Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category

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What’s in Your Bottled Water? a video

Friday, January 21st, 2011

by Catherine Haug

The people from the The Story of Stuff have a newish 8 minute video on The Story of Bottled Water. Click on the ‘more’ link below to see the video.

See also Mercola’s article on The Quickest, Easiest Way to Detox Your Body, which is about obtaining clean, pure water. While it includes a sales pitch for his water filters, it contains good information about water contaminants and how to avoid them, including:

  • What’s contaminating your well water;
  • The problem with urban water treatments;
  • Is sewage spilling into your drinking water?
  • The hazards of chlorinated water: disinfection byproducts (DBPs);
  • Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in your water;
  • Radon in your water.

(more…)

Posted in Ecology, Energy, Home & Ranch | Comments Closed

Impending Fuel Crisis and Our Schools

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Bigfork School Bus

by Catherine Haug (photo, right, by Edd Blackler)

Have you ever wondered what would happen when the cost of fuel gets so high that our schools could no longer afford the fuel for school buses? This is a real concern, and could happen sooner than you think. (more…)

Posted in Community, Energy | 4 Comments »

Getting more from the power grid

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

by Catherine Haug

Did you catch the news item on MTPR this morning, about the experiment in Baltimore to reduce power consumption by cooling buildings with ice? They make ice at night, when power loads are low, then use it to cool water piped to buildings for cooling during the heat of day, when power loads are at their peak.

If you missed it, check it out at Chilled-Out Buildings Save Energy, Money, by Christopher Joyce. You can listen to the piece (about 3.5 minutes), or read the text.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Downtown Baltimore is home to an unusual experiment that seems almost quaint — cooling buildings with ice. It’s a service provided by Veolia Energy, a small fry in the world of energy companies [who try] to deliver “efficiency” — basically getting more out of the electricity grid.

Veolia does this with a concept called “district cooling,” which sends water chilled by ice at a central plant out to several nearby buildings. A nearly 10-mile circuit of cooling pipes [under the streets] connects the downtown buildings, including the convention center, government buildings and hotels, to a squat brick building with two domes about 30-feet high next to it [where the ice is made and stored]. They’re the kind of structures that never catch the eye.”

Posted in Energy | Comments Closed

Preserving Produce without Heat

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

Preserved Meyer Lemons, La Provence

by Catherine Haug

One of the concerns about canning foods as a means of preservation is that the high heat renders the food no longer raw, rendering much, if not all, of the enzymes inactive, and some of the other nutrients hard to absorb. Another problem with using heat is that it consumes energy to produce the heat; energy that may not be available when you need it.

At our August gathering we learned about drying foods, which requires only low heat (about 95º F). But there are other low- or non-heat methods as well. (more…)

Posted in Energy, Fermentation, Culturing & Curing, Food-Nutrition-Health | Comments Closed

The Future of Agriculture

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

by Catherine Haug

Across our nation, small family farms have been disappearing, either to subdivisions as in our valley, or by merging into large corporate farms. These large farms do not use the natural, organic methods of our grandparents. Instead, they use GMO seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and copious irrigation, all of which lead to depleted soil and toxic ground water.

But what if we could reverse this trend? How could we enable these large farms to revert to small, organic farms and at the same time make the land more productive while ensuring healthy soil and clean water for succeeding generations? (more…)

Posted in Agriculture, Ecology, Energy | Comments Closed

Renewable Energy: A Closer Look

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

by Catherine Haug

The July 2010 issue of Rural Montana, the Magazine of the Montana Electric Cooperative Association, included two interesting articles, described below. You can download a pdf copy of this magazine issue: Rural Montana, July 2010 Issue.

The point of these articles is that renewable energy options are more costly than that produced by coal or natural gas, but they have a higher “green factor” (eco-friendliness). One of the renewables stands out on all counts: reliability, cost and eco-friendliness. Can you guess which it is? (more…)

Posted in Community, Ecology, Energy | Comments Closed

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