renewable energy
Cold Weather Energy Update
The process to upgrade our home for more comfortable, efficient winter living has been many years in development and will continue to develop as we refine the systems and our use of these systems. It has required a good deal of time and financial investment (which we’ll be paying for some time), but the efforts have been well worth meeting our goals: Use local, clean energy and far less of it; Increase the comfort of our home…
New Power, Old Lines, New Problems
When gas spiked above $4 per gallon in Portland last summer, the city’s already bustling bicycle boulevards clogged with new riders, creating unprecedented bicycle traffic issues. As reported in the Oregonian, it appears the same basic problem has hit the power grid, with Eastern Oregon’s new wind turbines butting up against an antiquated power grid. [...]
The Magical Energy Brick
Back on December 4, I wrote about the impressive North Idaho Energy Log. I’m still impressed with this tidy little compressed log, but I haven’t made the decision to purchase any additional logs beyond the samples I carted home on my Yuba Mundo utility bike. Instead, I stumbled upon a new fuel source to test: [...]
The Magical Energy Log
As I’ve posted here before, we’re heating our home this year by burning two fuels: Oregon-grown/harvested hardwood; and Oregon-sourced/refined B99 bio-diesel. Hardwood is fantastic but requires a good deal of splitting unless it’s aged at least one full calendar year, and even then it needs a very hot fire to burn effectively. In our specific [...]
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