he’s absolutely right. We need to pour money into research for alternative energy, and we need to do it soon. I don’t care how much squishy, flammable dinosaur you think is still left in the ground; someday we’re going to run out. But before we run out, there’s going to be a long period of chaos where prices hit the moon and the OPEC countries will really have us over a barrel. How mighty will our military be when we can’t afford to fuel the tanks and troop transports? How fabulous will our economy be when you’re paying $10 a gallon? But forget about the nightmare scenarios for a moment. Let’s think about this from the carrot side instead of the stick side: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dramatically lessen the influence of Middle Eastern and South American despots. The neocons wants to bring democracy to the world? This is the way you’re going to do it.

Oooh. David, you had me at Manhattan Project.

written by Matt Mitchell

Fidel Castro’s written another article lambasting US policy, this time for conceptualizing a conversion to biofuels from fossil fuels. In it, he claims the United States will be responsible for three billion deaths due to starvation.

It’s easy enough to analyze the biofuel concept from the US point of view: our gov’t is tired of being reliant upon the Middle East for the health of its economy, and tired of funding a group of global malcontents with trillions of dollars to wage war on anyone whose lifestyle they disagree with. From Castro’s perspective, it makes perfect sense to assume the all-powerful US, overflowing with fat citizens and cash, is going to be responsible for the starvation of billions of people. America has always been the land of plenty while Cuba has struggled simply to survive. For Fidel, America is brimming with food, overrun with it, has so much of it they’re shoving it into their cars to keep them moving.

Castro, of course, is a Marxist. If America, too, was a Marxist state, it would not be the land of plenty, it would be the land of share and share alike. But then so would the rest of the world. And then, in Fidel’s mind, no one would be starving because the one-world government would ensure that the plenty of America was properly dispersed to the world’s needy mouths. And Fidel, of course, is blinded by his ego. He presumes the Marxist concept can work, even though it has proven time and time again that it cannot. I’m not saying America or the free trade system is perfect, I’m just saying Marxism is flawed from the word go. Sure, it sounds good, and the principles Fidel studied at University all made for great inspiration. But if the dissemination of foodstuff is bureaucratized, if all the corn in America is crated up for dispersal throughout the world, what would happen then?

• In Castro’s mind: the masses would be fed.
• In reality: half the food would rot, waiting for the right to be dispersed, subjected to official procedure in which a certain governor/statesman/magistrate would require something in return for his being so generous as to allow his people the benefit of what was in his possession. In waiting to ensure the people know it was he who provided for them in their time of need, even though in reality it was he who denied it to them and let it rot. This is Marxism in application. The old saying, tried and true and overused, has never been more apropos: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
• The portion that didn’t rot and met with government officials who operated by the letter of the law, who promptly filed the paperwork to have the food disseminated and took his own portion for himself, would be distributed from centralized locations, where the public would come to receive their ration, standing in line. Better hope you like the flavor of the week, cause that’s all that’s on the menu.

It’s very easy for Fidel to blame America for his failures. America has always been his scapegoat. When Russia collapsed Fidel was left without sponsorship, and once again he arrogantly denied the obvious: Communism is a failure. Socialism might sound great in principle, but in application it cannot work, because humanity is flawed. Socialism is a great idea, sure, and the free-trade system sounds awful in comparison, ensuring the haves have and the have nots don’t get any. But in application, it works the other way around, doesn’t it?

The other giant life rule is, and we all live by it: If you want to play in the game, you’ve got to play by the rules. Castro never played by the rules. He made his own rules and led his country down the toilet. Could America have saved Cuba? Likely, yes. We’re in love with beaches, coffee, sugar, rum and cigars and we would gladly pay for all of them, in massive quantities, from Cuba, if only Fidel would play the game. Sorry, Mr. Castro, for participation in society you get a big, fat ZERO. You’ve failed your people, even though you’ve got them believing it’s America’s fault through your incessant slur campaign, raging now for sixty years. Everything that’s wrong with the world is the fault of America, everyone who is killed was killed by America, and if anyone in the world dies of starvation, it will be because America used corn for fuel.

Is biofuel the answer to America’s fossil-fuel dependency? Possibly. Willie Nelson thinks so. As for corn, well, Fidel’s not entirely wrong on all counts; America does have an excess of corn. In the past it was that excess which resulted in the creation of high-fructose corn syrup, a particularly devilish toxin that’s a primary ingredient in almost everything that tastes good. HFCS replaced sugar in EVERYTHING that sugar was previously in. You want to know why America is getting fat, check your labels for HFCS; you’ll find it in Coke, Sprite, Mt Dew, even 7-Up whose commercials report their drink ‘all natural.’ So, am I in favor of biofuel? You bet I am. It would be my sincere wish that we:

a) Stop making HFCS and use the excess corn instead for biofuel and
b) That we end the trade embargo and start buying sugar from Cuba.

I know these things aren’t going to happen. It’s not that they’re impossible, it’s just that the political machine’s wheels are greased by these specific mechanics. The embargo won’t end until Fidel’s in the grave. HFCS should have been banned years ago, but that’s another article. But biofuel–is it possible? Sustainable? Clean? Green? It could be.

written by Matt Mitchell