Fuel and Energy Alternatives

I thought this was an interesting flashlight – basically it’s designed to be a utility light for those places that don’t ordinarily have an abundance of lighting choices, but it looks like it would make a great emergency, utility light here as well. The idea is that it’s solar chargable, has LED lights for the lighting source, can run in low/medium/high beam mode. When you buy one, they give one through their affiliate organizations to places that need them. The batteries charge in 8-10 hours of full sun, there’s an auto switch off when the batteries are almost flat, niteglow strip to find it easily in the dark, there is a mechanism to switch it off in sunlight (meaning that they could be used as a trail or path light as well.

All in all, it looks rugged, has a carabineer clip and looks like a really well designed product.

Today I got a letter in the mail from Progress Energy about their Energy Wise program where homeowners can voluntarily allow them to install equipment which would allow them to switch off some of our appliances (air conditioning/heater/water heater) during peak demand times. In exchange for this they are offering up to $75 yearly credit. The peak demand times vary by the appliance (heater/water heater was 6AM-9AM and a stretch in the evening 5PM-9PM I think) (air conditioning was about 1pm-6pm) Now, they say in the notice that it’s entirely voluntary and it would be switched off for 15 minutes at a time for no more than 4 hours. (This last part was not written clearly, does that mean no consecutive blocks of 15 minutes and the total would be no more than 4 hours, or is it possible that it could be consecutive blocks up to 4 hours(?)) I’m all for saving power. I’ve got a kill-a-watt meter and from time to time audit things around the house. We’ve tried to resist going to the air conditioning this year and last…. unplug the water heater when we’re away for long enough and really try to save where we can.

(more…)

I saw this on the news last night, it looks like Fletcher, North Carolina is going to be home to the worlds largest solar heating and cooling system. A company called Vanir Solar Construction is building the system. They were previously known as Appalachian Solar Energy before being bought by the Vanir Solar Construction company. The second largest system is installed in the Olympic Village in Beijing China.

Appalachian Energy started out in 2003 and operates a small hydroelectric dam in Madison County which powers around 600 homes. As I understand this solar install will be in the Fletcher Business Park.