What's good for the Group is good for the Environment ...

A new study suggests that following the crowd is the way to influence sustainable behavior. When hotels changed their re-use your bath towel info tag from a "save the environment theme" to a "everyone is doing it theme" they saw a much higher rate of compliance! Talk about "herd" mentality ...

The story is at the Human Factors International site.

While I'm waiting for the solar install ...

I've starting work on another hobby, amateur rocketry. I have many kits around the house waiting to be built. This one is an Estes Saturn V, 30th anniversary edition. I've always liked the big moon rocket and building a scale model is always a challenge.  Fortunately most NASA stuff was designed to be stable, unlike the "twitchy" military rockets. This stability usually scales down to smaller rockets. It increases the chances of getting my hard work back in one piece!

LED light bulbs are becoming more reasonable ...

LED light bulbs continue to advance in output and drop in price. Check out the post at MetaEfficient.com that talks about the new ZetaLux line of LED light bulbs. 60 watts of light for 5 watts of electricity! Hard to beat that comparison. But wait, the article states that one light bulb costs $89.99, you can buy a lot of CFL lamps for that price.

The good news is the price has dropped to $49.99 and a LED will easily outlive an incandescent bulb. Look for more price drops in the future as the technology scales up. The ZetaLux and other LED lamps can be purchased at EarthLED.com.

Suppose Climate Change isn't real -- other reasons to become more efficient ...

OK, what if all the Climate Change experts are wrong? Are there other reasons to become more power efficient? How about National Security and our economy? Check out this report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce entitled, "Transition Plan for Securing America's Energy Future."  It'd be a real "bummer" if one of America's so-called friends pulled the plug at an inopportune time.

Replace those old Christmas lights with new LED lights

A quick way to save power this Christmas is to ditch your old Christmas lights for new LED lights. The web site http://www.holidayleds.com/ not only sells LED holiday lights, they will take your old ones and recycle them. And if recycling doesn't make you feel cheerful enough, Holiday LEDS will send you a 15% off coupon for new lights when you recycle the old ones.

Other bonuses: you'll have more money to pay for Xmas gifts in January (lower power bill) and your new lights will last longer :)

Solar Power System Installer chosen ...

The winner is Brothers Electric & Solar ! Quite frankly either of the two solar installers I talked with were fine. The other installer, Puget Sound Solar, also has excellent references and competitive prices. I chose Dave Cozine (owner of Brothers Electric) because he's nearby and had excellent "word of mouth" from the recent Tacoma Solar Home tour ( a great way to check out existing installs).

The system itself will be 10 Sanyo 200 watt modules (a single panel is a module), 10 Enphase 32vdc inverters, an Enphase energy management unit, and Unirac mounting hardware. More details on the system in upcoming posts ...

The Home Owners Association approves the solar install!

The Lakeland Hills Architectural Review Committee approved the solar project! Maybe being "Green" is getting easier :-) Next I need to get some final quotes from the solar contractors. After that it's time to select the contractor, order the system, and have the contractor install it. Might be pumping power into the Grid before Christmas! The next post should have details on the system (it'll be 2kw).