Showing posts with label editorialfriendly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editorialfriendly. Show all posts
19 September, 2007
Zencookbook Has A New Home!
After countless dropped-out connections thanks to the total crap Telstra are allowed to serve up and call phone lines in a capital city, I've moved Zencookbook to a hosting service, and while I was at it also changed from the rather ordinary HTML only pages to a a CSS based and hopefully compliant format. That means that only the front page is there as yet, but that's a start... Rest of site is now just a matter of transferrinf text to the new framework.
27 August, 2007
Links To Articles Of Interest Aug 07
To CFL or not to CFL?:
First, a link to a guide to CFL light bulbs - please note that there are a number of things that can be described a bit more.
CFL lights are Compact Fluorescent Lamps and they combine the humble fluoro tube (a bit coiled in on itself and mangled, but the same, basically) with an electronic circuit which replaces the big metal ballast in a traditional fluoro light fitting. Ballasts, being a winding of wire, had some resistance and lost some energy due to heat, and were prone to buzzing when the core laminations began to separate. The electronics still wastes some energy as heat but is generally less wasteful and not noisy.
CCFL lights are Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps and they include a tiny inverter so that they can operate off 12V. Think of those older 12V powered fluoro light fittings that were so popular as car trouble lights in the late 70's and early 80's - this is them, married to a CFL style lamp.
On the drawback side, the article I reference above mentions that you might save $80 a year on an average household power bill by using CFL light bulbs, and that CFLs cost more to initially purchase, and that may both be true - but there is a far more compelling reason to buy CFL - you are saving pollution which would have been generated by the power station to supply the extra power. That alone make it imperative to switch to CFL or CCFL style lighting.
On the bonus side, using CFLs means you can light up some of the more dimly lit areas of your home and still generate less pollution. Also, CFL light globes are now a LOT cheaper than you think. Shop around, I'll give you an idea or two to start you off:
In Woolworths, a CFL bulb costs around the $5.00 mark, occasionally you may find two to a pack for that price, but in general, Woolworths is a grocery store not an electrical/hardware store. Going to Bunnings I can pay $9.00 for a blister pack of four of the same wattage CFL, and if you go to a discount store you can pick up two packs for $3.00 sometimes.
As the article also states, CFL are a fluorescent tube based light and include some mercury. Better to recycle these and return the mercury to the manufacturing process than let it seep through the water table from the landfill to your water...
BONUS POINTS: If you realise that by buying a solar panel and a gel battery and running CCFL light bulbs outside, you can have a garden lighting system that is as well lit as a fluorescent lighted garden, for no further outlay, no further energy costs, and no further pollution. I've been using this system with a small 300mm X 300mm 4W solar panel and a cheap $20 gel battery for a year, and it lasts well into the wee hours of the morning, I have a little timer on it so it turns on around 8PM and off again at 2AM and it has never let us down. And it has cost $0.00 in electricity or pollution since then.
Buy Fresh, Buy Local:
My second find of the month involves buying local and buying fresh. Don't think "oh, that's a simple concept, why is he bothering?" and dismiss it. This is at one swoop the best thing you can do for your quality of life, and if you don't do it you pretty much deserve what you get.
It's so simple - ask at your corner store, your grocer, your butcher, your supermarket - "Is there a local produce section please?" and if there is, buy whatever you can from there over the shiny offerings from the "national warehouses ensuring that you get the freshest produce ever."
Anything you can do to break the large supermarket chains' holds on produce markets, will result in a better quality of life for you and your family. If your local "SuperHugeMarket" isn't selling those tomatoes that they've had in the chiller room for the last eight months so they can name their own price for tomatoes this season, they will stop doing it. Their price of tomatoes will go up, but your local markets will have reasonably priced - and more importantly, fresh and healthy - tomatoes.
If you can do this, and avoid the trap of preservative-laden or "convenient" produce, you're taking a step towards a healthier life. If you purchase a copy of my Body Friendly Zen Cookbook, you'll be making another.
First, a link to a guide to CFL light bulbs - please note that there are a number of things that can be described a bit more.
CFL lights are Compact Fluorescent Lamps and they combine the humble fluoro tube (a bit coiled in on itself and mangled, but the same, basically) with an electronic circuit which replaces the big metal ballast in a traditional fluoro light fitting. Ballasts, being a winding of wire, had some resistance and lost some energy due to heat, and were prone to buzzing when the core laminations began to separate. The electronics still wastes some energy as heat but is generally less wasteful and not noisy.
CCFL lights are Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps and they include a tiny inverter so that they can operate off 12V. Think of those older 12V powered fluoro light fittings that were so popular as car trouble lights in the late 70's and early 80's - this is them, married to a CFL style lamp.
On the drawback side, the article I reference above mentions that you might save $80 a year on an average household power bill by using CFL light bulbs, and that CFLs cost more to initially purchase, and that may both be true - but there is a far more compelling reason to buy CFL - you are saving pollution which would have been generated by the power station to supply the extra power. That alone make it imperative to switch to CFL or CCFL style lighting.
On the bonus side, using CFLs means you can light up some of the more dimly lit areas of your home and still generate less pollution. Also, CFL light globes are now a LOT cheaper than you think. Shop around, I'll give you an idea or two to start you off:
In Woolworths, a CFL bulb costs around the $5.00 mark, occasionally you may find two to a pack for that price, but in general, Woolworths is a grocery store not an electrical/hardware store. Going to Bunnings I can pay $9.00 for a blister pack of four of the same wattage CFL, and if you go to a discount store you can pick up two packs for $3.00 sometimes.
As the article also states, CFL are a fluorescent tube based light and include some mercury. Better to recycle these and return the mercury to the manufacturing process than let it seep through the water table from the landfill to your water...
BONUS POINTS: If you realise that by buying a solar panel and a gel battery and running CCFL light bulbs outside, you can have a garden lighting system that is as well lit as a fluorescent lighted garden, for no further outlay, no further energy costs, and no further pollution. I've been using this system with a small 300mm X 300mm 4W solar panel and a cheap $20 gel battery for a year, and it lasts well into the wee hours of the morning, I have a little timer on it so it turns on around 8PM and off again at 2AM and it has never let us down. And it has cost $0.00 in electricity or pollution since then.
Buy Fresh, Buy Local:
My second find of the month involves buying local and buying fresh. Don't think "oh, that's a simple concept, why is he bothering?" and dismiss it. This is at one swoop the best thing you can do for your quality of life, and if you don't do it you pretty much deserve what you get.
It's so simple - ask at your corner store, your grocer, your butcher, your supermarket - "Is there a local produce section please?" and if there is, buy whatever you can from there over the shiny offerings from the "national warehouses ensuring that you get the freshest produce ever."Anything you can do to break the large supermarket chains' holds on produce markets, will result in a better quality of life for you and your family. If your local "SuperHugeMarket" isn't selling those tomatoes that they've had in the chiller room for the last eight months so they can name their own price for tomatoes this season, they will stop doing it. Their price of tomatoes will go up, but your local markets will have reasonably priced - and more importantly, fresh and healthy - tomatoes.
If you can do this, and avoid the trap of preservative-laden or "convenient" produce, you're taking a step towards a healthier life. If you purchase a copy of my Body Friendly Zen Cookbook, you'll be making another.
20 August, 2007
Green is the new stupid
No apologies to using a hackneyed paraphrase. This is a hackneyed subject, no matter what. When I first saw the original article appear, my first reaction was "what a pack of eedjits!"
I haven't changed my mind, either. Let's assume, for this scenario, that black backgrounds really do save energy. (They don't on some monitors, by the way.) So how long do you typically spend on the serach engine results page? An hour a day in total? That's under 5% of the day. Assuming that your monitor uses 20% less power on that black screen, that's a saving of 5% of 20% of total power use, or 1% power saving. I could save that by hitting keys slower when working, so that my body doesn't produce as much heat load for the air conditioner to have to move...
Then too, the penetration of LCD monitors means that the backlight stays on at the same level, and switching pixels to black could actually increase power consumption. Also, on some older tube type monitors, clamping the EHT power supply down rather than switching it off can sometimes be used to produce black. Again, those monitors actually use more power when displaying black.
And of course, while the penetration of LCDs is estimated at 75% in the Google blog article, most of those are in a work environment, many home computer users still have tube type monitors. So the work related monitors are at best not going to experience a practical difference displaying black, and besides, most workplaces pretty much discourage keeping a search engine with a black background open instead of a crisp white document, so these will typically spend much less than an hour a day with that page on top, anyway.
And the homes users, they may use a search engine, but only to find new crisp white pages to read and crisp white games to play.
Best way you can save energy with your monitor is to turn it off when not using it.
I haven't changed my mind, either. Let's assume, for this scenario, that black backgrounds really do save energy. (They don't on some monitors, by the way.) So how long do you typically spend on the serach engine results page? An hour a day in total? That's under 5% of the day. Assuming that your monitor uses 20% less power on that black screen, that's a saving of 5% of 20% of total power use, or 1% power saving. I could save that by hitting keys slower when working, so that my body doesn't produce as much heat load for the air conditioner to have to move...
Then too, the penetration of LCD monitors means that the backlight stays on at the same level, and switching pixels to black could actually increase power consumption. Also, on some older tube type monitors, clamping the EHT power supply down rather than switching it off can sometimes be used to produce black. Again, those monitors actually use more power when displaying black.
And of course, while the penetration of LCDs is estimated at 75% in the Google blog article, most of those are in a work environment, many home computer users still have tube type monitors. So the work related monitors are at best not going to experience a practical difference displaying black, and besides, most workplaces pretty much discourage keeping a search engine with a black background open instead of a crisp white document, so these will typically spend much less than an hour a day with that page on top, anyway.
And the homes users, they may use a search engine, but only to find new crisp white pages to read and crisp white games to play.
Best way you can save energy with your monitor is to turn it off when not using it.
29 May, 2007
04 May, 2007
A Very Nice Appliance
Okay this is a very good appliance, it's pricey but as it replaces a dozen kitchen appliances I find it on the whole to be quite reasonable.
Read the review for what it can do, it's really very impressive.
Read the review for what it can do, it's really very impressive.
02 May, 2007
Body Friendly Zen Cookbook Rocks!
I went to see my doctor today almost two years after developing signs of incipient prostate cancer. My diet book rocks, and I rule!
(for anyone who's just tuned in, there's more history and an E-Book at the Zencookbook Dot Com site - I had really poor results on a certain blood test two years ago, worse news on a biopsy, and then rather than let a surgeon near my precious bits with a scalpel or a doctor kill me with chemotherapy, I designed and used this diet - adn nothing else - and the results speak for themselves...)
Okay - results are far better than expected:
09-06-2005 ePSA 4.6
For anyone unfamiliar with PSA it's an antigen in the blood produced in response to a variety of prostate ailments ranging from Benign Prostate Enlargement to more sinister things. In most cases the change of PSA level indicates a problem more than the actual level, but at my age then (48 years old) that was quite high.
??-08-2005 60% Hyperplasia
My urologist scheduled a biopsy and over half the samples showed hyperplasic cells. There are two kinds, and mine was not benign...
I spoke to the urologist about the alternatives and he suggested that certain foods had been shown to be helpful in some cases of prostate cancer treatment. As he never gave me any exact figures or foods to work from, I developed the diet and used myself as the lab rat, and so after seven months I had what I thought was a useable diet. It took another month before I could do another blood test but:
05-04-2006 ePSA 0.8
This is around the level of PSA a healthy 25 year old would have. My urologist was pleased, my GP was worried that I might have received some false readings, and I was over the moon as you can imagine. No sharp knife near my goolies, no chemicals to ruin my body chemistry - and this is a very easy to use diet - you can apply much of it to your current lifestyle!
I have also submitted the manuscript to a researcher at CSIRO for testing and this is due to occur this year. I expect a lot of good and interesting things to be discovered about the Body Friendly Zen Cookbook Diet...
19-04-2007 ePSA 1.0
One year later and the diet is now pretty much a proven in my view. I am at the low to normal end of the spectrum for my age group, and recurrence is not likely.
Over the intervening year I've had some sales of the book, and so far all results have been encouraging. Two women who used it for various "down there" cancers have reported lowering of counts, but both elected to also take surgery and/or chemotherapy so these results are not yet conclusive for me. But promising. Very promising.
And lastly, there are a whole range of illnesses caused by cell inflammation and this diet will help in all of them - ranging from the slower forms of cancers to urinary tract inflammations, type 2 diabetes, and arteriosclerosis which is the precursor for most heart attacks.
So there are some good reasons why you should get interested and pass this on to as many people as you know. One, this diet can be used in moderate amounts to prevent most of these illnesses and stop them developing. Two, it can help in so many illnesses to put the body into a better state for fighting the illness, thus improving your recovery. Three, it can reduce or even reverse some of the slow cancers and arterial plaques. And four, it gives you a healthy understanding of why some foods heal and some foods harm so your general diet habits will improve.
(for anyone who's just tuned in, there's more history and an E-Book at the Zencookbook Dot Com site - I had really poor results on a certain blood test two years ago, worse news on a biopsy, and then rather than let a surgeon near my precious bits with a scalpel or a doctor kill me with chemotherapy, I designed and used this diet - adn nothing else - and the results speak for themselves...)
Okay - results are far better than expected:
09-06-2005 ePSA 4.6
For anyone unfamiliar with PSA it's an antigen in the blood produced in response to a variety of prostate ailments ranging from Benign Prostate Enlargement to more sinister things. In most cases the change of PSA level indicates a problem more than the actual level, but at my age then (48 years old) that was quite high.
??-08-2005 60% Hyperplasia
My urologist scheduled a biopsy and over half the samples showed hyperplasic cells. There are two kinds, and mine was not benign...
I spoke to the urologist about the alternatives and he suggested that certain foods had been shown to be helpful in some cases of prostate cancer treatment. As he never gave me any exact figures or foods to work from, I developed the diet and used myself as the lab rat, and so after seven months I had what I thought was a useable diet. It took another month before I could do another blood test but:
05-04-2006 ePSA 0.8
This is around the level of PSA a healthy 25 year old would have. My urologist was pleased, my GP was worried that I might have received some false readings, and I was over the moon as you can imagine. No sharp knife near my goolies, no chemicals to ruin my body chemistry - and this is a very easy to use diet - you can apply much of it to your current lifestyle!
I have also submitted the manuscript to a researcher at CSIRO for testing and this is due to occur this year. I expect a lot of good and interesting things to be discovered about the Body Friendly Zen Cookbook Diet...
19-04-2007 ePSA 1.0
One year later and the diet is now pretty much a proven in my view. I am at the low to normal end of the spectrum for my age group, and recurrence is not likely.
Over the intervening year I've had some sales of the book, and so far all results have been encouraging. Two women who used it for various "down there" cancers have reported lowering of counts, but both elected to also take surgery and/or chemotherapy so these results are not yet conclusive for me. But promising. Very promising.
And lastly, there are a whole range of illnesses caused by cell inflammation and this diet will help in all of them - ranging from the slower forms of cancers to urinary tract inflammations, type 2 diabetes, and arteriosclerosis which is the precursor for most heart attacks.
So there are some good reasons why you should get interested and pass this on to as many people as you know. One, this diet can be used in moderate amounts to prevent most of these illnesses and stop them developing. Two, it can help in so many illnesses to put the body into a better state for fighting the illness, thus improving your recovery. Three, it can reduce or even reverse some of the slow cancers and arterial plaques. And four, it gives you a healthy understanding of why some foods heal and some foods harm so your general diet habits will improve.
09 April, 2007
Empirical Pace Setter.
I think this guy was responsible for Australia's renewable energy policies, and probably our Industrial Relations laws as well.
15 February, 2007
Addresses Section Being Added
Newly added, for your convenience, a blog which serves as a database of addresses of businesses and companies, most of them in Perth but there will be more as other cities chime in. For now, go take a look at the new section, and what a typical address card looks like.
If you know of any business, person, or company which should be registered in the list, or if you're such a body yourself, please leave a comment for me and I'll investigate and make it so...
If you know of any business, person, or company which should be registered in the list, or if you're such a body yourself, please leave a comment for me and I'll investigate and make it so...
Theory and Practice
I think every physics or chem teacher (hi Mr De Boni, Hi Mr Vujovich) has told the old saw about the only difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there should be no difference between theory and practice . . .
Well, I've found another saw that's destined to become as well used - when hunting for capitalists and sponsors for projects in renewable clean energy, one comes across a lot of renewable. clean, energy sites. You immediately notice that they are either writing about it a lot, or doing something about it. I've visited dozens of sites that write about it...
I will be collecting a list in the sidebar soon, of companies offering solar and wind and alternative energy sources and equipment, and I'll be putting them into two categories, "THEY SAY" and "THEY DO". . . With maybe a third category "DON'T" . . .
Upshot is, one person so far has gotten back to me. Maybe it's early days yet but I will give it a week or two before I start making my little lists . . . Don't get me wrong I won't list anyone that doesn't supply either equipment or expertise in alternative energy, just that you'll know which ones are eager to help...
Well, I've found another saw that's destined to become as well used - when hunting for capitalists and sponsors for projects in renewable clean energy, one comes across a lot of renewable. clean, energy sites. You immediately notice that they are either writing about it a lot, or doing something about it. I've visited dozens of sites that write about it...
I will be collecting a list in the sidebar soon, of companies offering solar and wind and alternative energy sources and equipment, and I'll be putting them into two categories, "THEY SAY" and "THEY DO". . . With maybe a third category "DON'T" . . .
Upshot is, one person so far has gotten back to me. Maybe it's early days yet but I will give it a week or two before I start making my little lists . . . Don't get me wrong I won't list anyone that doesn't supply either equipment or expertise in alternative energy, just that you'll know which ones are eager to help...
11 February, 2007
F. U Know The Rest
Sunday Times, page 19+:
Making Water Out Of Thin Air.
I had this on the drawing board too - I have several designs there for a veryu similar gadget. Now that is what I hate, having an idea, no resources to develop it, and then watching someone else put the idea out there.
In this case I had a similar idea but using solar cells, the turbine concept is brilliant but still only functions on "windmill time" i.e. during the heat of a windstill day nothing happens. I will now make efforts to contact the people concerned and give them my ideas to add to their design. Who knows, we may have an answer to the water shortage between us.
I REALLY need someone to sponsor me!
Making Water Out Of Thin Air.
I had this on the drawing board too - I have several designs there for a veryu similar gadget. Now that is what I hate, having an idea, no resources to develop it, and then watching someone else put the idea out there.
In this case I had a similar idea but using solar cells, the turbine concept is brilliant but still only functions on "windmill time" i.e. during the heat of a windstill day nothing happens. I will now make efforts to contact the people concerned and give them my ideas to add to their design. Who knows, we may have an answer to the water shortage between us.
I REALLY need someone to sponsor me!
09 February, 2007
Need Business Angel!
I have some sound ideas for generating and using alternative sources of energy which are hopefully cleaner and more renewable. These are all ideas which a lone gun working in the back shed can't hope to attain, but I am out there and trying. Every time I have a bit of spare cash it goes into materials and equipment to try and approximate what I'm trying to do. I am looking for a company or government department that will help me develop these ideas and commercialising them.
Most of these ideas consist of tweaking existing technology or using it in less conventional ways to achieve better efficiencies, get more out of less. It's still too much for one person working in bursts and starts between contracts to cope with. I'm contacting as many Government departments and businesses as I can find, but so far that's only been a handful. As I collect businesses I will add their details to the sidebar here, so that you can find them more easily. I hope they recognise my assistance with some form of assistance with my R&D, if you know any business which may be relevant (alternative energy, survivalist, small farm, biodiesel, etc) and which would like me to place their details here, or if you know any business or government department that can help, please either let me know in comments or put them in touch with me via this blog or any other means.
I am really keen to see some of these ideas hit the shelves as they WILL make a difference to the current global warming / weather disturbance / greenhouse gas situation.
So let me start by saying that this problem is political as well as technological, it's our governments' faults as much as it is our own. It's the fault of greedy multinational companies every bit as much as it's our fault for desiring the things those multinationals place within our reach.
Make no mistake about it, every time you buy a fast food meal in a disposable container set, YOU are the one directly responsible for the pollution and greenhouse gas that it cost to make those containers and process that food. When you bought your car, YOU caused the pollution of extracting the iron ore, shipping it to the smelter's, smelting, turning into steel, forming into car parts. YOU produced your share of the demand which caused the plastics, airbags, electrics, and electronics to be developed and manufactured in quantity.
Up until now it's been enough to buy your car, drive it through the drive-through, and shrug your shoulders and say "well, they caused the pollution, I am just buying the result." They can't be blamed any more, because they wouldn't bother if YOU didn't create the demand.
That's why I will not leave it to "them" to fix this mess, and that's why I will make every effort to improve on their technology, clean up their wastage, and make US responsible for the recovery of the world.
Now why is it the Government's fault then? I can safely say that much of what a manufacturer gets away with, is because the Government hasn't kept its eye on the ball. The key phrase is "gets away with" - because we know that it's morally wrong to pollute, it's ecologically unforgivable and by the laws of most lands it's illegal - but enforcement is the key, and most Governments have a history of turning a blind eye if there is tariff or excise involved.
For the rest of this article I'll use the example of the humble light bulb. A filament bulb turns perhaps 6% of the energy it consumes into light you can use. That means that if you put in a 100W globe, which consumes one unit of electricity every ten hours it's turned on, you are basking in about 6W of light. The other 94W of power is going out as heat, and then you are going to use airconditioning to suck that heat outside your house, but it will take about an extra 20W of power to achieve that. So you are sitting reading in 6W of light but have cost 120W in energy to do it...
Enter the Compact Fluorescent Lamp or CFL. It is 30% to 50% efficient, meaning that for you to sit in 6W of light you only need an 18W CFL at the worst, for the same amount of light. 12W of that will be wasted as heat, and your A/C will use maybe 3W more power to shift that outside. Your light has just cost you 21W of power instead of 120W.
Your Govenrment gets a tariff on the electricity consumed in your region. It much prefers you to use 120W than to use 21W. The Government furthermore gets excise on the coal or fuel oil used to generate that power. So they have less incentive than you or I to do anything about light bulbs, despite the fact that lighting takes up about 20% of the power consumption on average.
Why Not Leave It To Them?
So it's not enough to "leave it to them" because them is we, they be us, and greed is apparently better than altruism. We are all going to be very uncomfortable together, irrespective of whether we were users, polluters, or environmental angels. Our Government here in Australia is just recognising that Global Warming is a "nationwide concern" and they are falling way short of the mark, it is a "global universal concern." The Amazonian tribespeople are going to get every bit as dead as the worst industrial ecology destroying greedy bastard.
We need to all do something. And in order for that to happen, the bar has to come down slightly. It's all well and good to say we're all responsible and do something fer chrissakes but if what we can do costs us our income for the next five years then that's just not do-able...
I believe that leaving the technology to recover from a global crisis like this in the hands of the very same people who have already proven their capacity to ignore all human, ecological, and moral concerns in pursuit of an abstract concept of money, is sheer stupidity. Sorry, but once I've been bent over and shafted a few times I won't just bend over at your gentle touch again...
My concern is to make existing alternative energy technology as efficient as possible, to allow us to do more with less, to allow us to recover from the blow which (much as I hate to hackney) capitalistic greed has caused to fall.
Back to the humble light bulb... It's now available in such an array of sizes and shapes and finishes and materials, each apparently designed to give you the "ultimate experience." How saddeningly true that's turning out to be... How bad can it be that they have to continuously "improve" their light bulb? Light is light after all, and the alternative we face if things run their present course is going back to candles and oil lamps so why are they milking this inefficient and ancient technology?
Well, for one thing, they would have to retool. That costs money. Mind you, the original light bulb making machine is probably still in operation and hasn't cost a cent in maintenance in the last 80 years, but that all improves the company's bottom line. Setting up new production lines, that is on the wrong side of the ledger.
Then too, the manufacturers who are making CFLs are also still making filament bulbs. By making CFLs they are admitting how ecologically and economically unsound their filament bulbs are, but they won't stop making them because... YOU still buy them...
Why Should We Have To Change?
There are a number of things each homeowner or landlord can do right now to bring the consumption of energy down. These are outlined in this document at another point. For now, rest assured that we can already do a lot better than we have been doing.
For example, how many of you still buy a cheap filament globe at the shop? Shame on you! You are supporting a bunch of companies who are too cheap-ass to retool their factories, because the equipment they have had for decades is still churning out a profit for them.
You are probably justifying it by saying that filament bulbs give out a "nice natural" light but I'll tell you what, the alternative at this stage is bloody candles so you'd better bloody well rethink that hadn't you?
Some people justify that by saying that CFLs are too expensive. All I can say is that in ten years you will use about six globes in your house regularly for around three hours a day apiece, buy around 30 replacement filament globes at an average cost of $2 each, i.e. $60. Your obsession with "natural" light will also have cost you at least 6570KW/hrs of power, a dollar cost of between $900 and $2000 approximately, depending what your utility company charges you.
That is all money thrown away, because for the same amount of light using CFL lamps you might have had to buy 8 replacement CFLs at a cost averaging $5 each, or $40 for the ten years. They would have consumed 1100KW/hrs, or between $160 and $390 in the same time. One household can immediately save about $100 a year, and - more importantly - 5.5KW/hrs of electricity, just by switching to CFL lighting.
Our lifestyle will need to change voluntarily, while we still have some control - or else it will change involuntarily, in directions we may not be so happy with...
Why Mess With The Technology?
Last point for this article - why, indeed, mess with the technology? Aside from the sheer stupidity of leaving it to light bulb companies to lead a change (a change which will result in them selling less product, of a kind that they stand to profit less on because the retooling and infrastructure costs have to be recovered from the sales, and selling no more of the staple of their incomes,) there is also the reason that the technology is not tweaked. It is not yet as good as it could be, it is not yet at the point where we can affordably install it and profit by doing so.
For instance, I've been using the example of the filament bulb versus the CFL on this page - now there's another twist to the story...
If we wanted to reduce our dependence on coal or other fossil fuel based power, we could (for example) put the load on our Government to install operate and maintain alternative energy plant. This would be at a cost we'd all bear anyway in increased rates, taxes, and tariffs, and with typical Government efficiency it would cost several times (and possibly several orders of magnitude) more than it is worth. Remember, the Government doesn't make any fuel excise on wind power generators or solar plant. It's in their interests to steer you to hydrogen power that you can be billed for per litre, than it is for them to reward you for putting solar power cells on your roof.
But that's precisely my point. If you want to do your bit, you can voluntarily do it - right now - by placing a small solar panel farm on your roof and you can even contribute to the grid by feeding your excess power back into it. You can earn money from your excess power, or you can be altruistic and let it flow back for free when you have an excess, thus reducing the load on existing coal and oil fired power stations. If one or two houses return 5KW/hrs a day back to the grid, that's a drop in the ocean to a grid which talks in megawatt/hrs. But if 10,000 houses each return 5KW/hrs, that's 50,000,000W/hrs, and additionally, it means those 10,000 houses have stopped feeding from the grid and have thus saved another 100,000,000W/hrs that they would otherwise have consumed...
So - if existing technology can put a solar farm on your roof for $15,000, then that repays itself in ten to fifteen years for you personally, at today's electricity prices. And as electricity prices now climb due to the higher cost of green power generation, that ROI period will shorten to seven to ten years, then five to seven years... Worth thinking about it now, isn't it?
And - if by tweaking the technology and making it more efficient, you could make a $10,000 solar farm do the same as the $15,000 solar farm, that would be even better, yes?
And THAT is why tweaking the technology is important - once you have the best number of kilowatts for your dollar, your solar installation will recoup it's costs quicker and you'll be in the black much sooner.
Two things I'd better mention here - one is that existing solar cell technology is poorly adaptable to current building practices - either building practices will have to change, or solar cells will. I prefer both, but just making solar cell technology more suitable to use in building will do as an immediate achievable goal.
And the other is that twist to the filament/CFL example which winds its way through this summary. After all, it wouldn't be fair to just leave you hanging on this would it?
Okay - so you've gone to all the trouble of putting in a solar cell installation and you have kilowatts of power. But it's all at 12 volts (like your car) or 24 volts. In order to use your 240V appliances and equipment, you have to have a thing called an inverter, which converts the 12V to 240V. So where's the problem?
Well, anytime you convert anything, there are losses. So it is with the inverter - if you hang a 1000W refrigerator off the inverter, it will draw 1400W from your solar installation, and that is a large loss that you have there. Even when just a small amount is drawn off the inverter, it will still have power needs of its own, so for a 100W load, the inverter will still draw 300W from the solar installation.
Now think about lighting. You power all your lights off 240V so you will run 108W worth of CFL lights off that hulking inverter which is designed to be able to cope with your refrigerator (which by the way is the largest electricity consumer in the average household, except for the A/C unit which is usually worse) and draw that overhead of power whether you are running one light or the whole houseful plus the refrigerator.
A far better thing to do is to replace your house's lights with low voltage lights and power them directly from the solar installation. No losses, no inefficiencies, less wasting of the solar instalklation you invested in. When (if!) you ever need to run from mains electricity again, a simple switchmode power supply would power your lighting quite easily if it was also CFL.
And there's the rub - CFLs are currently only made for mains voltages. Yep, even though they are inherently a low voltage light, they are made for 240V or 110V. And there's a little brother to the CFL - meet the CCFL or Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light. One company makes a 12V CCFL bulb styled like a miniature CFL. One.
So there is a market for making various voltages of CFL and CCFL based bulbs. Even better, would be to make the prohibitively expensive and hard to dispose of electronics and the tube part, as separate items. You could easily run all your house on CCFLs and instead of using 2000W/hrs, use only 300W/hrs. Did you know that if you changed all your house lights over to CCFLs you could plug them into a laptop power supply and use that to run ALL of them?
And that is why I'm asking for your help in developing these ideas and many more. We desperately need better ways to do things - and while I have got the ideas, I'm sitting here unable to develop them. If you know of a business angel who would take this on, please let me know because there are several very commercialisable ideas that I have
Most of these ideas consist of tweaking existing technology or using it in less conventional ways to achieve better efficiencies, get more out of less. It's still too much for one person working in bursts and starts between contracts to cope with. I'm contacting as many Government departments and businesses as I can find, but so far that's only been a handful. As I collect businesses I will add their details to the sidebar here, so that you can find them more easily. I hope they recognise my assistance with some form of assistance with my R&D, if you know any business which may be relevant (alternative energy, survivalist, small farm, biodiesel, etc) and which would like me to place their details here, or if you know any business or government department that can help, please either let me know in comments or put them in touch with me via this blog or any other means.
I am really keen to see some of these ideas hit the shelves as they WILL make a difference to the current global warming / weather disturbance / greenhouse gas situation.
So let me start by saying that this problem is political as well as technological, it's our governments' faults as much as it is our own. It's the fault of greedy multinational companies every bit as much as it's our fault for desiring the things those multinationals place within our reach.
Make no mistake about it, every time you buy a fast food meal in a disposable container set, YOU are the one directly responsible for the pollution and greenhouse gas that it cost to make those containers and process that food. When you bought your car, YOU caused the pollution of extracting the iron ore, shipping it to the smelter's, smelting, turning into steel, forming into car parts. YOU produced your share of the demand which caused the plastics, airbags, electrics, and electronics to be developed and manufactured in quantity.
Up until now it's been enough to buy your car, drive it through the drive-through, and shrug your shoulders and say "well, they caused the pollution, I am just buying the result." They can't be blamed any more, because they wouldn't bother if YOU didn't create the demand.
That's why I will not leave it to "them" to fix this mess, and that's why I will make every effort to improve on their technology, clean up their wastage, and make US responsible for the recovery of the world.
Now why is it the Government's fault then? I can safely say that much of what a manufacturer gets away with, is because the Government hasn't kept its eye on the ball. The key phrase is "gets away with" - because we know that it's morally wrong to pollute, it's ecologically unforgivable and by the laws of most lands it's illegal - but enforcement is the key, and most Governments have a history of turning a blind eye if there is tariff or excise involved.
For the rest of this article I'll use the example of the humble light bulb. A filament bulb turns perhaps 6% of the energy it consumes into light you can use. That means that if you put in a 100W globe, which consumes one unit of electricity every ten hours it's turned on, you are basking in about 6W of light. The other 94W of power is going out as heat, and then you are going to use airconditioning to suck that heat outside your house, but it will take about an extra 20W of power to achieve that. So you are sitting reading in 6W of light but have cost 120W in energy to do it...
Enter the Compact Fluorescent Lamp or CFL. It is 30% to 50% efficient, meaning that for you to sit in 6W of light you only need an 18W CFL at the worst, for the same amount of light. 12W of that will be wasted as heat, and your A/C will use maybe 3W more power to shift that outside. Your light has just cost you 21W of power instead of 120W.
Your Govenrment gets a tariff on the electricity consumed in your region. It much prefers you to use 120W than to use 21W. The Government furthermore gets excise on the coal or fuel oil used to generate that power. So they have less incentive than you or I to do anything about light bulbs, despite the fact that lighting takes up about 20% of the power consumption on average.
Why Not Leave It To Them?
So it's not enough to "leave it to them" because them is we, they be us, and greed is apparently better than altruism. We are all going to be very uncomfortable together, irrespective of whether we were users, polluters, or environmental angels. Our Government here in Australia is just recognising that Global Warming is a "nationwide concern" and they are falling way short of the mark, it is a "global universal concern." The Amazonian tribespeople are going to get every bit as dead as the worst industrial ecology destroying greedy bastard.
We need to all do something. And in order for that to happen, the bar has to come down slightly. It's all well and good to say we're all responsible and do something fer chrissakes but if what we can do costs us our income for the next five years then that's just not do-able...
I believe that leaving the technology to recover from a global crisis like this in the hands of the very same people who have already proven their capacity to ignore all human, ecological, and moral concerns in pursuit of an abstract concept of money, is sheer stupidity. Sorry, but once I've been bent over and shafted a few times I won't just bend over at your gentle touch again...
My concern is to make existing alternative energy technology as efficient as possible, to allow us to do more with less, to allow us to recover from the blow which (much as I hate to hackney) capitalistic greed has caused to fall.
Back to the humble light bulb... It's now available in such an array of sizes and shapes and finishes and materials, each apparently designed to give you the "ultimate experience." How saddeningly true that's turning out to be... How bad can it be that they have to continuously "improve" their light bulb? Light is light after all, and the alternative we face if things run their present course is going back to candles and oil lamps so why are they milking this inefficient and ancient technology?
Well, for one thing, they would have to retool. That costs money. Mind you, the original light bulb making machine is probably still in operation and hasn't cost a cent in maintenance in the last 80 years, but that all improves the company's bottom line. Setting up new production lines, that is on the wrong side of the ledger.
Then too, the manufacturers who are making CFLs are also still making filament bulbs. By making CFLs they are admitting how ecologically and economically unsound their filament bulbs are, but they won't stop making them because... YOU still buy them...
Why Should We Have To Change?
There are a number of things each homeowner or landlord can do right now to bring the consumption of energy down. These are outlined in this document at another point. For now, rest assured that we can already do a lot better than we have been doing.
For example, how many of you still buy a cheap filament globe at the shop? Shame on you! You are supporting a bunch of companies who are too cheap-ass to retool their factories, because the equipment they have had for decades is still churning out a profit for them.
You are probably justifying it by saying that filament bulbs give out a "nice natural" light but I'll tell you what, the alternative at this stage is bloody candles so you'd better bloody well rethink that hadn't you?
Some people justify that by saying that CFLs are too expensive. All I can say is that in ten years you will use about six globes in your house regularly for around three hours a day apiece, buy around 30 replacement filament globes at an average cost of $2 each, i.e. $60. Your obsession with "natural" light will also have cost you at least 6570KW/hrs of power, a dollar cost of between $900 and $2000 approximately, depending what your utility company charges you.
That is all money thrown away, because for the same amount of light using CFL lamps you might have had to buy 8 replacement CFLs at a cost averaging $5 each, or $40 for the ten years. They would have consumed 1100KW/hrs, or between $160 and $390 in the same time. One household can immediately save about $100 a year, and - more importantly - 5.5KW/hrs of electricity, just by switching to CFL lighting.
Our lifestyle will need to change voluntarily, while we still have some control - or else it will change involuntarily, in directions we may not be so happy with...
Why Mess With The Technology?
Last point for this article - why, indeed, mess with the technology? Aside from the sheer stupidity of leaving it to light bulb companies to lead a change (a change which will result in them selling less product, of a kind that they stand to profit less on because the retooling and infrastructure costs have to be recovered from the sales, and selling no more of the staple of their incomes,) there is also the reason that the technology is not tweaked. It is not yet as good as it could be, it is not yet at the point where we can affordably install it and profit by doing so.
For instance, I've been using the example of the filament bulb versus the CFL on this page - now there's another twist to the story...
If we wanted to reduce our dependence on coal or other fossil fuel based power, we could (for example) put the load on our Government to install operate and maintain alternative energy plant. This would be at a cost we'd all bear anyway in increased rates, taxes, and tariffs, and with typical Government efficiency it would cost several times (and possibly several orders of magnitude) more than it is worth. Remember, the Government doesn't make any fuel excise on wind power generators or solar plant. It's in their interests to steer you to hydrogen power that you can be billed for per litre, than it is for them to reward you for putting solar power cells on your roof.
But that's precisely my point. If you want to do your bit, you can voluntarily do it - right now - by placing a small solar panel farm on your roof and you can even contribute to the grid by feeding your excess power back into it. You can earn money from your excess power, or you can be altruistic and let it flow back for free when you have an excess, thus reducing the load on existing coal and oil fired power stations. If one or two houses return 5KW/hrs a day back to the grid, that's a drop in the ocean to a grid which talks in megawatt/hrs. But if 10,000 houses each return 5KW/hrs, that's 50,000,000W/hrs, and additionally, it means those 10,000 houses have stopped feeding from the grid and have thus saved another 100,000,000W/hrs that they would otherwise have consumed...
So - if existing technology can put a solar farm on your roof for $15,000, then that repays itself in ten to fifteen years for you personally, at today's electricity prices. And as electricity prices now climb due to the higher cost of green power generation, that ROI period will shorten to seven to ten years, then five to seven years... Worth thinking about it now, isn't it?
And - if by tweaking the technology and making it more efficient, you could make a $10,000 solar farm do the same as the $15,000 solar farm, that would be even better, yes?
And THAT is why tweaking the technology is important - once you have the best number of kilowatts for your dollar, your solar installation will recoup it's costs quicker and you'll be in the black much sooner.
Two things I'd better mention here - one is that existing solar cell technology is poorly adaptable to current building practices - either building practices will have to change, or solar cells will. I prefer both, but just making solar cell technology more suitable to use in building will do as an immediate achievable goal.
And the other is that twist to the filament/CFL example which winds its way through this summary. After all, it wouldn't be fair to just leave you hanging on this would it?
Okay - so you've gone to all the trouble of putting in a solar cell installation and you have kilowatts of power. But it's all at 12 volts (like your car) or 24 volts. In order to use your 240V appliances and equipment, you have to have a thing called an inverter, which converts the 12V to 240V. So where's the problem?
Well, anytime you convert anything, there are losses. So it is with the inverter - if you hang a 1000W refrigerator off the inverter, it will draw 1400W from your solar installation, and that is a large loss that you have there. Even when just a small amount is drawn off the inverter, it will still have power needs of its own, so for a 100W load, the inverter will still draw 300W from the solar installation.
Now think about lighting. You power all your lights off 240V so you will run 108W worth of CFL lights off that hulking inverter which is designed to be able to cope with your refrigerator (which by the way is the largest electricity consumer in the average household, except for the A/C unit which is usually worse) and draw that overhead of power whether you are running one light or the whole houseful plus the refrigerator.
A far better thing to do is to replace your house's lights with low voltage lights and power them directly from the solar installation. No losses, no inefficiencies, less wasting of the solar instalklation you invested in. When (if!) you ever need to run from mains electricity again, a simple switchmode power supply would power your lighting quite easily if it was also CFL.
And there's the rub - CFLs are currently only made for mains voltages. Yep, even though they are inherently a low voltage light, they are made for 240V or 110V. And there's a little brother to the CFL - meet the CCFL or Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light. One company makes a 12V CCFL bulb styled like a miniature CFL. One.
So there is a market for making various voltages of CFL and CCFL based bulbs. Even better, would be to make the prohibitively expensive and hard to dispose of electronics and the tube part, as separate items. You could easily run all your house on CCFLs and instead of using 2000W/hrs, use only 300W/hrs. Did you know that if you changed all your house lights over to CCFLs you could plug them into a laptop power supply and use that to run ALL of them?
And that is why I'm asking for your help in developing these ideas and many more. We desperately need better ways to do things - and while I have got the ideas, I'm sitting here unable to develop them. If you know of a business angel who would take this on, please let me know because there are several very commercialisable ideas that I have
03 February, 2007
Ideas For Sale?
I am currently expanding the concepts that the original zencookbook.com website had - it was originally just a pamphlet site to publicise and sell an E-book diet I created which reversed my prostate cancer. But that one book got me thinking that there are so many other things that we need "cookbooks" for, especially now with the spectre of a worldwide weather catastrophe looming, and so I'm working hard to put out a lot more information that will be useful in the years to come.
I have (and will publish in E-book form) ideas for energy use reduction, alternative energy and alternative fuels, and a lot more. The idea of all my books is to keep us and our world as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
If you have ideas or articles or books that fit this philosophy I would love to hear from you. If you want to develop some of the ideas and help make a difference to the future of the world, I would also - definitely! - like to hear from you. Please leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
I have (and will publish in E-book form) ideas for energy use reduction, alternative energy and alternative fuels, and a lot more. The idea of all my books is to keep us and our world as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
If you have ideas or articles or books that fit this philosophy I would love to hear from you. If you want to develop some of the ideas and help make a difference to the future of the world, I would also - definitely! - like to hear from you. Please leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
18 January, 2007
Yes I Have Spare Time, Why Do You Ask?
After a hectic few months where I was IT contracting, I finally have time to get behind the Body Friendly Zen Cookbook again. I'm currently home rendering some fine pork dripping for flavouring (no it is not contrary to the diet, as you'll see when you read it) and preparing some chicken wings for roasting tonight.
(The pork fat? Okay in the diet I recommend using olive oil and grapeseed oil, preferably mixed together 50/50 - but food tastes dead boring if cooked with the same fats all the time. As I say in the book, use about half the oil you think you'll need, and for flavour, reduce that to half that amount again - and then it's fine with the diet to add an equal amount of butter or pork dripping or duck fat or whatever flavour you're aiming for. The idea is to reduce your fat intake but not to stop taking in fats. Your body needs them. It creates a variety of building blocks from fat.
Also - much maligned as different fats are - our bodies have over thousands of generations become dependent on having them. Yes, there are a thousand vegetarians who will point to themselves and say this is proof that we don't need these animal products but I say it's a tribute to the adaptability and flexibility of the human digestive system. Those people are putting their bodies under undue stress and it will often show up in various deficiency illnesses such as skin and hair ailments, susceptibility to various community-acquired flu and colds, and so forth. If you are striving to return your cells to a normal state and thus reverse your cancer you shouldn't place ANY undue strain on yourself. )
So anyhow - the chicken wings turned out a treat and I'll soon start a recipe card series on these pages with extra recipes that fit the diet for one reason or another. These recipes will be basic and there will be more on the Bodyfriendly registered user website, with a better description and breakdown of the ingredients. And how does one register for the website? Well, if you purchase a book I will have your email address and when the registered website is operational you will be sent a link and a username and password you can use. It wil be that simple, and then you will be able to take part in online discussions with other people in a similar position to yourself, read the recipes, and (if I manage to get this going, it's proving a hard thing to program) a list of stores in your area where the more specialised ingredients are available. There are also a lot of staff of medical centres and research facilities who are going to get free copies of the book and free membership to the site so you may even be able to discuss matters with a professional.
For now - please visit the Zencookbook Dot Com site and look around - there's getting to be more and more material there.
(The pork fat? Okay in the diet I recommend using olive oil and grapeseed oil, preferably mixed together 50/50 - but food tastes dead boring if cooked with the same fats all the time. As I say in the book, use about half the oil you think you'll need, and for flavour, reduce that to half that amount again - and then it's fine with the diet to add an equal amount of butter or pork dripping or duck fat or whatever flavour you're aiming for. The idea is to reduce your fat intake but not to stop taking in fats. Your body needs them. It creates a variety of building blocks from fat.
Also - much maligned as different fats are - our bodies have over thousands of generations become dependent on having them. Yes, there are a thousand vegetarians who will point to themselves and say this is proof that we don't need these animal products but I say it's a tribute to the adaptability and flexibility of the human digestive system. Those people are putting their bodies under undue stress and it will often show up in various deficiency illnesses such as skin and hair ailments, susceptibility to various community-acquired flu and colds, and so forth. If you are striving to return your cells to a normal state and thus reverse your cancer you shouldn't place ANY undue strain on yourself. )
So anyhow - the chicken wings turned out a treat and I'll soon start a recipe card series on these pages with extra recipes that fit the diet for one reason or another. These recipes will be basic and there will be more on the Bodyfriendly registered user website, with a better description and breakdown of the ingredients. And how does one register for the website? Well, if you purchase a book I will have your email address and when the registered website is operational you will be sent a link and a username and password you can use. It wil be that simple, and then you will be able to take part in online discussions with other people in a similar position to yourself, read the recipes, and (if I manage to get this going, it's proving a hard thing to program) a list of stores in your area where the more specialised ingredients are available. There are also a lot of staff of medical centres and research facilities who are going to get free copies of the book and free membership to the site so you may even be able to discuss matters with a professional.
For now - please visit the Zencookbook Dot Com site and look around - there's getting to be more and more material there.
06 October, 2005
Introduction To The Cookbook
This is now historical, the BFZCB is no more. If you want a copy for free email me teddlesruss@pm.me and I'll email you a copy.
The Body FriendlyZen Cookbook is now on its own site at http://www.zencookbook.com/, it is a work in progress so please download the free e-book there, or buy the full version, or donate something --- and leave a comment please. Your purchases and donations will make it possible for me to continue this work. For example, the CSIRO will in 2007 be running a test on my diet and those results will be published on the site. And I am investigating several promising sources of new treatment foods and those too will be published on the site once I have something to publish. For registered purchasers of the book, this will in effect mean that the book will always be up to date with the latest revisions. It is my intention to also supply the book in electronic form on a USB key, which will be able to actually update from the online server, thus creating the ultimate "perpetual book!" In addition I will hopefully be offering the book in formats to suit proprietary reader hardware etc. Prices are expected to be around $35USD for the USB version, (remember this is also a USB key,) $20USD for the hardcopy, with $15USD for e-text versions. As prices drop for the USB devices this will be reflected in the price of the USB book, and similarly for the e-text versions, Proprietary formats will be priced according to the relevant patent owner's prices. A printed copy is coming soon, stay tuned. Anyway - please head over to the main site, grab a copy of the book, leave me a donation (and email me about doing so - I'll remember to do something nice for you in turn when the full book goes into publication) and put your name down for the mailing list so that you'll know as soon as the first full copies are available.
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