Electronics in the United States should have a UL (Underwriters Laboratory) tag on them somewhere, in Europe, it’s the CE tag.
Guess how much electricity your computer uses and then take a look at the tag and see what the maximum power consumption is.
Power is measured in Watts, W (Watts, Volts and Amperes are always capitalized since they are named after people). Sometimes, on battery-powered devices, the power is not stated, but the current (in Amperes or Amps) and the potential (in Volts) will be. In this case, you multiply the current (in Amperes or Amps) with the potential to get the maximum amount of instantaneous power your device uses (in Watts). Typically, cell phones use 3 to 5 Watts and laptops use 35 to 50 Watts. Coffee makers are typically 900 Watts. Wow.
When you use power for a duration of time, you can determine how much energy has been used. If you use your cell phone at a power level of 5 Watts for 1 hour then you have used 5 Watthours (Wh) of energy. A battery’s capacity is how much energy it holds.
Take a quick gander and count up the amount of power you are using right now. You may have to catch the refridgerator if its running. You can also split that up between your housemates. Honestly, it will take some real effort to determine how much power you use at any moment, there is a lot of power that was put into making the products in front of you. This is okay, as long as we are aware that our power and energy usage and continue to clarify where it comes from and educate our selves to the direct and embedded energies that fuel our lifes.
Right now, my direct power use is about 100 Watts (two computers and a cell phone) and its daytime so I don’t need to worry about lighting and the alarm clock by the bed is on but I don’t see it. I’m sure Im not counting everything, but I’m getting closer.
In 1998 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology issued its vision for each person to live under 2000-Watts, the current average in the United States is 12,000 Watts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Watt_society
There is a new design paradigm emerging, one that replaced the brute-force method of getting it done. In the past, adding more power or energy meant getting more functionality (more gas give more speed). Now, the elegant design challenge is to get more functionality with less energy (go farther with a hybrid-electric car with regeneative charging from breaking). Where does this lead? All the functionality with no to minimal energy. This is beauty.
And, this is enegy awareness and it spreads. Electrical power is political power. Know your power and energy.
We’re pleased to announce the addition of one of our green consulting team members Ryan Wartena, here to our blog team.
He joined our open source collective a few months back and has quickly become a core voice in our operations. His wealth of knowledge spans a great many topics: sacred geometry to PV and battery systems design, to business development to so much more. He’s really all around quite a bit of fun too, which we feel is an important part of the creative and professional processes…why else would or should you do something if it doesn’t bring you some measure of joy?
Anyway, we welcome him here to our blog and look forward to his future posts!
Green Gurus is on the prowl for some new tech-driven team members.
Our team is comprised of a wide-range of talents from sustainable energy systems designers, feature film miniature and mechanical engineers, sustainable architects, Second Life programmers, and a host of other skills. Our projects range from multi-thousand person events, to on-air consulting, to feature films, to eCommerce, to manufacturing, and much, much more.
We’re well connected and very active in the Los Angeles underground modern tribal scene (cliche yes, but it fits the part), utilizing a vast range of science, technologies and metaphysics.
Here are our current task priorities:
1. Our site: GreenGurus.net
We’ve got to nail down a site design fitting of our name and team’s skills. We’ll have a much better conversion rate in closing new clients if we get this locked down.
2. Our keyword domains
We’ve got around 500 domains, most of them green-themed: We’re looking into monetizing a bunch, selling some and building out others.
3. Green eCommerce platform
One of our other companies, Distinctivefabric.com has an extensive, proprietary code base that we’re looking to overhaul into a green eCommerce platform and then license and/or sell.
4. Solar powered web hosting
We’re working towards our own solar powered data center chain, but until we’ve raised the money to put that together, we’ll be running on a dedicated server through AISO.net, configuration with them happening right now, should be up and running within the next week.
If any of these projects appeal to you and you think you’d like to explore a potential partnership with us to help manifest any of these items, then please let us know. We’re only able to pay through profit-sharing, performance-based pay and/or sweat equity right now. Assuming we get our site up to snuff, we can really start creating some exciting and meaningful compensation opportunities.
We continue to receive steadily increasing inquiries, have got some great natural page ranking on Google, especially under “green consulting” search terms, our team member’s individual projects and companies continue to complement our own here, and much more.
You are adept in any of these programs/languages/CMS:
PHP, MySQL, Python, Perl, Ruby, RoR, Ajax, Java/JavaScript, XML/XHTML, Drupal/Joomla/etc., WordPress (including installs), Apache/Debian, Photoshop/The Gimp, Illustrator, Quark, InDesign, AutoCad, Maya, Flash, ActionScripting, API interfacing, version control systems, Unix, ProTools, Logic, Ableton Live, and any other language or science you’re competent with in producing results.
You have experience from school and/or on-the-job training, can provide live and close to or fully completed projects online, have a working/proficient understanding of iterative, agile and atomic coding techniques/philosophies, and are otherwise a bad-ass online.
Preferably: you work in open source, off a Mac or Linux box, but have some working understanding of PC to get around should the need arise; live within the US, ideally w/in CA > Los Angeles…if not, possibilities still exist. Telecommunicating okay.
Please submit any relative content, links, resumes, or other media format…just be creative, inventive, entrepreneurial, and socially/eco-conscious in your approach to contacting us.
Also, see our ad on Craigslist.
Shena, our Chief Green Officer, is scheduled to speak at the upcoming South By Southwest festival.
She’ll be speaking on the “It’s Not Easy Being Green” panel:
Room 12AB
Saturday, March 15th
12:00 pm - 1:15 pm
Here’s the panel description:
“Music business initiatives in the environmental field are gaining traction, most notably in the touring and recording fields. Great numbers of initiatives and solutions are offered, more than any one company can process. How does one choose which efforts to undertake?”
She’ll be joining Kelly Cox (Integrated Mktg, NRDC) and Neal Turley (Ringmaster, Who Is Guy Grand), who’ll be moderating the panel.
If you’re in the area or are already planning to go, be sure to check it out and say hi if you can.
Wish her luck!
A Twitter contact recently asked us for any info on reliable voltaic solar cell use for the average home.
As our resident, solar pro, Dr. Ryan Wartena is naturally the most qualified to address this. Here is his response:
“Single, multi-crystalline and amorphous Silicon (a-Si) photovoltaics (PV = solar cell) will all have lifetimes over twenty years, some say the lifetimes are beyond 80 years. The most expensive is single crystal Si (and multi-junction PV) and multi-crystalline Silicon is less expensive and amorphous Silicon is even less expensive. The amount of power they produce is greatest for single crystal Silicon (and multi-junction PV) and multi-crystalline Silicon produces less power and amorphous Silicon even less power on a per area basis. Amorphous Silicon produces about 5 Watts/square foot.
Power has the units of ‘Watts’, power for a duration of time is energy and has the units of Watts x hour or Wh (a kWh is 1000 Watthours or Wh).
Installed costs for all types of PV is ~$5 to $8/Watt, so know how much power you and your application wants. The goal for next generation PV is to get the production cost down to $1/Watt.
Installation costs and racking have often been referred to as the obstacle to making the project economically beneficial because additional hardware is required for mounting and a professional electrical contractor should do the installation. This obstacle may be overcome by next generation PV technologies which will result in lower costs of PV. Sometimes, economics are based on capital costs ( i.e., $/W installed), but this is misleading because vision shows that the payback times on PV can be 1 to 2 years and the economics should be based on what the utility company charges per kWh (between 7 and 23 cents per kWh) and what the vision-based cost of point-of-generation PV is (between 15 and 25 cents per kWh).
Outline:
0. Learn about the different types of PV
1. Figure out how much power you need.
2. Figure out how much space you have to generate that power.
3. Use 1 and 2 to estimate the costs and to help determine the type of PV
4. Contact ryan@nanosolsystems.com for more information”
Hopefully this is an adequate overview for those interested in such information. Let us know whether you think it addresses the question from above adequately or not.
We just wrapped a second day of green consulting for Mario Van Peebles and his family, along with the help of Ed Begley, Jr. From left-to-right: Shena, Elizabeth, Mario, Me, Ed, Brent, and Ryan:
We were hired by Hour One productions to come in and consult for Mario and his family for a green home makeover and today we got to get down with him, his family, Ed and his daughter and really have some fun with each other while showing them some quick and easy (along with a few major technical points concerning electric use and meter reading, which the kids just loved!), steps to go green as a family.
Brent, Elizabeth, Ryan, Shena, and I rolled out in her biodiesel Jeep Liberty from our base of operations at the Sugar Shack (an intentional urban community house going green too), arriving on site at 1pm sharp. Our team met the complete production team and Van Peebles family, then completed our assessment of the house, prior to shooting everyone’s first scenes.
The day went by very quickly as everyone had a lot of fun. Elizabeth and Shena shot some scenes with the boys, girls and Mario’s wife, while Brent and Ryan went through the electronics with the boys in their room, followed by a fun meter-reading session with them outside.
Then it was off to shoot our arrival scene with Ed, walking up the street with him and his daughter and our team. This was followed by our initial arrival into the house and meeting with Mario, then quickly dispersing off into our respective area’s of expertise throughout the house.
We shot some other various bits and pieces and were able to get nearly every one completed before the latest round of rough, west coast weather hit again.
And that was that: At a wee bit past 5pm, we packed up our gear, said our goodbyes and returned back to HQ for a homemade team dinner (along with our household’s weekly meeting). It was a great day of fun and learning for everyone involved and we look forward to the show airing on HDTV.
We’ll keep you posted on this as more details come our way, along with some promo clips, once the show launches.
Best of luck to Mario and family as they continue the greening of their beautiful home!
Yes. But do you want to be and more importantly, should you be?
I think the answer to both these questions is a very loud yes. Why? How about a question as answer: Why not?
The time is now, more than ever, to immerse yourself in the sustainability movement and expand your working knowledge as wide and deeply as you can. We here at Green Gurus are doing so every day and just can’t get enough. But maybe that’s a bit much for some right off the bat or you just like to take your time when learning new things and embracing new, emerging trends. That’s fine too.
But the bottom line is such that you might just have to at some point.
New and existing companies are embracing the triple bottom line (economic, environmental and social values) more and more. And in today’s marketplace, the old-school mindset (or paradigm) of having to “beat the competitors to market” still prevails for many - though we definitely see a future of greater love and support through even more ancient systems such as bartering of time, energy, resources, etc. rather than continuing to isolate and compartmentalize things from each other, all in the name of progress.
Supported by each other, we can do so much more than just progress; we can continue to evolve harmoniously with the world around us.
Anyway, in the meantime, why not start or continue expanding your knowledge of some area that interests you, be it organic and local grown food, fair trade products, sustainable building design, energy reduction, or whatever else it is that tickles your fancy? The skills you begin building or adding on now will not only serve to enhance your life, but that of your family’s, friend’s, co-workers, and neighbors.
If you’re not sure what interests you, feel free to let us know and we’ll work together to figure out.
We’ve created a 10 Steps 2 Green list for people and businesses to refer to when evaluating where or how to begin, on their own path towards sustainability.
Some of the items listed are quite simple while others quickly reach a level of
complexity and cost not all of us can yet obtain. So really it’s just a nice spring-
board from which one can quickly and easily evaluate and than implement those
steps most fitting to them.
We’ll be expaning upon this in the future with more detail, product and service
provider recommendations, and some similar lists of recommendations or steps,
for other area’s not mentioned already.
And of course, highly customizable plans based on your needs are available via
our consulting services. Feel free to contact us for a quote anytime.
GreenGurus.net is a group of individuals united by a common cause…the protection and cultivation of nature’s truth.
We’re passionate about a united goal of change. We know what’s old paradigm and what’s not and are working everyday to bring about even greater change, more awareness, and truth to the way things are…and the way they just ought to be. And, we’re not afraid to hold ourselves up to the lighted mirror and examine our own steps along the way.
That’s something any one person should be doing: examining, questioning, experimenting, braving new waters to clear our muddied past and renew life as we know it, into an unparalleled level of beauty, peace and balance.
If you share these sentiments and are interested in joining our celebration of change, we’d love to hear from you. We’re currently growing our team and looking for a number of ethical, motivated and adventurous folk to join in the fun and hard work this all entails.
Please email us with a resume in doc or html format.
