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Modular Reused Recycled Renewable Energy

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

It is official.

We saved $3,963.62 in water and power from 2008 to 2009. The results are somewhat skewed due to the consolidation of our office into the household, but the savings are real as the office was an electric hog, and its equipment still is….even though it has been relocated to the house. The office savings were $2,923.80.

The Household savings were $1,039.82 with more usage (more people in the house for more hours), and many more trees in the yard.

Per the construct of this project, we can now invest this amount back into the household to further reduce the energy and water consumption.

There are many little projects where we could make an impact for this amount of money, but I really didn’t get excited about any of the conventional solutions.

In the last decades of the Computer Industry there have been “religious wars” after war on what was the best technology and efficiency, etc. But, over time simple, modular, and inclusive seems to win over elegant, efficient, and proprietary solutions. Interfacing multiple disparate systems always seems to win over uniformity (API’s or USB, etc).

So, we set for ourselves not to assume a Grid, or standards (safety yes), but to think in terms of small modular units which could be constructed by Reusing Parts, Recycling Parts to obtain renewable energy.

We want a functioning systems from Cats, and Dogs, and Junk for our energy. Thinking in efficiency terms tends to bring us always back to the same place: Large, Elegant, and Expensive.

We would like modular, common and effective. What has always made these systems work has been the wiring or wireless backbone, and the interfaces. These we will have to work out, but we want an inclusive system: Wind, Solar, Big, Small, Micro.

What got some of this thinking moving was a number of Youtube videos using computer printer motors to light LED’s, and some Wind Turbines using Tape Drive motors. We have been throwing these motors away for years where apparently they might have a second life as power generators.

So, we gave a $1,000 to a friend to see what he could come up with….and he has found a couple large Squirrel Fan carcases which he will try to convert. And, gutted a printer to get our first two motors probably to drive LED lights.

The vision is to keep creating power sources on opportunity with whatever is at hand and then to build a backbone with common interfaces to we can exploit this energy to reduce our expenses and foot print with: Modular Reused Recycled Renewable Energy

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Reuse Planting Containers

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

For the initial Planting Containers, we decided just to use Household trash to begin with…….Every week there are at least two Gallon Milk containers, 1 18 Egg Pack, 6 or more Cans, Styrofoam meat and poultry trays, and other miscellaneous plastic and paper containers. Basically, lots of containers for lots of seedlings. We get a bit lazy about planting for a few weeks and then madly try to get caught up with the supply of Reuse Containers. Here is a link to the Product Page on RecycledPlants.com showing some sample containers.

The process of converting the containers into Planting Containers is straight forward. The Household waste is sorted into four basic groups:

1) Plastic
2) Paper
3) Cans
4) Egg Cartons and Meat trays

1) For plastic containers with narrow tops, we use a box cutter to cut off the top sufficient to have a opening which makes it easy to add plants. Then I use a hobby soldering iron which I use to melt two or three holes in the bottom of the containers for drainage.

2) We do the Paper Containers the same way as the Plastic Containers. Cut off the tops if required and burn drainage holes.

3) The Cans just need Drainage holes, and for this we use a small Phillips Screw driver as a punch and a small tack hammer and punch two or three holes in the bottoms for Drainage.

4) Our Egg Cartoons are paper which makes them great for small seeds, but we found out they fall apart very easily so we started using the meat trays under the Egg Cartoons so I could move them around. Then we noticed the trays didn’t drain (obviously as they were plastic), so we burned drainage holes in them with the soldering iron and this combination made for nice seed trays.

Here is a link to our video on how to convert your household trash into Reuse Planting Containers.

We keep our eye out for nursery containers being thrown out and salvage a few every month or so. We reuse 5 gallon containers usually paint, and a local restaurant helps us out in several ways: they save the 5 Gallon Oil containers which we reuse, and they save CRV containers which we turn in to help with our 15 Gallon Container purchase fund.

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First Purchases

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

We sold a lug or case of Avocados, very large and superior Fuertes, for $20 to a great local restaurant. Cases are usually 25lbs, but we added an extra five pounds to make sure they were happy. Also, they offered to help us with the project by saving the CRV containers for us and saving the 5 Gallon Oil containers so we could recycle them as planting containers. This is going to be a great relationship. The restaurant is also going to save the Avocado pits so we can plant them for resale in a few years. (See, www.recycledplants.com for how they look as starter seedlings)

We then took this money and went to Costco in San Bernardino (http://www.priceviewer.com/costco_locations/478-California.html) which a great promotion on with Southern California Edison for an instant rebate program on Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. (http://www.sce.com/residential/rebates-savings/lighting/)

Basically, the deal was to buy the lights bulbs and get an instant 75% to 83% discount at check out. So, we bought two packs of 4 120W outdoor flood lights from FEIT Electric (http://www.feitelectric.com/compact_fluorescent/feit_compactfluorescent.html) They are significantly brighter than the old 100 Watt bulbs and the claim is they used 75% less energy or 23 Watts and last 5 times longer and save me $465 per year per pack? Not bad. Even better was that these CFL’s would have cost $17.29 and with Costco and Southern California Edison’s teamwork on the instant rebate the cost to us was: $17.29 – $13.00 = $4.29 plus tax per pack.

We also purchased a 16 pack or indoor 100 Watt CFL from Lights of America (http://www.lightsofamerica.com/en/Product%20Categories/CFL.aspx) and again the claim was they only used 23 watts per bulb and this would save me $77 per bulb per year? or life time? It is unclear what they are claiming….but somewhere, sometime, we are supposed to get 16 X $77 = $1232 in savings. Again, even better was that these CFL’s would have cost $30.59 and with Costco and Southern California Edison’s teamwork on the instant rebate the cost to us was: $30.59 – $25.60 = $4.99 plus tax.

The total purchase was only $13.57 after rebate, and with the claims of $2162 in savings (unsure of time frames) would still be in the 15932% return on investment (not concerned about), let alone the astounding claims of beneficial impact to the environment like “green house gases saved by using the bulbs in this pack are the equivalent to planting 165 trees” (do care about).

Tags: cfl
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Actions already taken

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

In October of 2008, we got started with the following actions:

1) We put quart or liter bottles filled with rocks and sealed in all five toilets….hoping for a one quart savings per flush.

2) Added shower timers. does not seem like much but we had some very long shower people.

3) Mowed the lawn higher and reduced the water one day a week. (this has since be raised to three days a week). Things look fine even in a semi-desert (or dry Mediterranean) environment.

4) Where possible moved to drip irrigation from sprinklers, and for the seedlings placed them in sprinkler areas where no additional water is needed to grow them…

5) Replace light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. I wish I could find the reference to give the guy credit, but I was searching for how to repair and trouble shoot outdoor Halogen Lights, and he suggested not doing the repair and replacing the Halogen fixture with a standard outdoor fixture and using Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs because they were cooler, used less energy and cost less. I have two of the three replaced so far and the third one is turned off until it can be replaced.

6) We used to get 9 – 55 Gallon trash cans to yard debris every week which was hauled to the dump (at least we did have a green prick up in Riverside). And, we often used to have to take a pick up to the dump filled with logs, and trimmings 10 to 20 times a year at $10 a load plus gas and time and labor. We started mulching like I said in October of 2008. I was worried that the entire yard (2/3 of a acre) would be covered in four feet of mulch, and what would the neighbors think. Most of the debris is several monstrous trees planted in 1907. In particular, a Coast Live Oak with about a 150 foot spread which is slowly dying from all the smog over the decades and it is about 20 to 30 miles outside of its normal range, and a Moreton Bay Fig…should never be put in a residential setting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_macrophylla The one in this link is small compared to mine. The tallest in North America is in back of San Diego’s Natural History Museum and was planted in 1914. By 1996 it stood 23.7 metres (78 feet) high and 37.4 metres (123 feet) across (per the link), ours must be a very close 2nd as it was planted in 1907. Unfortunately most of the debris is dry, so I worried about how long it would take to mulch, but I under estimated worms and bugs. They eat the debris as fast as I can put it on the beds. Weeds and Water usage is reduced. I do no turning or classical mulching techniques, I am too old and natures does a good enough job.

7) The logs we burn in the winter in the two or the three fireplaces in the house.

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Recycled Plants Flyer

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Www.RecycledPlants.com

An adventure in turning recyclable containers and plants into renewable energy. Here is the challenge (a senior project):

1)take “volunteers” from the garden and plant them in recycled house hold containers.
2)When it is time to transplant from the smaller containers into 15 gallon containers, these have to be purchased ONLY using funds that came from the plants themselves, other plants in the garden (avocados and grapefruits in season) or from CRV monies (thank you uncle Arnold).
3)Not use any additional water for the plants.
www.recycledplants.com plants for sales in recycled containers
The final step is to sell the plants in the 15 gallon containers and use the money from the sale of Recycled Plants to fund Renewable Energy to reduce the power, gas and water bills on the House as well as water conservation projects.