New LED's For The City of Monterey Ca

City of Monterey Ca Replacing Sodium Lights With LED's
     Back in the 80's the new thing in energy efficiency was high pressure sodium lights for cities and municipalities looking to save money on a yearly electric bill that could run thousands of dollars depending on the number of lights they were running. Now for the City of Monterey Ca they are replacing those old school high pressure sodium lights with much higher efficiency LED lighting. This will be for all the street lights and the lights in the tunnels around Monterey. The city plans to change out about 1900 lights and fixtures because the new LED's won't go into the old fixtures. In the end this comes at a large cost, this project is costing about $900,000.00 which is pretty much about what a nice ocean view cottage runs in Monterey. But the upside is the change over to the high efficiency lights will save the City of Monterey about $100,000 a year annually. Now that's real money. So the loan they city gets to pay for the project will be paid back in about nine years and after that it's $100,000.00 in savings. The City of Monterey is going green to save some green. I'm sure with this experience and if it works out for them and the savings come they will be looking at other ways to go green and save money in city coffers during these times of spending cuts. 
Antigua Style Street Lighting, 
a photo by Rudy A. Girón on Flickr.

Sanyo Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries

Sanyo Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries
     The last post I wrote on battery chargers being regulated got me thinking about all the throwaway batteries we all use in our day to day lives. How many do you use? If you just think of the ones in your T.V. remotes and your alarm clocks and handheld games and computer mouse and keyboard that comes to a lot of batteries. mostly double A and Triple A. With a few 9 volts and D and C thrown in for good measure. The Sanyo Eneloop system is a way to get out of the go to Costco and buy the huge pack of batteries and use them until they are gone and then replace them. How do you recycle batteries again. I tell you I have to look at the website every time and I should have this down by now. With the Sanyo Eneloop rechargeable system you can buy a starter kit that comes with a charger and several different sizes of batteries. Then you can use them as they go dead you simply replace them in the charger and take out a new one. The batteries can be recharges as many as 1500 times before they need to be recycled that's a pretty good deal to me. Now this system is not cheap. But you are not buying a cheap throwaway item you are buying something that you will use over and over again. Then if the starter kit does not have enough batteries to supply all the things you need it for you can buy extra batteries that come all ready charged and they fit your charger when they run out as well. So I think this is a very good way to throw away a lot less hazardous material because how many people are out there recycling batteries. It's not as easy as putting it in the green bin every Friday morning with the cans and bottles for the truck to pick up. So until they make recycling batteries as easy as that this is a way around that. The only downside is the expense.

Your Charger Is Going Green

Your iPad Charger Is Going Green
That's right your iPad charger is getting a greener makeover. Not just your iPad charger either every charger you have from your iPod to your cell phone from every brand to the Nintendo DS game system if you can get your kids to put them down long enough, to that rechargeable drill charger that's in the  garage that he will never let you clean up. So basically everything that has a charging system will basically have that charger redesigned with a chip or switch inside so that when the drill, game system, phone, iPod, or iPad is charged the charger stops drawing power from the electrical grid. Go to your charger that's plugged into the wall now. The one with nothing plugged into it and feel how warm it is to the touch. That's all the power you are using when it's not charging your devices. I wonder how much that costs you. Now consider how many people are in the state of California who have rechargeable devices that are constantly plugged in but not charging. That's a lot of wasted power. This new law is coming down from The California Energy Commission starting in 2013. It will only be for consumer electronics like cell phones and things like that then in 2014 it will expand into chargers for businesses and then in 2015 expand again into industrial applications. Business groups say this will inevitibly cost consumers and consumer groups say that the savings will offset the costs and scientists say it's better for the environment. Hopefully we will all save a little energy and consumer groups will be right and we will save over the long haul.

Verizon $2 Fee To Pay Your Bill

Verizon 2 Dollar Fee To Pay Your Bills Online
     Verizon came up with a fabulous plan hey let's charge people two dollars more per month to pay their bill online or over the phone. So the deal is this it's cheaper to get people to pay online then to send paper statements and pay for postage and all of the moving parts that go along with that. Think machines to open all the envelopes and if not machines then real people as opposed to just going into a bank account electronically. Not to mention that they have to buy the paper and the toner just to print the bill and send it out to you so you can pay it and then stick that bill either in your file cabinet forever or in your shredder. Nice waste of resources and money if you ask me.
Why Charge You To Pay Online
     Well, at some point they reaches a fairly large customer base probably the majority who does pay online so it's convenient and they don't need to file cabinet shredder etc. At that point Verizon is saying to themselves we have something here that everyone loves how to monetize it. Well, the customers will accept a 2 dollar charge for that convenience even though the convenience saves the company a ton of money.
Public Outcry
     The public outcry over the 2 dollar fee was swift and starting to look like it was going to cost Verizon some customers. I mean it was really looking bad kind of like the whole move your money day that hit the large banks after Bank of America was going to charge customers 5 dollars a month for using your debit card. I don't know what the final outcome of that fiasco was but let's just say that the Credit Unions had a green Christmas thanks to Bank of America's stupid move.
What to Do
     What can we do? Simple, just don't stand for charges like this on things that everyone does and actually makes costs to companies cheaper. That is a no brainer. I mean I can understand that fuel costs more so it costs more to deliver something but to charge for something that makes your business run cheaper is just stupid and counterproductive. These two example should show that it can actually hurt your bottom line as a company as well.
So when a company comes up with a bogus charge just to raise fees to raise fees that you disagree with set up a Facebook page and you will get some followers. Once you have your followers you will notice a core group then talk to this core group and come up with a plan of action. Like the move your money day. That was very simple very creative and everyone could do it and it hits the company swiftly and easily shows them the power of a small group of people who's idea resonates with a larger public that agrees with them. The Verizon case if it went too far could have been a thing like switch phone company day or something like that.

California Green CAV Decals Printed

California Green CAV Decals Printed
California has printed up 40,000 Green  decals for use by driver of CAV's  and vehicles that meet California's Enhanced Technology Partial Zero Emission Vehicle Rules wow that was a mouthful. Most of these vehicles have not even been produced yet. In fact I believe the only one that has been commercially produced is the Nissan Leaf. The other model car that will be available to get this green sticker is the Toyota Prius Plug in model. A couple other features of this is that you will be getting a $2500.00 rebate from the state as well as this is a big one for a lot of people. Another plus for a lot of people is you get to ride in the carpool lane by yourself. These stickers and the rebates go away as soon as the forty thousand are gone, it's a way to get people to buy this new greener technology. So I am all for it. What do you think? Will you be one of the ones out there sporting a green sticker? Let me know in the comments what you think of this deal or are you still driving your original Prius and are going to drive it till the wheels fall off?

Get The Eco Fan

Get The Eco Fan
The Eco Fan is a pretty unique little fan. It is a fan that you place on top of a wood stove or pellet stove. Then Eco Fan uses heat conductive technology to produce a small amount of electricity to power a fan. What the Eco Fan requires to work? Well it must be placed onto a hot surface more than 150 degrees F. So either a wood burning stove or pellet stove, they also make an Eco Fan for gas stoves. The Eco Fan must also be placed near the back of the stove or to the side so it can get some cool air at the back otherwise the it won't get the cold air that it needs. Because it needs both Hot at the base and Cool air at the top in order to create the right conditions to produce electricity to power the Eco Fan.
I first saw this fan in action at my nephews house when I went to see thier new baby and I just couldn't get over how simple and easy it was. It just sits on their wood stove top and when they build a fire next thing you know the fan blade starts turning as if by magic. So I have to know how it works of course so he explains the whole thing to me. It is a pretty amazing little fan. Not to mention ti blows the heat from the wood stove all around the room. So it really helps to conserve energy. I will be getting one of these soon.