The Ability of Light to Produce Electrons, and Thus Electricity, Has Been Known For Over 100 Years.

At the Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratories, scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used. (more…)

World energy consumption is expected to increase 50% by 2030

The energy from all fossil fuels ever used by humans equals 30 days of sunshine.

In the time it takes to read this sentence, 507 tons has been dumped in landfills. (more…)

Don’t Mess Mother Nature – Part One

or

A Skunk Tail … uh Tale

I can freely tell you this with no fear of repercussion
as my brother will never know. To him the internet is a
little net within the ‘outter net’ that separates bait
fish from the bigger caught fish.

Never seen without his hat and boots, he truly is better
suited for the Texas of 100 years ago. A hunter, a fisher,
and sometimes an unmitigated lunatic.

Skunks are still called Polecats in this neck of the woods.
Altho the two terms are very interchangeable. The smell tells
you the two can be no further separated on the family tree
than faternal twins. Anyway, I digress.

It was a moonlit night when the skunk came a callin’.
Causing a big ol’ ruckus under my brother’s house, and oh
Lord, the smell! Permeating every nook and cranny.

Normal protocol for this situation is just let the skunk
have his space and eventually he’ll just wander off. You
will know as the smell does a definite fade away. But,
alas, not my brother.

Einstein decides to get rid of the varmint the fastest
way he knew how – a 16 gauge shot gun – oh yes he did.
One shot got the skunk, along with a good share of the
plumbing.

Everybody knows the misery of passing a dead skunk in the
middle of the road. Now double the intensity with no time
limit on that smell’s duration.

At this point my brother made the smartest decision of his
life when he didn’t give the shot gun to his wife after she
ran out and sweetly demanded it. He had thirty minutes.

–And you have 24 hours–

—Tune in tomorrow – same time – same channel for part 2

Being forced into early retirement cause your job went to India along
with elderly parents needing your caring presence not to mention coming back
to a rural area where they live which is so out of touch with technology
(set your watches back 100 years).

So, here we sit with an RV, one clear acre with no amenities (i.e. electric,
water or sewer) and the opportunity to implement all those neat green
ideas that you don’t get in a city setting.

With this in mind along with monetary restraints we now have installed a
septic system, a water line (no water well, yes!) and electrical path.

We started with the septic system so we would not have to travel 23 miles
to an rv park to dump every week. Check for County restrictions and permits.

We rented a small backhoe (fun! fun! fun!) and dug a hole for the tank and
then went 4 feet down for the 2 field lines that went 100 feet long. While
you are at it, go ahead and dig the lines for the water and electric if
you know where they are going to save time.

You’ll need gravel, 4 inch pvc sched 40 pipe, 4 inch field pipe (holes in it)
and a roll of felt used for roofing. Once the hole is dug, place the tank in
it and line up the openings to the trenches. Hook solid pipe to the
tank and then hook up the field pipe. Then put gravel in the trenches
at least 1/2 foot deep. Lay the field pipe with a downgrade. Put the roofing
felt over the top of the pipes and put more gravel on top of that. Before
we covered, we had county come out and inspect.

Saved over $5,000 by doing this ourselves. Oh by the way, we fixed
mom and dad’s cheap septic system at the same time cause dad ran over it atleast
400 times with his tractor. Another $5000 saved! ChaChing!