Final blog for Renewable energy

Well it has been great but here is my final blog and I am going to start by discussing a scientific view of renewable energy sources and leave you with my parting thoughts for the project/blogging experience. Now for the scientific view of renewable/green energy. Renewable does not mean green, the environment can be destroyed by building to many dams, wind farms, or growing to much biomass to meet global energy demands. When you consider the renewable energy in terms of watts per square meter the greenest energy is nuclear energy. Biomass energy is extremely inefficient and destructive to nature, biomass energy drains nutrients from the soil, and takes away from nature, it is good to subsidize the energy market with biomass energy but we can’t fully support the energy crisis with biomass energy even if we could for a little bit we would eventually dry up our water and drain all the nutrients out of our land. Solar power is not the best solution for renewable energy either, based on the huge surface area they require to support them. Renewable energy may be renewable but remember renewable doesn’t equal green. So in order to minimize the rape of mother earth we should consider options with the smallest footprint on nature, other than the waste storage nuclear seems ok, as long as it is well supervised and not another Chernobyl. In closing for this blog posting I would like to say renewable energy isn’t always the best thing. Make your own opinions and decide for yourself weather green energy is renewable and what renewable is the best choice. I think you should consider nuclear energy as an option and I think that the green energy has a direct effect on ecofeminism because by the green energy we respect our environment more, which in turn will lead us to respecting women more. In the same way the abuse of fossil fuels leads to the abuse of the environment which oppresses and abuses women, like through the rape of mother earth.

Economics of renewable energy

Hi everyone, I am sure you are all as excited to read this as I am to post it but here is my blog posting for the economical aspects of renewable (green) energy. Well to start out with lets talk about wind turbines. The electricity produced has a higher up front cost of production from wind turbines than it does from more traditional methods like fossil fuel consumption. However as with all things economic you must look past the up front cost, and consider long term cost, opportunity cost, and environmental cost. When wind turbines are built they cost a large sum of money for each unit, but in the long term they are saving fossil fuels and are producing a good amount of energy for the world. On the down side if you are a bird watcher you will hate these because well birds seem to fly into the turbine blades and kill themselves. However, a few birds to save the over consumption of fossil fuels like coal, a fair trade in my opinion. In exchange for the loss of a few birds though we will reap the following benefits:
one unit wind turbine will offset the emission of 7,100,000 pounds of CO2
33,000 pounds of SOx (an contributor to acid rain and smog)
10,000 pounds of NOx (a leading component of smog and cause of asthma)
the amount of pollution saved annually is the equivalent to planting 83,000 new trees, or driving 75,000,000 miles less in a conventional automobile each year.
This kind of put it in perspective about how green the renewable energy can really be, these numbers are annually so this is just one years worth of accumulation.

So when you weigh the benefits vs the cost of renewable energy just using the example of wind power it seems to be an easy decision to me, wind power is great. This is just using one example of wind power, there are multiple different types of renewable energy that can be utilized. For more information about them and facts about them visit the following link: http://www.aresearchguide.com/energy.html

Artistic views of green enrgy

Hello again everyone. Well today I am going to talk about the artistic effects of green energy. Well if you are like me your wondering “how artistic can energy be?” well the answer is very artistic. It can be the cool angles of pictures and paintings of the wind turbines, or as direct as the silicon forest in Portland, Oregon.
Well I would say some great examples of how green energy can be viewed as artistic are shown by the following link.
http://www.lope.ca/artrenewable/index.html
Hey it is also a really cool sight to see the wind turbines in the distance as the sun is setting behind them, it is a neat picture. Some of the forms of renewable energy are designed with art in mind when they are built like the Interstate/Rose Quarter Station
Lamps these are solar powered street lights that look somewhat like a tree does. They were designed by the artist Brian Borrello. Shown Below.
This is the silicon forest artwork by Brian Borello.

I don’t think they look to bad, kind of expensive and artsy but they do utilize the use of solar energy that is collected by the solar panel and stored in a battery pack and then burned throughout the night to help keep the area illuminated and well lit.
I suppose this is an example of how just about anything can be looked at in an artistic view if you are willing to think outside of the box a little bit. This is connected back into what we have learned in class by the principle of ecofeminism. I would say that renewable energy is more friendly to the environment then fossil fuel energy and by respecting our environment we will thus respect women more because women and the environment have a direct correlation with each other.

Go Green

Hello again, first I would like to start by saying thank you for the great ideas you left in the comments section they were great ideas of where to go with the research! I would like to expand upon the political views of green energy, these views include what the Kansas is doing with energy, what our close neighbor Missouri is doing with its green/renewable energy, and kind of how all the state are ranked as energy consumption/production including a ranking of the states on who is the most earth friendly with green energy.
First, I will delve into what the Kansas Energy Council; herein known as KEC, is doing/planning to help Kansas develop and maintain green energy. Chapter 6 of the Kansas Energy plan is about wind energy, the state is setting the goal of 1,000 megawatts of energy to be produced by wind by the year 2015. The USDA is also providing grants for $250,000 for energy efficiency projects, and grants for $500,000 for renewable energy systems. Chapter 7 covers renewable energy sources and it tell in great detail ways Kansas is supporting going green.

Check out the link for more information and cruise around on the KEC Kansas energy plan at http://kec.kansas.gov/ and click on Kansas Energy Plan tab.

Secondly I will discuss Missouri and what they are doing for green/renewable energy. First off Missouri is loaning money to schools for energy efficiency upgrades. They are also big in renewable energy, for example wind energy, solar energy, and biomass energy (plant/animal material conversion like ethanol) the money incentives seem like a nice way to get people on board for the renewable and green energy.

Again look at the following link to see for yourself just what Missouri is doing for green/renewable energy because there is no way I can go in depth enough to describe it all, so surf around this site. http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/renewables/index.html

Now for how the whole US ranks for green and renewable energy. I know I said I was going to post a rank but this is almost impossible due to the fact that some states have more financial incentives, some have more laws, some have more or less policies. I will however go ahead and tell you were you can spend hours upon hours of time comparing Kansas to the rest of the states and even U.S. territories for financial incentives, rules, and regulations. For example KS has 5 state provided incentives for renewable energy, but Missouri has 15 incentives for renewable energy. (oops Kathleen Sebelius appears to currently be behind Missouri)

The website is http://www.dsireusa.org/Index.cfm?EE=0&RE=1
Definitely check this one out.

Go Green

Well looks like I’m back at it again blogging about my findings with green energy. This week I will be talking about the political view of green energy (I was going to talk more about the scientific but that will be later to come I haven’t received a reply yet from the professor working in that area). In the logic of keeping this blog somewhat short I will refer to a few links that I will also post into this blog.
One of the ways that politics are getting involved is tax breaks for renewable energy companies, in fact a bill was just passed 2-18-2008 in Oregon to expand the states tax credits for renewable energy companies. They increased the budget from 10 million dollars to 20 million dollars for tax breaks to present to renewable energy companies. But you can further read about this at:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2008/02/house_approves_renewableenergy.html

Another way politics are involved is for example Gov. Chet Culver from Iowa, he wants to have 25 percent of the United States of America’s energy to be renewable by the year 2025. Representative Janet Petersen is the key player in this plan because of her position heading the house commerce committee. As far as presidential candidates that support green energy/non-renewable energy I found that as much as I don’t like her other policies Hilarly Clinton seems to support renewable energy sources and wants to see us curb our energy demand, at least on oil, before it is to late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301968.html

The state of Iowa seems to be the leading state in the United States in going green they seem to have great political leaders in the state and are leading by example they have programs supporting ethanol, more efficient homes, and wind energy. Iowa is the leader and they are encouraging their local residents to participate in going green by research, education and demonstration.

http://www.kcci.com/sponsors/14888783/detail.html

I would also like to add that John McCain supports enviromentalism and you can check that out for yourself at the following link. John McCain also is paving the way for renewabel energy by bumerouse methods includeing support for hydrogen cars. check out the following links.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/John_McCain_Environment.htm

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/John_McCain_Energy_+_Oil.htm

Go Green, Save Green

Hi, I will be doing the informed citizenship style project. The title implies that going green with energy will save green and indeed it will (but will it save just the enviroment or will it save you some cash too). I will be researching about green energy with an emphasis on bio diesel and other energy sources that can power automobiles, and even be used to produce electricity instead of fussil fuel use. I will try to contact a professor here at the university that is currently working with bio diesel and I will see if I can interview him and possibly even try to help him with his research. I will be researching other energy sources as well such as wind energy, solar energy and even hydrogen energy. I will be researching all of these green forms of energy from the following five perspectives: scientific, political, economic, cultural, and artistic.
I will relate these green energy sources to the class by showing what women are doing in the development, backing, implementation, and improving of these green energy forms. I will talk about how women and men alike are working on these new green energy forms and I will specifically look into if/how women are exploited, deceived, discouraged, or stereotyped against in any of the process. I would wager to say that the women are the only real reason for there being a great artistic aspect to green energy but I could be wrong. (it sure wouldn’t be the first time, and won’t be the last.) I am interested to see how the politics are backing the ideas of green energy and if there are any current programs being funded by the government for new energy sources besides ethanol and soy diesel.
It will also be interesting to see what kinds of alternatives there are out there for automobile fuels in the future, and what the future of electric energy will be in 5 years or maybe even 20 years, I anticipate a few potential problems in this research, they are as follows: not being able to efficiently communicate with the professor at the university, not being able to find a artistic view of energy sources, but I think art is vaguely defined, and finding the true economic cost/benefits of green energy.