Green Perspectives
« Previous EntriesOne Universe
Monday, August 16th, 2010As an astronomer, I sometimes think in expansive terms. So the title of this article could have just as easily been “One World” or something like that. For it is about the limits of where we live.
But in a real sense while we live in just one universe, in a galaxy like this [...]
The Big Picture
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010One of my favorite books is an autobiography of Thomas Edison published around 1934 very near the end of his life. In it, the author relates the observation that the phonograph was perhaps Edison’s most radical invention. You see, at the time, no one even thought it was possible to record people’s voices. The idea [...]
Green Home Video
Saturday, December 19th, 2009I have written about the green home in Tiburon … now here is a video!
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SWG Singapore Incubator
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009About 6 weeks ago I proposed to the Singapore National Research Foundation to start up and operate for an extended period of time an incubator for start up companies focused on CleanTech and optical systems.
You can learn more about this by clicking on the incubator tab above and following links on that new branch of [...]
Amazon Kindle, Apple Table, My Hope
Monday, November 9th, 2009I am on an extended trip (actually to fly around the world on United is cheaper than a round trip business class to Singapore) to Singapore, Turkey, Germany, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Diego and then San Francisco. This trip I took Monika’s Kindle DX with me. As I sat in the United lounge in the USA [...]
Remarkable Reliability and Longevity
Sunday, November 1st, 2009Over the last 30 years, one of the major trends is that American made cars have become more reliable and demonstrate longer lifetimes. Much has been made about how this was done because Japanese cars were already doing this well by the mid-1970s.
I remember growing up and the typical lifetime for an American car was [...]
Annual Report – Natural Gas
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009The Tiburon home originally had natural gas heating in 3 separate zones. It also had all of the hot water used for washing, showering and sinks warmed from natural gas. Finally the cook top stove burners were natural gas. The home is still divided into 2 separate addresses 1 Reserva Ln is the main home [...]
Annual Report – Electrical
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009The “green home” in Tiburon, CA has completed its first full year of operation and data collection so it is time to share its results with you.
This chart shows the most basic part of the results and it is the focus of this post. Results from our natural gas and water usage will follow in [...]
Solar Thermal
Monday, September 28th, 2009While solar photovoltic panels (PV) receive most of the attention because of their ability to make electricity and enable their owners to sell power back to the grid, the PV panels typically convert about 15% of the sunlight energy that falls upon them into electricity. This means they achieve 15% efficiency.
Solar thermal panels achieve much [...]
Internet Truth
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009One of the most difficult things for people generally to understand is that the Internet is not the same as newspapers, radio, television or any other form of professionally managed news source.
The Internet is un-edited. The internet is unfiltered opinion and as such it may or may not be true.
Now all of us have received [...]