Go Green with LED Christmas Lights

Now that Thanksgiving is over, our thoughts turn to decorating for Christmas. If you are like me, you have a few old tangled Christmas light sets packed away. Each year I would have to unpack each strand and plug them in to see if they're still working.

This year my home will be going 'green'. My old incandescent lights are not only old, but inefficient and bad for the environment. My choice this year will be to purchase LED Christmas lights. These lights will use less energy than the standard incandescent lights and last more than 50,000 hours.

They are constructed to be more durable, don't break as easily and don't contain that filament as my other lights do. I won't have to be concerned with over loading my electrical circuit breakers or worried about any fire issues because these LED lights are cool to the touch. The way incandescent lights work is electricity runs through the filament. Because the filament is so thin, it offers a good bit of resistance to the electricity, and this resistance turns electrical energy into heat. The heat is enough to make the filament white hot, and the "white" part is light. The filament glows because of the heat -- it incandesces

I also learned that if 20% of households switched to LED Christmas lights for the holiday period (averaging 30 days) it would conserve enough energy to power 200 households for an entire year. That is an amazing stat.

The famous Rockefeller Christmas tree in New York City will also be going green.This year, the tree will be decked out with 30,000 LED lights as opposed to the traditional incandescent bulbs to save energy and our environment.

Our environment issues cannot be ignored and with these small changes, we all can do our part to help save our environment. Join me and go green this year.

Building Green

On October 15th - Blog Action Day, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone's mind: Our Environment

I have already included several posts on this blog concerning our environment. From tips to save in your daily life to curb your carbon footprint to green news around the world.

Today's post is regarding tips for Building Green.

To determine how to incorporate green building you need to look at your goals. Is a family member sick or do you want to reduce your utility bills or are you just concerned with the state of our environment?

Don't overbuild~ Build to meet the needs of your family and this will reduce the cost of building and reduce the cost to operate and maintain your home. This will have an impact on your finances and the environment.

Design with minimal waste~ Building a house with 2 foot modules will help reduce waste. Most building materials are manufactured in two foot increments, so using value engineering will reduce the amount of material waste. Producing less waste on your building site, will reduce disposal costs. The National Association of Home Builders Research Center recommends framing 24 inches on center rather than 16 inches on center.This alone will save about 30% of the framing studs.

Placing the water heater and HVAC unit centrally in the home will reduce the amount of material needed to carry the best heat and water to its destination and will increase the efficiency of the units by reducing the amount of energy to get there.

Make homes efficient~ Designing to conserve resources during the life of the building is considered green. Use the maximum amount of insulation recommended for your geographic area. Use water saving features.

Use recycled or recyclable materials~

Build recycling centers in homes~

Find a green builder who use equipment software to test and simulate a building's performance. You can use the following resources to learn about green building programs, professional and incentives available:
www.eere.energy.gov/consumer
www.energystar.gov

Source: Business Education Guide

More Green News

Vatican City Goes Solar : A giant rooftop garden of solar panels will be built next year on top of the Paul VI audience hall. This will create enoughe lectricity to heat, cool abd light the entire building year round.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News joins the fight against climate change. In May of this year, he pledged not only to make his News Corp empire carbon neutral, but to persuade the hundreds of millions of people who watch his TV channels and read his newspapers to join the cause.

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, launched a campaign last fall to sell 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs. They also have plans to install solar on many of their stores.

Source: Business Education Guide

Green News

Bank of America made a 10 year commitment to lend $18 billion to commercial clients committed to constructing green buildings and developing sustainable products and services. The remaining funds will be used to develop consumer programs. This would include incentives for purchasing merchandise or investing in companies committed to green house gas reduction.

PesiCo announced a 3 year purchase of renewable energy certificates that are comprised of more than 1 billion kilowatt-hours annually, to offset 100% of purchased electricity used by all PesiCo US facilities.This purchase has put PepsiCo in the list of top 25 green power purchasers.

GOOGLE Solar: Google installed the largest commercial system in the US to date. The worlds leading provider of solar cells is Sharp. They have installed the solar modules at Google's corporate headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Roof mounted arrays were installed and also two carports for their employees to park. If any employee has a plug in hybrid they can also recharge their cars.

Source: Business Education Guide

The Best Green Energy ~ ZERO Carbon

I have been reading alot about "carbon footprint" and how we can reduce our own footprint to help save our planet. I have even blogged about it here to give my readers ideas on how you can become involved. If we would take an interest and apply ourselves, it will make a difference.

Look at the below press release. British Gas has developed this unique and one of a kind green energy tariff. ZERO Carbon ~ meaning that you wouldn't leave a carbon footprint from the energy British Gas supplies to you. For just a extra few dollars, you could offset 100% of your homes carbon emmissions.

Shouldn't more companies adopt this concept?

Press Release:

BRITISH GAS LAUNCHES GREENEST ENERGY TARIFF

9 August 2007: British Gas has announced it is launching two new green energy tariffs, Zero Carbon, which will be the greenest tariff available on the domestic market and Future Energy. British Gas has launched the tariffs, in response to the increasing demand for green energy products.

Householders signing up to the Zero Carbon tariff will:
• reduce their household energy carbon emissions to zero through Kyoto compliant offset schemes which will meet the new Defra requirements
• help fund a direct increase in investment in renewable energy generated in the UK
• contribute to the new British Gas green fund which will:
o invest in developing new renewable technologies such as wave power
o oversee a programme to help schools in the UK reduce their CO2 emissions

Gearóid Lane, Managing Director British Gas New Energy said,”Our new tariff responds to consumer demand for truly green energy solutions. It is essential that customers have confidence in green energy tariffs and that their credibility is not damaged by tariffs that claim to be green but in reality do not deliver any incremental environmental benefits. Green tariffs are moving from niche to mainstream products and we’re leading the industry by offering a tariff that will do more for the environment than any other product currently available.”

Under the government’s Renewables Obligation (RO), electricity suppliers in the UK are already required to produce an increasing percentage of their electricity through methods such as wind farms which, unlike traditional power plants, produce zero carbon emissions. For 2007/2008 this figure is set at 7.9%.

In a recent report, the National Consumer Council (NCC) raised concerns that some energy suppliers are packaging electricity which is produced under the RO scheme as “green”, yet it delivers no additional environmental benefits. The NCC called on energy suppliers to take steps beyond their legal requirements and offer green energy tariffs that provide genuine additional environmental benefits, in particular CO2 emissions reduction.

British Gas worked with Global Action Plan and The Climate Group’s “We’re in this Together” campaign to develop Zero Carbon which goes further than any other green tariff in meeting these requirements offering consumers the only zero carbon option on the market.

The tariff carries a premium of £84 per year, reflecting the higher cost of producing energy through lower carbon emission schemes.

Virginia Graham, Chair of Global Action Plan, said, “The British Gas Zero Carbon tariff delivers on all three of the essential requirements of a green tariff which are: additionality, transparency and verifiability. As such it is a very welcome new offering in the market. Consumers signing up to the tariff can be confident that they are getting 12 per cent more renewable energy than they would otherwise have got. The carbon emissions from their electricity and gas will also be offset with emissions reductions from projects accredited by the United Nations.”

Zero Carbon is one of the first initiatives launched through the ‘We’re in this Together’ campaign, which was launched in April 07 as an alliance of some of the UK’s biggest brands who are all working to help their customers reduce their impact on the climate.

Dr Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group and founder of ‘We’re in this Together’ said, “We’re committed to offering people ways to make a real impact on climate change through Together.com. We’ve worked with British Gas to ensure that Zero Carbon is a genuine step forward in delivering more environmental benefits than any other tariff currently available.”

British Gas’s second green energy tariff, Future Energy, offers an alternative green electricity tariff at a premium of just £20 per year. Customers signing up to this tariff will contribute to a green fund which will provide solar panels and other renewable energy technologies to UK schools. Money from the fund will also be invested in development of future renewable technologies and sources.

To sign up customers can call British Gas on 0845 604 0055 or visit www.britishgas.co.uk