Intro to Nature and Society

I am sitting in the Environmental Studies office taking my "final exam" for my Intro to Nature and Society class. This has been a very interesting semester. I started my second major or minor in Environmental Studies (ENVS) with this class and I feel that this class has created a strong knowledge base for my future pursuits in ENVS. Coming from an engineering background, my thought process is typically very straight forward. This class has taught me that people who present only black and white situations have not yet looked at the entire scenario. Life never seems to be either or, so why should our alternatives to fossil fuel use only be the select few ideas that are currently available? Creative thinking and competition are proven to drive civilizations forward. I have learned to think outside of the normal thought process, because the "normal" thought process in industrial and residential communities has led to the current problems we are having with our environment. The future will bring change, whether that is positive or negative is now up to us.

Mt. Bohemia

This is a ski/snowboard mountain in the top of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. From school in Kalamazoo, MI, it takes our group 13 hours to drive to Mt. Bohemia. Judging by last year's experience, this year is going to be an awesome time. Ten of us ventured to Mt. Bohemia for the first time last year and we weren't sure what to expect. On one day a year, you can buy a lift pass for $99. Based on the price, we weren't sure how the trip was going to be. Also, none of us had ever even seen a yurt so we weren't sure what to expect with that.
When we got there our expectations were met and exceeded. The snow didn't stop until the third day we were there and the mountain was never icy, which is happens frequently on most ski hills in Michigan. This year we are taking a group of 20 people and we have the first two yurts reserved. The concept of their yurts is pretty great. Four of them are positioned on the hill. When we wanted to head out in the morning, all we had to do was strap in and ride to the lift from the front steps of our yurt. With only two lifts and nearly as many runs without trees, the back country is more fun than any of us could have thought. There is a short bus that drives around the base of the mountain to take riders back to the lifts when they ride past them on the back runs. If you enjoy skiing or snowboarding, I definitely recommend a trip to Mt. Bohemia.

Window Battery Charger

http://www.inewidea.com/2008/11/17/6961.html





This is a cool concept that is a simple solution to throwing out old batteries. I came across this website while using StumbleUpon. If you haven't Stumbled before you are missing out, but that's a different discussion. I don't know anyone that is happy when you sit down to watch TV and the batteries in the remote are dead. With these tiny wind turbines, that will never happen again. Just put two dead batteries into the charger and when the remote batteries run out, open the window and grab the replacements. The little solutions like these have the possibility to make a larger impact than many people believe. These gadgets are still in the concept stage unfortunately, but hopefully soon we can charge all of our batteries with tiny wind turbines.

Trev Electric Vehicle

This is the Trev two-seat electric powered car. Trev was designed and constructed by staff and students at the University of Australia. It weighs only 300 kg(661 lbs.) and can travel 150 km (93 mi.) of city driving on a full charge. This car competed in the famous World Solar Challenge in 2007, which is held in Australia and covers 3020 km (1988 mi.). Trev completed the race in just 6 days, traveling at an average speed 80-90 km/hr (49-50 mph). With energy costs at $0.18 per kWh, powering the Trev cost $0.2 per mile. The cost of powering the car for the entire race was only $33. That is the same as 1 tank of gas in my Chevy Impala; and there is no way I could travel 2,000 miles on 1 tank of gas.

If the car was recharged using wind or solar power, it would have finished the race with zero emissions. Because time was a factor, a diesel generator was used instead. This car is a huge leap in an emerging industry of electric vehicles. With two big releases of electric cars this year, big auto makers are starting to show their interest in cars that run on energy sources other than petroleum. These cars will be charged using fossil fuel electricity sources for the most part, but that's because we haven't found economical ways to power a house using alternative fuels. Houses and cars in the future being powered by green energy will greatly reduce our emission levels. This wont halt global warming in it's tracks, but it is a step in the right direction. Public opinion seems to be driving industry leaders to change their ways of production and consumption. With the attitude of "sustainability" becoming more popular, I think things will only get better from here.

The Green Earth

Before my next post, I should probably explain the blog a little bit. I started this blog as a way to share my interest in alternative energy solutions with others. As a kid, I was never really interested in playing video games. I enjoyed being out in the woods with friends riding bikes, sledding, and building forts in the trees. In order for places like the woods I had to exist for future generations, we need to start finding efficient, renewable, and environmentally friendly sources of energy to power our technology driven society.

Currently, our two main energy sources in America are coal and petroleum products. These are carbon-based fossil fuels (that's the anti-fossils name, I like finding dinosaur fossils), which are non-renewable energy sources. Many geologists predict that we have surpassed the halfway point of petroleum reserves on this planet. The cost for gas is rising and there isn't an end in sight. Finding sources of energy that don't need to be imported is key to the economy in our country. We should stop paying foreign countries for oil and start paying American producers for their renewable energy sources. That is where this blog comes in. I want to find some of these new products and post them here. I also ask/encourage you to post some of your findings if you want to share them with this community.