My blog is worth $192,508.14.
How much is your blog worth?
Pat of Chicago Bungalow has a post on how regulated and convoluted the use and disposal of the soon to be required compact fluorescent lightbulbs are including some quotes from the EPA on how to do it.
Another example of how absurd over regulation can be. Maybe consumers ought to take a look at LED bulbs instead of the much touted, mercury filled, CFL's.
At a recent meeting of Clayton's EEAC committee, we were shown a large poster which had a rendering of the planned changes to downtown. One of the items of note was the addition of storm water planters which will be placed next to storm drain openings. Storm water planters are used to catch much of the rain water runoff before it gets to the drain.
The water goes into the planter's soil and is contained. Any water which flows out of the planter when the soil is saturated, is much less that without the planter and, has had many of the bad chemicals filtered out. This link shows how they are used in Portland, Oregon.
This is an especially good idea for Clayton, a city in which many of the storm and sewer lines are combined.
A follow up to the post just below on the conference call I took part in yesterday between 20 bloggers and 5 congressmen.
A couple of points are clear.
Higher energy costs have a direct affect on the cost of most everything else, food, goods, travel, etc. Each political party is looking at solving this issue in two totally different ways.
The democrats are looking at regulating what we have and how we use it, while republicans want to get more domestic energy sources up and running. The republicans see high demand and higher prices going hand in hand, thus desiring the country to begin to wean themselves from middle eastern oil and produce more of our own.
The democrats are bringing bills to the floor which are regulatory in nature: Telling the CFTC to "do their jobs", (wholly ceremonial) asking for a billion dollars for mass transit, and enforcing a "use it or lose it" stricture to the oil leases. None of these bills adds one drop to the supply.
The democrat majority is exercising their right to control the debate. This is neither right or wrong, it is the way of politics. But now everyone has left the capitol for the Fourth of July break and nothing has been accomplished in the way of working through energy and fuel issues. The republicans took drilling in the Anwar off the table, one compromise. Other than that, zero results.
My own opinion is that this country has to do something to increase its own supply. We just can't depend on other countries to sell us our gas. And, while regulating some things will work for a while, it won't solve the problem in the long run. Despite what we hear on the news, getting a flow of domestic oil up and running in new areas will not take 10 to 15 years. The infrastructure is already in place in several offshore areas including California and the gulf which would mean only a one year wait.
I had the opportunity to be part of a Blogger Conference call this afternoon featuring five members of congress and approximately 20 national bloggers. The issues on the table for discussion were gas prices and energy policy. The five members of the House who were in atttendance were, John Shimkus, Il-19, Roy Blunt, Mo-House Minority Whip, John Peterson, Pa-5, Thad McCotter, Mi-11, and Michelle Bachmann, Mn-6.
All are Republicans.
Let me mention what amazed me most about the hour I spend on the phone listening. It was the passion and energy with which each member spoke on this subject. Frankly, we rarely get to see or hear this type of passionate discourse from congressmen and we are poorer for it.
Each member spoke on what they and their party believe should be the direction the country should take when it comes to energy and that is, increased supply, and specifically, increased American, domestic production.
Their frustration stems from the fact the the democratic majority will not even allow dabate on the floor on increasing domestic output from the Anwar, from offshore, from coal, from natural gas fields. The counterpoint from the democratic side is that the oil people should be drilling on the lands on which they have leases. This has come to be known as the "use it or lose it" philosophy.
A Townhall blogger asked about the use it or lose it" leases and the response was that this land is filled with "old tired oil fields which have drills between drills". "Just because you have a bingo card does not mean you can yell bingo." In other words, just having the lease does not mean there is much left.
More later.
The Minneapolis city council has enacted an ordinance which will limit to three minutes the time a vehicle may idle with the engine running. This mainly applies to cars since there is already an ordinance which limits buses and trucks to 5 minutes idling time.
The question I have is how is this going to be enforced? What officer or enforcement agency is going to stand around and time each car?
Planet Green, a 24 hour with an "eco-lifestyle television network with a robust online presence and community", hits the cable airwaves today.
Planet Green will feature hours and hours of original green lifestyle programming.
For viewers in the St. Louis and Metro East area, Charter will carry Planet Green on channel 115.
I hope it's better than that insane Living with Ed show featuring actor, Ed Begley Jr.
After last week's posting on the Clayton Ecology and Environmental Awareness Committee's decision to send $2000 to Pure Power for renewable energy credits-Wind, city Public Works Director, Paul Wojciechowsi, sent an email with information on just how much CO2 we were bypassing. By putting that money into wind energy, the power companies will be using 730,224 fewer pounds of carbon from coal.
The money was enough to purchase 33 blocks of REC per month or 396 blocks annually.
Popular Science.com took a look at 200 American cities with populations over 100,000 as to how they are utilizing alternate energy, public transportation, LEED certified construction, and recycling efforts.
They then listed the top 50 greenest cities with a number score for each category, ten points being the highest. St. Louis came in at 31, Chicago at number 9, Kansas City at 35, Amarillo Texas is just ahead of KC at 34.
The greenest city is Portland, Oregon with San Francisco, Boston, Oakland, and Eugene Oregon rounding out the top five.
The other day I posted about new Illinois legislation which will require the state's public schools to use green cleaning products. After reading that, I began looking online for products which will be the standards set by the legislation and couldn't really find a link which mentions actual products by name or where you'd get them. There are currently many cleaning products on store shelves that claim to be green. But are they green enough to meet the state's standards?
The green cleaning products being used by many schools and cities appear to work just as well as the more traditional toxic cleaners, but they smell much better. I've purchased a couple of kinds of these cleaners and am very pleased with them.
Last night at a meeting of Clayton's EEAC committee I asked where a person would go to find out this information and was told that a good place to start is the web site for Green Seal.
School districts can also buy their new products in conjunction with U.S. Communities, a group purchasing alliance which I'd guess many school districts are already a part of.
At the monthly meeting of Clayton's Ecology and Environmental Awareness Committee last evening, the board voted to participate in Ameren/Pure Power's Renewable Energy program. The committee's entire yearly budget of $2000 will be used to purchase renewable energy credits (REC's).
This is not the same thing as buying carbon offset credits, whereby someone buys credits from someone who supposedly uses the money to plant trees somewhere. The REC's go to a specific location overseen by a company which is producing alternate energy, and the location is very local.
Here is how this works in its simplest form: The whole country is on the same electric grid and federal standards will soon require that 15% of each state's electric power come from alternate energy sources. Currently most of our electric power is generated by coal, a source of much of our CO2. Newer energy sources are/will be coming from wind farms, solar, geothermal, and water.
In Missouri, a company named Pure Power operates a wind farm in the northwest corner of the state. As money from REC's comes to PP, they are able to operate at a greater capacity and provide more and more alternate energy to operate the Missouri grid. Ameren has partnered with PP and buys a certain percentage of their energy needs from them. Ameren also is the umbrella through which the money from REC's flows to PP.
The $2000 initial expenditure from Clayton will be enough to power most of the street lights in the city or one of the major buildings.
