Lots of news about renewable energy this week, including this item from CarbonConservation.com. With the help of carbon offsets like the ones from 4offsets.com, Papua, Indonesia is saving its forests and supporting the local economy at the same time. Plans for palm oil plantations to feed the bio-diesel demand that would have stripped Papua of its forests were underway with the blessing of the Indonesian government. Now, however, those plans are on hold, because carbon trading with offsets appears to be a better way to help the economy and the rainforest without destroying the rainforest ecosystem.

Using corn to produce ethanol isn’t the way to reduce greenhouse gases, researchers from Science Magazine say, and would actually result in almost twice the emissions of the gasoline it replaces. The study shows that land-use changes, especially using good cropland to grow corn and later other crops for fuel, will only worsen global warming. This kind of data needs to be taken into account before we get too much farther down the road to the biodiesel rush.

By 2020, all new residential buildings in California will have to be net-zero-energy homes, according to new rules from the California Energy Commission. And by 2030, that will apply to commercial structures also. This applies to new construction only, although there are plans to require retrofitting at time of sale for existing structures, similar to the ones already in place in Berkely and San Francisco. Some of the energy-saving features that will be incorporated into the new homes such as photovoltaic panels for heat and hot water and energy efficient wall and cooling systems, have already been demonstrated in several model homes.

Solar farm projects in Ontario and PV manufacturing in British Columbia are proving that Canada is not too far north to benefit from the sun’s energy via the PV industry. Industry in Sault St Marie will be able to use power from “flat plate” panels that will feed power directly into the municipal grid. And in Burnaby, BC, Day4 Solar Power is producing solar panels for the German and European market. With one installation already in place in Germany and two more in production, Day4 is fueling the Burnaby economy with jobs and material procurement.

This last item might appeal to those of us who have trouble throwing anything away. Several green-lifestyle bloggers aren’t throwing away anything, including their trash. Instead, as reported in CNet.com, they’re stashing it in their basements, garages and even their houses, so that they can record it, videotape it and blog about it. Some of them even have worm bins to digest their food-waste, which could result in some nice compost for their gardens next spring.

Of course, this is all in an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle by being more aware of what products come into their homes and how the product or its wrapper impacts the environment as part of the waste-stream. They’re all trying to reduce the size of their carbon footprint, which is what we all need to do in anyway we can.

You may remember my “When Green Energy Isn’t” article from June, when i pointed out a few flaws in the whole biofuels scenario.  When you burn ethanol, you produce CO2, when you make fertilizer to grow the corn, use tractors to plow the fields, ferment corn to make the ethanol, you are generating CO2.  The only real question here, is how much CO2 that you are generating compared to gasoline and traditional diesel?

Well whatever that answer is, a new study out of Princeton, published in Science, demonstrates that when clearing of land used for biofuels is counted in the equation, they generate twice the CO2 as would gasoline.  Joseph Fargione, lead author of another paper, also published in Science says ”The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land”.  The short story is that growing crops for biofuels replaces vegetation that actually removed carbon from the air.  This means all the carbon stored before biofuel farming is now in the air as CO2 and the carbon that is being taken from the air by the crops is being used to burn as biofuel putting that CO2 right back into the atmosphere.

I’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: We can’t just shift to a fuel that has a smaller carbon component, we need a solution that has little or no carbon dioxide emissions.  Moving CO2 around so that an industrial process, such as making biofuels, wastes more energy and emits more CO2, while it’s end products, biodiesel and ethanol bost a lower CO2 ouput than crude oil derived fuels. It’s not just bad policy and a threat to world food supplies, Bio Fuels are the Big Lie of this new century.  Sure they keep the US from needing Middle East Oil, but that’s a fight for commerce or against terrorism, not a fight against CO2.  Don’t fall for the “Biofuels” wolf, wearing sheep’s clothing.

Don’t gimme that look!  I’m not saying that we need to ban the hot shower or even to shower less, though we probably need to.  I’m just saying that nothing wastes heat, like taking a nice, hot shower and the longer your shower the bigger the waste.  The same is true for baths, laundry and even the hot pasta water your draining into the sink.  Nearly all the energy and heat we put into that water is wasted down the drain.  While conserving water and using less hot water is a great idea, it leaves the problem unresolved. The solution involves recovering the heat from the water as it leaves the home for the sewer lines.

The solution is a heat exchanger that will pull some of the heat from the drain lines, before the warm water leaves the home.  Great idea?  Well it’s not just an idea, it is now available and it’s called GFX Drain Water Heat Exchanger.  This heat exchanger claims to recapture upto 80% of the heat coming thru the drain.  There are different sized exchangers and installation methods that effect the efficiency, but it’s hard to argue with efficiency of over 50%.  The real question is whether it’s cost effective.  The company that is selling them claims they have 30-50 year lifetime, but warrant them for 10 years.  The company Inventroment Energy Solutions has a website at www.gfxstar.ca with lots of information on their product.  It’s certainly worth a visit, just think of all the energy that has been wasted down the drain since indoor plumbing and instant hot water became widespread.

I was amazed the other evening as i watched the news and they focused on the many uses of bamboo.  If you are thinking bamboo fishing rods and huts from Gilligan’s Island, then you know what bamboo looks like.  If you don’t, you cane read more about it here: Wikipedia article on bamboo .  It’s quite remarkable that a “wood” bearing plant can grow over 3 feet in a single day, without needing humans to care for it.  Many of us have seen bamboo used for flooring in recent years.  Bamboo was easily accecpted because it was considerably less costly than wooden flooring, yet provided many of the same visual and tactile experiences of wooden flooring.  Overall bamboo is an excellent substitute for wood, requires fewer resources to grow, creating less environmental impact than current lumbering practices.  And, like wood, it stores carbon.If only a similar solution could be found for the environmental impact of the cotton, used in so many pieces of our clothing.  No, i’m not suggesting synthetics.  

If we could eliminate the chemical and water use dedicated to growing cotton, it would be a good thing environmentally.  Though it would be considerably less good for the people who grow cotton.  There does appear to be a substitute for the ”cotton problem”.  The solution is found in the form of a plant, known as bamboo.  Yes, bamboo! I am not attempting to bamboozle you, this is the truth.  Bamboo can be made into fibers, threads and ultimately fabric that can replace cotton and synthetic fibers in our clothing.  It produces fibers softer than cotton.  Check out one manafacturer’s site: Bamboo Clothes.

Around the world we are seeing bamboo join other fabrics in our closet. So, have we saved the world, with the miraculous bamboo plant?  No! There is no 1 step to that saves the world, it’s a series of steps, by billions of people that will make the difference.  So if we save slower growing trees from industry by supplying fast growing bamboo to the paper, building and garment industry, we reduce environmental impact, not thru sacrifice, but through substitution.