Being as such we are all encased in the cold weather and are looking forward to spring, I thought I would give you something to make your heart jump with glee. It did me and would of loved to been there!

This video was shot in the Sea of Cortez between Isla la Guardia and Bajia de los Angeles. While fishing these guys  ran through a pod of several hundred dolphins. Enjoy!

Salt, an abundant mineral of which there are 14,000 known uses. The body contains about 75 grams of salt for a 110 pd (50 kg) human. We literally can not live without it.

Salt is composed mostly of sodium (an alkali) and chloride. The feedstock of the chlor alkali industry just as petroleum is for the petrochemical industry. Mix salt with water and then pass electricity through it, you get compounds like caustic soda, chlorine, and hydrogen. The essential building blocks in everything from food, clean drinking water, to pharmaceuticals.

Now let’s skip the other 13,990 some odd uses for the sake of time, space, and an imprint of the keyboard on your forehead, and get down to something a little more exciting. (more…)

WHAT…..

….Are Fuel Cells?

Unlike internal combustion engines, which are essentially a series of controlled explosionsof gasoline and oxygen, fuel cells use electrochemical reactions to directly create electricity.

Inside a fuel cell, the fuel is separated from oxygen by a thin membrane called an electrolyte. The electrolyte membrane only allows protons, or charged hydrogen atoms, to pass through it. In order for the fuel (i.e. hydrogen), to get the oxygen, it has to drop off its electrons at the anode and become converted to protons. The protons travel through the membrane and react with oxygen and electrons at the cathode.  To get to the cathode, the electrons have to travel through an exterior circuit, producing an electrical current. (more…)

Ok….but, don’t get overly excited. Planet Green doesn’t start running the new episodes until May. In the meantime………..

Just to show you how much Greensburg is growing, here is a run down of permits being issued:

• Permits Issued to Date (1/16/2009) :
  Building or Repair Permits (Commercial, Residential, and Accessory Structures): 512
  New Homes: 179
  Accessory Structures: 111
  Permanent Commercial Structures: 66
  RVs: 24
  Total Permits Issued (Includes multiple permits on a single structure): 963

What a way to start the new year out!

Univ. of Colorado's donation

The University of Colorado (CU) donated their winning home from the 2005 Solar Decathlon to GreenTown and the community of Greensburg. (more…)

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), is NASA’s first spacecraft dedicated to making space-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the principal human-produced driver of climate change. This new Earth science mission will have the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of  carbon dioxide emissions and the places where they are being absorbed (sinks), at regional scales, mapping the globe once every 16 days. (more…)

WOW! —– SUN-TRACKING DEVICE

A team of three MIT students have designed a system that will allow solar power panels to track the sun without motors or control systems.The student team, called Heliotrope, won top honors and a check for $10,000 in the finals of a competition aimed at developing innovative energy technologies.

They designed the system to imitate the way plants track the sun across the sky, by using the difference in temperature between shaded and sunny areas to change the properties of the material supporting solar photovoltaic cells. The system, once built, is completely passive, requiring no power source or electronics to control the movement. Solar cells that track the angle of the sun can be 38 percent more efficient at generating power than those that are mounted in a fixed position. (more…)

Have you heard of Passchal Bags? They launched in May, 2004, and through word of mouth, have instantly caught the attention of both the media and celebrities. They have been featured on the Today Show, Entrepreneur and Rolling Stones magazines,the Billboard Music Awards, Olympus Fashion Week and was just featured at the Access Hollywood Gifting Lounge during the Golden Globes a few days ago in Hollywood. (more…)

Phrases like “real food” and “farm-to-table” may sound like elitist jargon tossed around at upscale restaurants. But the country’s top chefs, several of whom traveled to Washington for Obama’s inauguration this week, hope that Obama’s flair for good food will encourage people to expand their horizons when it comes to what they eat.

These chefs tout locally grown, environmentally friendly and — most importantly — nutritious food. They urge diners, even those who may never be able to afford to eat at their restaurants, to grow their own vegetables, shop at farmer’s markets and pay attention to where their food comes from. (more…)

This may be trivia to some folks but these are the facts!

Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 for his ground-breaking experiments
with solar power and photovoltaics.

German solar industry has generated 10,000 jobs in production, distribution and installation

A world record was set in 1990 when a solar-powered aircraft flew across the US in 21 stages, using no fuel at all.

Water is the most commonly used renewable energy resource, providing enough power to meet the needs of 28.3 million people. (more…)