Ryan Is Hungry » Energy

How To Make A Fire Starter

ryanne — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:01:34 +0000

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When Jay and I got a wood stove last fall, he surprised me with his Boy Scout knowledge and made these little wax fire starters to help get the stove rockin’. Remember to be careful when heating up the wax, especially if you are working on a gas stove with a flame.

Rainforest Action Network- Kicking Butt, Taking Names

ryanne — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:08:09 +0000

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We recently had the privilege to make a video about Rainforest Action Network, the non-profit envrionmental change maker. We first met Julie Wolk, RAN Grassroots Organizer, at the Bioneers Conference. Julie explained that RAN works to hold corporations accountable for their environmental practices through an ‘inside-outside’ approach to activism. Having protesters outside a store or shareholders meeting helps to put the pressure on, having a contact meeting directly with CEOs on the inside helps get the demands met, both creating space for each action to make real change.

We were super impressed and moved by the passion and dedication that everyone we interviewed in the organization has. They’ve made incredible changes and continue to train and empower the next generation of environmental activists to get engaged and tell corporations that ‘business as usual is just not OK’.

We’ve been working on this for a few months, going through their extensive video archive, gathering interviews and trying to bring 20 years of RAN’s work into the spotlight. All media in the video (music, photos and original interview footage) is Creative Commons licensed. Thanks to everyone at RAN for letting us come in and document your work!

The Future Is Now: Jamais Cascio, Co-Founder of World Changing

ryanne — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:11:30 +0000

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Jamais Cascio is all about solutions. He considers himself an ethical futurist- one who designs and executes resilient and sustainable solutions that will not adversely effect present and future generations. On his blog, OpenTheFuture.com, Jamais writes about three cornerstone issues that will make or break this planet: Global Warming, Global Poverty and Nanotechnology. As he explains in this video

All of these are intrinsically connected. If you are to succeed in any one of them, you have to deal with the others…everything is connected. Fortunately, the solutions are connected as well…As these concepts become more commonplace, what happens is they disappear into the woodwork. They really become expectations.

By Co-Founding the site WorldChanging.com (also check out the beautiful World Changing Book), Jamais is helping to make these solutions part of the planetary problem solving vocabulary.

Big Thanks to Lisa Rein for connecting us and letting us take over her apartment for the interview!

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How to monitor your grease

jay — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:26:27 +0000

Our friend, Mikey Skylar, recently bought himself a diesel car which he converted to veggie oil. He found that he wanted a better way to know when to switch his diesel tank to a the vegetable oil tank. You do this because the veggie oil must be warmed up before it can efficiently run the engine.

Being the builder he is, Mikey made a device called The Greasy Mon that tells him when his veggie oil has warmed up enough. You can either download instructions on how to build your own, or he is now sellingÂ these devices to other people who may want them for $100.

There are three thermistors which measure temperature changes based on resistance. Each of the thermistor sensors has four LEDs associated with it which the driver can see illuminate as the temperature increases. Each LED that turns on indicates that the grease has increased by 20 deg. fahrenheit in temperature. The temperature range is from 65F – 135F. Due to the sensors being placed on the outside of the fuel hoses the sensor range peaks rather low to allow for the insulation provided by the fuel hose.

Check out the video here:

LED Lights replacing Halogens in Scotland

ryanne — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:09:46 +0000

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Right now, Jay and I are touring Europe- basically we’re couch hopping at videobloggers’ houses! We took a short detour and stayed in a hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland. One of the cool things about this hostel was its energy conserving light systems (besides these LEDs, they had motion sensor hallway lights that were only on when you walked through!). This LED halogen replacement was super cool. LEDs have very low wattage, so they use a ton less electricity than even fluorescents- compare .5-2w to the average 13-20w fluorescents or 40-100w incandescents. They also are said to have an almost infinite life span. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of these in the future. Philips, one of the major light bulb manufacturers, just recently bought some LED technologies for future(istic) integration. The only issues are that LEDs are super focused, meaning they don’t spread light like other bulbs; they keep light kind of funneled and focused like a spot light. The other issue is that they tend be a more cold, blue color, rather than the pleasant warm glow of incandescents and the newer fluorescents. Hopefully LEDs will start to evolve into warmer hues and eventually replace the energy sucking lights we have now. I was really excited to see this light in use as a little reading light!

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Community Choice Aggregation: Power By The People

ryanne — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:32:48 +0000

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I’m so sick of getting my utility bill and seeing that a huge majority of my money goes to pay for energy from Natural Gas and Nuclear (and in many places in the US, Coal). I want my money to go towards renewables and I’m not the only one. Many communities, including San Francisco and Oakland are petitioning and passing legislation for more choice in their energy purchasing. The movement is called Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) or Community Choice Energy. This type of legislation would not take down big corporations like PG&E, but would work with their existing infrastructure to deliver energy from sources chosen by the community. This would allow citizens to put their money towards more sustainable and renewable options and not have to wait around for the private companies to decide when to start investing in these technologies. As you’ll hear Rory Cox of PacificEnvironment.org say:

PG&E gets about half of its electricity from domestically sourced natural gas. The plan that PG&E is pushing right now is to import natural gas from abroad…most likely…from the former Soviet Union and The Middle East. It would require a whole brand, new fossil fuel energy infrastructure. We’d rather see those billions spent on clean energy.

When will it end? When will companies stop thinking that it is ok to continue to invest in finite resources? When communities stop relying on them to make energy choices for the people. For more info on Community Choice Aggregation, check out Local Clean Energy and Local Government Commission’s CCA page.

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Cheap and Green Insulation: Recycled Paper Cellulose

ryanne — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:23:45 +0000

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Recently, Jay’s dad started building on some property he owns in Rural Virginia. The first structure built was the garage/workshop. Jay and I were eager for the chance to try out some green building materials as an alternative to the usual stuff. Before traveling over to the east coast for Turkey Day, we did some research along side his pops about what the cheapest, most green insulation material could be used (which could also be purchased at a major box store near by). We found that Recycled Paper Cellulose was the least expensive material you could buy, at 25 cents per sq. foot and it is available through most building material suppliers. The alternatives were ‘The Pink Stuff’, fiberglass rolls at about 50 cents per sq. foot. I was wary of using fiberglass because of its notorious itch inducing particles that will irritate not just your skin, but your lungs as well! If the particles ever become loose and get into your ventilation system, this can mean big trouble for your internal organs and cancer fighting immune system. Another recycled and mostly benign insulator are the trendy new denim rolls. These are made from recycled scraps from jean manufacturers. This was my top choice until I did a price check. This stuff goes for $1.00 per sq. foot. Yikes!

The price factor is still top priority when you have to build, those square feet can add up fast. And when you’re trying to convince a retiring baby boomer to go green even though it costs 4 times as much, they’re gonna laugh and buy the usual ‘Pink Stuff’. So we were happy to find an alternative that was cost effective and recycled. The only downside was the actual packaging of the material. It came in plastic bags, which most of you know, drive me crazy and can not be easily recycled or degraded. A would love to see this company really pull through and start packaging the product in, you guessed it, recycled paper!

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Bringing Back The Clothes Line: No Dryer Needed!

ryanne — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:56:30 +0000

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When I was little, my best friend’s family never dried their clothes in their dryer but on a clothes line or indoor rack next to the radiators. In my house, we did use a dryer. I never understood their reasoning until now. Why use all that electricity or gas when you can just hang your clothes out in the sun (or partial sun in my case)? This is how it’s been done for thousands of years before the industrial revolution, so why change? According to the US Dept of Energy an electric dryer can use between 1800-5000 watts of power. That’s a lot of electricity! Even if you supplement your dryer usage by hanging stuff out half the time, you’d be saving a bunch of money and resources. So that’s what we’ve decided to do. It’s even catching on among our fellow eco-villagers – every time I walk by the line, it’s got someone else’s clothes on it! Thanks to Rhett and Amy at Greentime for the inspiration!

P.S. Check out Project Laundry List for more info on communities coming together to end laundry line bans. Isn’t that nutty? Drying clothes on a line is illegal in a lot of places!

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Green City Gallery: Showing Off Urban Green

ryanne — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:38:55 +0000

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The Green City Gallery is an eco-demonstration site/art gallery/community meeting and event space in downtown Berkeley, CA. A collaboration between Bay Localize, an Oakland based non-profit focused on post petroleum community empowerment, and Dig Cooperative, an eco-design crew helping to re-invent urban environments to be more sustainable. The Green City Gallery was established to showcase to the public, as well as local politicians and business folk, that green does not have to be hippy-fringe but practical, clean and smart. Some of our favorite demonstrations are the roof top garden (keeps buildings naturally insulated, provides green space and food to occupants), the constructed wetland/greywater filtration (filters all your household water naturally through gravel and plants right back out to your garden) and last but not least, the composting toilet and urinal (fertilize your plants every time you go!). Thanks to Ingrid from Bay Localize for touring us around! If you’re in Berkeley, head over to the space, it’s at 1950 Shattuck Avenue, Downtown Berkeley.

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Santa Clara University Students Compete in the Solar Decathlon

ryanne — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:52:15 +0000

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The Solar Decathlon is a competition between 20 international (but mostly US) universities to build a solar, green and sustainable house that could be practically duplicated for the marketplace. Sponsored by the US Department of Energy, the contest requires teams to ship their entire house to the National Mall in Washington, DC for a week long, public exhibit and to be judged on ten sustainable areas. We got the chance to check out the Santa Clara University team house before they shipped it to DC. It was definitely inspiring to see students so passionate and excited about building sustainably. Here’s to hoping the Department of Energy will take queues from all these talented students building for the future.

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Burning Man: DIY Energy Makers

ryanne — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:19:32 +0000

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Burning Man is filled with hackers, artists and makers of all walks. We thought we would search out the energy geeks and see how they were utilizing resources out in the middle of no where. The obvious, most abundant source of energy in Black Rock City is the Sun. Solar arrays ranged from the milk crate supported to the 10,000 watt, “could (and did) power a small village” variety. It was great to see electric art cars charging off the sun! Waste Veggie Oil diesel conversions were also a favorite among burners for powering art cars and generators too. Thanks to Maestro, David and Nick for sharing their desert energy oases with us!

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Burning Man: Some Of The Cool Stuff We Saw!

ryanne — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:26:52 +0000

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There are so many words to describe Burning Man that it overwhelms me. If you’ve ever attended the annual desert gathering 100 miles north of Reno, Nevada in ‘Black Rock City‘ of artists, hackers, hippies and yuppies alike, you know what I mean. Burning Man is an experiment in temporary community in the middle of nowhere with no resources except for the stuff you bring. Food, water, shelter, transport and whatever hacked together art or science project you can imagine- these are your life for seven days in the desert with 50,000 new friends. This year was themed ‘The Green Man‘ though it seems that the Burner crowd is generally pretty darn savvy when it comes to recycling the world’s trash into amazing, awe inspiring art and functional pieces of technology, shelter and transport. Here are some snippets of our fun time at Burning Man. Stay tuned for some interviews with Burners making their own renewable energy and sharing it with fellow camps.

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Ryanne Cuts The Gas Bill In Half!

ryanne — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:32:29 +0000

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Anyone who knows Ryanne, knows she’s extremely thrifty when it comes to utilities. Growing up in cold wintered New England taught her to keep that thermostat to a minimum or else when spring rolls around, you’ll be in heating bill debt. Living in California allows us to keep our heating bill low to nonexistent. So why are we paying almost $20 a month ($240 a year) for gas? We don’t even have a gas stove! Find out how we were able to cut this amount in half through a little furnace investigation. If you have a newer gas heating system, you might not have this problem. Newer systems have electronic gadgets to help drastically reduce gas usage. Thank Goodness! Our system is from the late 50′s early 60′s, back when energy was cheap(er)!

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[tags]utilities, pilot light, energy conservation, furnace, ryanishungry[/tags]

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things

ryanne — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:05:57 +0000

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The book Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart has been a good touchstone for the new green movement. Ideas like zero waste and designing products that have an almost infinite life cycle were crystalized with it’s publication. Many times during RyanIsHungry interviews, this book is mentioned. We thought we’d help expose it more by showing how the book really sparks conversation and gets the green wheels turning in our heads. Grab the book for cheap on Amazon or go to your local library and borrow it for free!

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[tags]cradletocradle, williammcdonough, michaelbraungart, zero waste, green, sustainability, book review, ryanishungry[/tags]

Green Guerillas Give PG&E A Run For Their Money

ryanne — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:18:24 +0000

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A few months ago we did a story about California’s primary utility company, PG&E’s, Let’s Green This City campaign. The green posters were all over the city of San Francisco. Our initial reaction was, “Cool! A corporate utility company is actually talking green!” These posters suggested many things that individuals could do to green their lives like ride a bike instead of drive, switch your lightbulbs to fluorescents etc. But what about PG&E going green? Why weren’t any of the posters advertising how much renewable energy they were buying?

After a while we started to notice counter messages advertising PG&E’s environmental record. Posters and stickers with the slogan “Let’s Greenwash This City” and statistics citing PG&E’s purchase of renewables at less than 4% started showing up all over the city as well. This counter message was initiated not by a competing billion dollar utility corporation, but by a group of citizens called Green Guerillas Against Greenwash. Their purpose was to counter PG&E’s million dollar ad campaign with the simple truth that no matter how many bikes Californian’s ride, companies like PG&E could make a massive systemic difference by just making cleaner energy purchases.

So far the Green Guerillas have helped successfully pass The Community Choice Energy initiative through the city legislature and over to Mayor Newsom’s office (where it was not vetoed!). This plan would give the residents of San Francisco a choice of where they can buy their power instead of having to settle for dirty PG&E energy. In the near future, they hope this will force PG&E to look at the greater picture and take their own advice to really help “green this city”.

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[tags]green guerillas against greenwash, letsgreenwashthiscity, letsgreenthiscity, pge, renewable energy, green, san francisco, ryanishungry[/tags]

Real Goods: We Took a Workshop at The Solar Living Institute

ryanne — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:24:40 +0000

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The Solar Living Institute, home of Real Goods (one of the first Green Catalogs), is like a big, green playground. The 12 acre plot was developed as a demonstration site for renewable and clean technologies like solar and wind power, green building and permaculture. We were excited to be able to spend some time on the campus while participating in a workshop on how to build an electric vehicle. Although the workshop turned out to be a wee bit overwhelming, we felt we got a pretty good primer into the world of electric vehicles. That said, we encourage y’all to take a workshop or class on some of these green ideas. Meeting people and gathering resources for getting started on this stuff is a good motivator for really making change.

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[tags]real goods, hopland, solar living institute, electric car, ev, solar, ryanishungry[/tags]

Treasure Island: San Francisco’s Sustainable Land of Tomorrow

ryanne — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:38:11 +0000

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San Francisco’s Department of the Environment is leading the initiative to fully redesign Treasure Island- a 400 acre human made island in the San Francisco bay. Originally built for The World’s Fair in 1939, it’s been used as a movie studio, a naval base and now for residential housing. By 2020, the city plans to have this little plot of land revamped and functioning as green as possible. Jennifer Kass, from the Dept of the Environment, explains the city’s process of planning holistically with all aspects of urban living in mind. Treasure Island could possibly inspire future models of sustainability because of its unique geographic challenges. From transportation to green open spaces to building and construction to where you get your groceries- if it can happen self sufficiently on a 400 acre island, maybe it can happen anywhere.

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[tags]treasure island, sustainable, sustainability, cradle to cradle, green, green building, ryanishungry, sanfrancisco[/tags]

Keith Thompson: Totally Off The Grid

ryanne — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:27:28 +0000

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Keith aka Skeeter is living totally off the grid. Starting with a raw plot of land, he built his house from scratch, dug a well, created a solar power system and is completely responsible for all his waste. Keith is a good example of someone who got tired of paying utilities and mortgages to live on earth. He took matters into his own hands and decided to be as independent as possible. Deciding to live out in the wilderness is one way to go off the grid. We’ll be exploring other ways of being independent in urban environments in some of our next posts. Thanks Keith!

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[tags]off the grid, new mexico, solar, composting toilet, skeeter, green, sustainable, sustainability, solar power, ryanishungry[/tags]

Green Ambassadors: Laguna High School Students Research Biofuels

ryanne — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:19:06 +0000

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Lindsay Hassett aka Betty Biodiesel leads a group of Laguna High School students in the Green Ambassadors program on a tour of Dave Erikson‘s home brew biodiesel lab. The Green Ambassadors program was created to get students learning science, civics and environmental stewardship through experience and action. Today’s lesson provided the group with basic information about biodiesel that they could present to their school board. This field trip is just one step in the process to further their mission of converting dirty diesel school busses into cleaner burning bio-machines.

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[tags]green ambassadors, laguna high school, biodiesel, WVO, SVO, green, betty biodiesel, sanfrancisco, ryanishungry[/tags]

Solar Las Vegas: Center for Energy Research

ryanne — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:22:23 +0000

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Las Vegas is a pretty sunny place, right? So why isn’t the whole city powered through solar energy? You could ask this question for a lot of places in the world. The answer we’re hearing more and more is that alternative energy is not just about being good, but being politically advantageous and affordable. Bob Boehm from The University of Nevada’s Center for Energy Research explains the ups and downs of trying to implement alternative energy as a primary source of power. He also shows us some of the mind blowing technology (our favorite being sun captured through fiber optics for lighting!) that they’re testing at the CER. Thanks Bob!

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[tags]solar, green, las vegas, nevada, sustainable, alternative energy, University of Nevada, Center for Energy Research, Bob Boehm, ryanishungry[/tags]

Cynthia Shelton: National VegOil Board

ryanne — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:04:19 +0000

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In the winter of 2005, Cynthia Shelton embarked on a journey not many of us would be keen on pursuing- a solo drive from California to Massachusetts in a 1973 Mercedes run on straight vegetable oil. She was successful in her journey- documented here- but came away feeling like the people she met on the road needed a way to connect. What better way to connect than through the internet? Hence the birth of The National VegOil Board. Spearheaded by Cynthia and other VegOil activists, The NVOB aims to educate the public as well as promote more research into straight veggie oil as a reliable and clean burning fuel.

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[tags]straight vegetable oil, National VegOil Board, Cynthia Shelton, veggie oil, svo, grease car, green, sustainable, ryanishungry, sanfrancisco[/tags]

Green San Francisco: LetsGreenThisCity.com

ryanne — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:35:23 +0000

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If you live in San Francisco, you’ve surely seen the bus shelters and buses plastered with a marketing campaign promoting green lifestyles. Who is behind this? Why do they care? We set out to get more info about the Let’s Green This City campaign.

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[tags]green, sustainable, san francisco, pacific gas and electric, letsgreenthiscity, ryanishungry[/tags]

Eric Case on Biodiesel

ryanne — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:06:47 +0000

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Eric Case is another doubly cool green and tech geek. He works at Google on the Blogger team (hurray Blogger!) and, as you will see in this video, owns a Volkswagon Golf TDI that runs on pure biodiesel. Biodiesel is different than what Greg Rose uses which is Straight Vegetable Oil. Biodiesel is a more processed fuel that does not require your car to be converted for use. Eric walks us through the hows and whys of using biodiesel in his regular diesel Golf.

Check out Eric’s Biodiesel Blog and for more info on biodiesel visit The National Biodiesel Board.

Technorati Tags: ericcase, svo, straight vegetable oil, sustainablity, sustainable, biodiesel, veggie car, sanfrancisco, ryanishungry

Greg Rose: Straight Veggie Oil Car

ryanne — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 17:05:24 +0000

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Greg Rose is a videoblogger and doubly cool Veggie Oil Car owner. His Mercedes 300D runs on straight vegetable oil. Yes, he can pour a gallon of Soybean Cooking Oil right into his gas tank (with a few modifications of course). The story is that the original diesel engine, invented by Rudolf Diesel in the 1890′s, was built to run on peanut oil. Imagine how different the world might be right now if this had continued to be the case.

For more info and examples of SVO Cars visit GreaseCar.com

Technorati Tags: gregrose, svo, straight vegetable oil, sustainablity, sustainable, biodiesel, veggie car, grease car, sanfrancisco, ryanishungry

Allyse Heartwell: SF Oil Awareness

ryanne.hodson — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 01:17:18 +0000

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We were able to speak with Allyse Heartwell from The SF Oil Awareness Group about Peak Oil and what San Franciscan’s are doing about it. Jay and I have been researching a lot about Bio-diesel and have too realized that there are no magic answers to the peak oil problem. Conservation is the key. Thanks Allyse!

[tags]peak oil, SF Oil Awareness, san francisco, ryanishungry[/tags]

Ryan Is Hungry » Energy

How To Make A Fire Starter

Related Posts:

Rainforest Action Network- Kicking Butt, Taking Names

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The Future Is Now: Jamais Cascio, Co-Founder of World Changing

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How to monitor your grease

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LED Lights replacing Halogens in Scotland

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Community Choice Aggregation: Power By The People

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Cheap and Green Insulation: Recycled Paper Cellulose

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Bringing Back The Clothes Line: No Dryer Needed!

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Green City Gallery: Showing Off Urban Green

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Santa Clara University Students Compete in the Solar Decathlon

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Burning Man: DIY Energy Makers

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Burning Man: Some Of The Cool Stuff We Saw!

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Ryanne Cuts The Gas Bill In Half!

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Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things

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Green Guerillas Give PG&E A Run For Their Money

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Real Goods: We Took a Workshop at The Solar Living Institute

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Treasure Island: San Francisco’s Sustainable Land of Tomorrow

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Keith Thompson: Totally Off The Grid

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Green Ambassadors: Laguna High School Students Research Biofuels

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Solar Las Vegas: Center for Energy Research

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Cynthia Shelton: National VegOil Board

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Green San Francisco: LetsGreenThisCity.com

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Eric Case on Biodiesel

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Greg Rose: Straight Veggie Oil Car

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Allyse Heartwell: SF Oil Awareness

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