Energy
What Makes a Home a Green Home?
May 14, 2012 | 
Author What Makes a Home a Green House?
One of the main topics today is about being environmentally friendly. There are many ways to become environmentally friendly about the home including water preservation and energy reduction. This not only helps with a positive action by reducing your impact on the environment, but will also save you money!
Lets take a look at what makes a home environmentally friendly.
Reduced Energy Use
Energy comes in many forms such as electricity, natural gas, oil, etc. The creation or use of this energy results in greenhouse gas emissions that affect our planet in a negative way.
Methods of Reducing Energy Usage
Insulation, One of the best things that you can do to make a green home is to ensure that the walls, windows, attic, and floors are all well insulated and draft free. The majority of the energy used in a home goes towards heating the house. Good insulation will prevent the air temperature from escaping the home and save you money on your utilities.
Energy Star Appliances When one of your appliances has reached it’s end of life, or when you areconstructing a new home, consider installing an appliance that meets energy star requirements. This will ensure that it will use over 30 percent less electricity or fuel than a typical appliance of that type.
Other options include advanced mechanical Systems On demand tankless water heaters, geothermal HVAC equipment, and even solar power is a great way to reduce the amount of energy that is wasted to run the plumbing, heat and air, and electrical systems in the home. While they can have a higher upfront cost than a typical unit of its kind, tax incentives from the government can offset a good deal of the extra cost and allow you to make the money back within a few years time.
Reduced Water Use
Water is another essential resource that can be preserved in our day to day use around the house.
Low Flow Fixtures Many low flow shower heads and toilets developed a bad reputation in the past because they could not live up to their less efficient counterparts. Fortunately, todays better engineered models and aerators allow you to experience the luxury and ease of use that you prefer, while additionally using a significantly lower amount of water.
Efficient Clothes Washers Many of the newer front loading clothes washers use as little as half of the water of a typical top loading washer. For families who are constantly putting in a new load of dirty clothes, this can lead to a significant savings in cost and water usage over time.
Use Rain Water For Irrigation For those who want to really cut down on water usage, storage tanks that collect rain water during a storm for latter use to water the garden and lawn can save thousands of gallons over the span of a summer.
These are just a few of the many ideas out there that will help ensure that your home is green. Environmentally friendly decisions in the home can lead to wallet friendly results over time and allow for the satisfaction of knowing you are reducing your negative impact on the planet.
At Be Seen Go Green, we offer solutions for a variety of Environmental issues. Please click on the following link to contact us.
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Renewable Energy – Practical Home Options
As a homeowner, you may be using renewable energy sources. Let’s look at a few of these important, powerful sources.
If you use solar powered lights to brighten your walkway, a solar cover on your swimming pool or hang your clothes out to dry, you are already making use of the sun’s renewable energy. There are many other renewable energy home options you can take advantage of, and by doing so, help preserve our environment.
The most practical of renewable energy options for the home consist of space heating and domestic hot water. This is over 50% of a household’s energy usage. In using renewable energy we can experience cost saving benefits.
Perhaps the best way to take advantage of renewable energy home options is when designing a new house. A southern wall taking advantage of an appropriate amount of windows can take full use of the low sun in the winter. Adding a roof overhang over these windows allow the higher summer sun to be blocked. Also, on a cool day you can open your windows to let a breeze cool off the house and make use of wind energy. You have achieved adding heat in the winter and coolness in the summer, thereby lowering your heating and cooling costs naturally. This is called passive solar heating since it is integrated with no extra costs. You can also do day lighting by taking full advantage of the sunlight during the day to take care of your daytime lighting needs.
Wood stoves can also be advantageous, if using only dead wood, diseased wood or small pellets made from wood chips, crop waste and other organic material for burning. This is a renewable source of heat through the use of space heating. Modern wood burning stoves are highly efficient, making it a more practical option.
A homeowner can also utilize active solar heating. A solar water heater can use renewable solar energy to heat water for a house. This would use solar collector panels placed on a roof. Water runs through pipes under these panels and is heated by the sun. The water travels to a water tank in your home for your use. Electricity can also be produced for a home using the photovoltaic technology. This runs on the same idea as a solar calculator. Solar electricity is ideal for rural homes where it would be difficult to run an electric line to.
Geothermal heat pumps use the heat from the Earth to move heat from one area to another. This system uses a series of underground pipes to move a heat exchange fluid. The heat pump moves this fluid, heated from the earth and transfers it to buildings for use. Initial installation costs are much the same as traditional heating systems, but operational costs are lower.
If you live in a windy part of the country and have quite a bit of land, wind can power a wind turbine to produce electricity for your household. But your location must be ideal to catch wind and you must be able to capture a certain amount for this to work.
These are some home options for renewable energy sources. By trying to utilize some of them we are preparing for our future by using clean energy that does not affect air quality or harm the environment.
The Future of Wind Power
(April 16, 2008) Christina Archer, consulting assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, discusses the importance of win power in a clean and renewable future. The Energy Seminar meets weekly during the academic year. For a list of upcoming talks, visit the events page at the Woods Institute for the Environment website. Stanford University www.stanford.edu Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford: woods.stanford.edu Christina Archer www.stanford.edu Stanford University Channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com
The Importance of Renewable Energy Resources
The modern lifestyle depends tremendously on the use and existence of fossil fuels. With levels of these fuels constantly decreasing, we should act now to become less dependant on fossil fuels and more dependent on renewable energy sources.
The decreasing levels of fossil fuels isn’t the only reason why we should begin to use renewable energy. Pollution is becoming a huge problem in many countries around the world, especially the developing world. With carbon emissions at an all time high, air quality can be very low in some areas, this can lead to respiratory diseases and cancer.
The main reason to switch to cleaner energy production methods is the global warming aspect. The more carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere, the greater the effect becomes. We can’t just stop using fossil fuels thinking that global warming will go away, but we can slow down and dilute the effects of global warming through the wide spread use of renewable energy resources.
There are many natural energy sources out there, but you have to decide which method is best for you, as all of these sources depend on your current environment.
The installation of a solar panel or a wind turbine to boost every homes power supply would be an amazing step forward. Some governments are in the process of supplying solar panels to hundreds of households to test this method of energy saving.
A technology set to be very important in the future is geothermal energy. With geothermal energy, you are able to extract heat from within the earth and transform it either into a hot water system, or if there is plenty of this energy, a geothermal power plant. Huge amounts of money have been flowed into research of this method, especially in recent years, in order to make the current technology more effective.
So there we have the reasons why we should turn to renewable energy resources which are more than likely to play a very vital and important role in our future society.
The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme – A Review
We are now well on the road to the end of the first year of the CRC.
We’ve had the scare stories, the organisations failing to register, or less organisations registering than were first thought. Early estimates from the Government suggested 5000 plus organisations would be full participants with a further 20,000 as information disclosures.
We’ve had just over 3,700 full participants register, what does this tell us?
For me, based on my research, it tells me that a lot of organisations didn’t understand what they needed to do. For example, a car dealership, an example DEFRA used in their literature, if that dealership was a single franchise, SEAT for example, then if a single SEAT dealer anywhere else in the UK had a half hour meter then ALL SEAT dealerships and SEAT companies were in, under the banner of SEAT, who had the responsibility of collating this information. That’s nice and simple, until you then look at if that same dealership had say SEAT and VW at the same premises, they’re out? Add to that the ability to register independently so the SEAT brand did not have to account for everything that traded under its name . . . confused . . . therein lies the problem!
At least the Con/Dem co-alition government has pushed back the full implementation of phase 1 of the CRC by 12 months, the same for Phase 2.They are also looking at making the scheme simpler, firstly by making it a Tax, no payments from the pot for those that reduce emissions the most, Good or Bad?
For me it’s a bit of good and bad, organisations no longer being rewarded for reducing emissions will need to find some other motivation to reduce emissions! The good side is that it is giving these organisation more time to get to grips with the scheme, however, as experience has shown, a lot of organisation left it to the last minute before registering for the CRC, will they do the same again?
Initially Phase 1 reporting is primarily about Scope 1 & 2 emissions, Scope 1 being based on energy you produce, for example if you had a wind turbine and selling electricity back to the grid, Scope 2 is for energy you purchase.
However Phase 2 of the CRC is interesting, as it suggests that Scope 3 emissions will be included in a company’s declaration, a good way of introducing mandatory emissions reporting for all via the back door. Scope 3 covers everything from Travel to Suppliers.
If we look at suppliers for a large organisation, this could easily be in the thousands, a local authority I recently met with, have in excess of 5000 suppliers, under phase 2 they will need to liaise with all 5000, collate the emissions data for those 5000 and submit under the local authorities umbrella.
This will be an administrative nightmare for the unprepared, both the supplier and the large organisation. This will mean that for those who tender for work from larger organisations it will no longer be just a tick box exercise for environmental policy, such as ISO14001, it will be a detailed report on emissions and those not able to submit such a report, will ultimately, not win any business.
At Be Seen Go Green, we offer solutions for a variety of Environmental issues. Please click on the following link to contact us.
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Waste Management| Made simple
Mention waste management to most people and they either do not have a clue what you might be talking about, or they genuinely are not interested! It just sounds a load of rubbish, what do you care what other people do with stuff they do not want? Even so, once you begin delving into what waste management is all about, then you realise there’s a entire cycle of events going on and it is quite an interesting topic to discover about.
Waste management is essentially how rubbish and trash is disposed of without causing any harm to other people or the environment. There are different aspects to waste management; these contain monitoring, collection, transportation, processing, and disposal or recycling. When carried out properly, waste management is efficient and extremely environmentally friendly, and in today’s world is some thing each conscientious company need to take responsibility for.
There are specialized environmental organizations that present guidance and services for waste collection, not only for householders, but also for industries and companies. They're experienced in all areas of waste management solutions and will remove all your waste efficiently and speedily, transporting it to be disposed of in the correct manner, or recycled.
A few of the waste services provided to industrial clients contain waste collection, recycling and disposal, hazardous waste management, emergency response, laboratory services, asbestos removal and re-Insulation.
Inside the first instance the environment service is concerned with monitoring, this is to identify the type of waste produced and in what quantity; they can then evaluate the processes they must put into place to decrease the quantity of waste produced. Records are kept to see if strategies put into place are working and, if not, techniques can be changed and re-examined to make their implementation far more efficient.
Once the waste has been monitored and assessed it really is time for the collection process. Skip bins and containers need to be emptied prior to they become too full and prevention of overspill or produce to rot is extremely essential. Depending on the quantity of waste produced will dictate the size and number of containers needed, and how frequently collections will be necessary. There are different containers for every type of waste, some of these contain drums for hazardous liquid waste, tanks for acid or caustic waste, collection bins for e-waste and bulk bins and skip bins for construction site waste.
Next in the cycle is organizing the transportation of all waste items collected.Specially created waste vehicles make scheduled collections and are responsible for safely transporting it to the landfill, or treatment site where it will be treated and then processed for Recycling. Vehicles need to meet safety standards and be licensed for this purpose, as waste can be a health hazard and even dangerous if not handled properly, drivers and personnel connected with the transportation are needed to have the essential training and experience to deal with any prospective danger.
Once the waste has all been collected it needs to be processed. This involves separating the waste collected, treating and then packaging the raw materials and sending the parts that can be recycled to the different factories which are all component of the recycling procedure. Materials that can’t be recycled will be transported to a landfill, and liquid and hazardous wastes will be disposed of safely.
Improvements and new practices in waste management and environmental solutions are in the news all the time, thanks to analysis and development projects which are committed to discovering far more efficient and safe ways of disposing of waste. There are many things which are recyclable now that just several years ago would have been thrown into a rising landfill, everyday items for example paper, glass, newspapers and plastic bags to printer cartridges, corks, mobile phones, even fluorescent lamps can be treated and re-used.
Society has experienced a massive learning curve in the truth that if we do not take action now to make certain our waste is processed properly; nature will gladly do it for us, and in ways which can be detrimental to our environment.
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The Differences Between Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, and Alternative Energy
To many people, the differences between “alternative energy,” “renewable energy,” and “clean energy,” might not be obvious. But each term is unique and has its own individual definition. These three terms are not all exactly the same.
Alternative Energy
When we speak of alternative energy, we refer to sources of usable energy that can replace conventional energy sources (usually, without undesirable side effects). The term “alternative energy” is typically used to refer to sources of energy other than nuclear energy or fossil fuels.
Throughout the course of history, “alternative energy” has referred to different things. There was a time when nuclear energy was considered an alternative to conventional energy, and was therefore called “alternative energy.” But times have changed.
These days, a form of “alternative energy” might also be renewable energy, or clean energy, or both. The terms are often interchangeable, but definitely not the same.
Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is any type of energy which comes from renewable natural resources, such as wind, rain, sunlight, geothermal heat, and tides. It is referred to as “renewable” because it doesn’t run out. You can always get more of it.
People have begun to turn to this type of energy due to the rising oil prices, and the prospect that we might one day deplete available sources of fossil fuels, as well as due to concerns about the adverse effects that our conventional energy sources have on the environment.
Of all the different types of renewable energy, wind power is one which is growing in its use. The number of users who have some form of wind power installed has increased, with the current worldwide capacity being about 100 GW.
Clean Energy
“Clean energy” is simply any form of energy which is created with clean, harmless, and non-polluting methods.
Most renewable energy sources are also clean energy sources. But not all.
One such example is geothermal power. It may be a renewable energy source, but some geothermal energy processes can be harmful to the environment. Therefore, this is not always a clean energy. However there are also other forms of geothermal energy which are harmless and clean.
Clean energy makes the less impact on the environment than our current conventional energy sources do. It creates an insignificant amount of carbon dioxide, and its use can reduce the speed of global warming – or global pollution.
As you can see, alternative energy, renewable energy, and clean energy are very similar. But it is important to know that there are differences.
There are many actions which can be taken, to help reduce the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Some of these steps can be taken in your own home. Many clean energy solutions can can be easily installed, and some kits are quite affordable.
Carbon emissions and other forms of pollution are not only created by heavy industrial factories. They are created in the common household as well. Energy efficiency has become an important aspect of our lives.
It’s important to start making changes now; if we want to save our planet for our children, for the flora and fauna of the Earth, and for the future of mankind. Clean energy, to be exact, can make a big difference.
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How You Can Convert Your Home Into a Complete Source of Renewable Energy
A few years ago renewable energy such as solar power and wind power was an impossible dream for the average person. Why? It was very very expensive to turn your own home into a solar power generator. In fact you were unlikely to ever make your money back with the energy savings. But recently all of that has changed.
Both solar power and wind power have become genuine alternative energy sources in the last few years. And the best thing is, you can create working generators and plates/turbines yourself, for very little cost. This means you will be saving thousands of dollars making them, and then thousands more when they are up and running.
Has there ever been a better time to get green? Not only is electricity the most expensive it has EVER been right now, but the planet is also in the worst shape it has ever been. What do these two things mean for you? They mean you should try and generate some of your power (even if you only decide to make 20% of your own power).
It is not hard to get the materials, and as long as you have a good manual to follow you should easily be able to implement your own system and start saving money on your bills. Solar power is ideal for just about any home in America (amongst other countries). Wind power is ideal for higher up (hilly terrain) locations or large flat locations. On top of saving a lot of money or your bills you will find yourself having fun with a great family project.
UK Must cut Emissions By 60%
The Committee on Climate Change has called on the UK to cut its emissions by 60% compared to 1990 levels over the next twenty years.
In its report ‘The Fourth Carbon Budget – Reducing emissions through the 2020s’ the committee puts the case for creating a new marker in the battle to cut emissions.
At present most targets are aimed at cuts on 1990 emissions levels before 2050. But to drive the fight against climate change the committee suggests a plan as part of a carbon budget for 2023 to 2027 and a target for emissions reductions in 2030, which would be halfway between now and 2050.
The recommended target for 2030 is to cut emissions by 60% relative to 1990 levels, or 46% relative to current levels, which needs a 62% emissions reduction from 2030 to meet the 2050 target in Britain’s Climate Change Act.
The committee estimates the recommended target can be achieved at a cost of less than 1% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or as it states in the report ‘a fraction of one year’s growth’ over the next two decades.
It also backs that new carbon budgets should be legislated by summer 2011, as required under the Climate Change Act.
Committee on Climate Change chair said: “We are recommending a stretching but realistic fourth carbon budget and 2030 target, achievable at a cost of less than 1% of GDP. “Any less ambition would not be compatible with the 2050 target in the Climate Change Act. “We therefore urge the Government to legislate the budget we have recommended, and to develop the policies required to cut emissions over the next two decades. “The case for action on climate change is as strong as ever: climate science remains robust and suggests that there are very significant risks if we do not cut emissions. And countries acting now will gain economic benefits in an increasingly carbon constrained world.”
The CBI’s director of business environment, backed the new 2030 target. He said: “We support the UK’s existing climate change targets for 2020 and 2050 and businesses are already taking steps to measure and reduce their emissions. “The Committee’s proposal for an extra staging post at 2030 could provide additional clarity for investors, but the feasibility of the proposed target would need to be examined in detail. “Investors will only commit to low-carbon projects if they are confident about the policy framework in the long-term. “The Government’s forthcoming announcements on reform of the electricity market and work to simplify the Carbon Reduction Commitment will be crucial tests.”
At Be Seen Go Green, we offer solutions for a variety of Environmental issues. Please click on the following link to contact us.
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Increased fine for Company Charged with breaching waste regulations
A FIRM who broke waste dumping laws had their fine increased more than 11 times to £90,000 recently.
The Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh upheld a challenge brought by the Crown over the level of the sentence imposed on Doonin Plant.
They were originally fined just £8000 for breaking environmental laws as they dumped waste at Bardykes bing between Blantyre and Cambuslang, Lanarkshire.
Lord Clarke said the conduct of the company had involved “a blatant and complacent disregard” of its responsibilities.
The judges said they were satisfied that the original fine was unduly lenient.
(source Daily Record)
Could this be just the start of increased fines for companies flouting the environmental regulations?
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