Staunton Green 2020

Virginia Natural Resource Leadership Institute (VNRLI) is now accepting applications for Fellows.

Here’s more info on the program:

VNRLI is changing the way people make environmental decisions in the Commonwealth by helping Virginians take on the most challenging, costly and divisive local, regional and state environmental and land use issues through collaborative problem solving – reaching beyond common ground to “higher ground.” Our graduate Fellows – numbering over 250 – are working professionals in industry, small and independent businesses, local, state and federal government, educational institutions, and environmental, civic and non-profit organizations.

We are accepting applications for the 2010-2011 session workshops: six three-day learning experiences that we offer approximately two months apart – starting in September 2010 and ending in June 2011. The sessions usually start at mid-day on a Wednesday and end by mid-day on Friday. We offer each session in a different location in Virginia and focus on a set of natural resource issues of interest to citizens there. However, the underlying Institute theme across all sessions is to develop leaders who can help groups involved in contentious natural resources issues move beyond conflict toward consensus building and collaborative problem solving.

The VNRLI program grew out of a strong partnership between the University of Virginia Institute for Environmental Negotiation, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Department of Forestry and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Our alumni are involved in collaborative efforts in local, state and federal government, business and the nonprofit sector. They tell us that the VNRLI experience has helped them have the confidence and skill to get involved in resolving conflict in their work. They also report that the VNRLI experience has enhanced their careers and fostered new opportunities.

If you are interested in becoming a VNRLI Fellow, please visit our website:

http://www.virginia.edu/ien/vnrli/index.html

We’re inspired by PIMBY, a small business based in Thomas, West Virginia. Who here in Staunton will start a similar business? We think there’s a great opportunity here.

PIMBY stands for “Power in My Backyard”. The company provides services ranging from site assessments, home energy audits, and the installation of alternative energy systems such as wind and solar.

Matt, PIMBY’s owner, also keeps a blog.  A recent entry concerns a nifty gadget called TED. I want one!

TED stands for “The Energy Detective”, a device that measures energy consumption in your home. What’s cool about TED is that it connects to Google’s Power Meter – giving you real-time feedback on your usage so you can make adjusts to use less and save money, too.

In addition to the Staunton/Augusta Farmer’s Market kicking off this Saturday… (4/3/10)

A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program through Nu-Beginning Farm is available for subscribers to pick up at George Bowers Grocery.

If you are unfamiliar with CSAs, they work similarly to a farmer’s market. Farm food is divided into subscriber “shares” and each box is picked up from a central location.

Unlike the pay-as-you-go Farmer’s Market experience, the farmer is funded up front to cover costs at the beginning of the season. You, as the consumer, pay once and enjoy your share of the harvest all summer.

More details here.

Disclosure: I am one of two owners of George Bowers Grocery.

Reid's water heater

By Reid Oechslin

This winter I tried some ideas I’ve had for saving energy in my home. They may be a little odd, and they certainly wouldn’t apply to everybody. They’re things I’ve thought about as I was falling asleep or waking up. Ideas that come to me that way can either be great or terrible. I will spare you the terrible ones, and try to pass along the keepers. It’ll take me several articles to do it.

My family lives in a split-level house built in 1972. It was an amazing time. America could fund the arts, send men to the moon, fight the Vietnam War and build the interstate highway system. People were regularly predicting that energy would soon be “too cheap to meter.” Our 3000 square-foot house has a 600 amp electrical service–that’s three times the size of the power panel in new homes–because it has an electrically-heated driveway! (Or it HAD an electrically-heated driveway–I turned it on once after we bought the house and I heard sparking noises coming from the grass around it. I decided to take pity on the neighborhood dogs and turned it off permanently.)

Along with our interesting driveway feature was another convenience: no matter which hot-water faucet you turned on in the house, you’d have hot water within a few seconds. Remember, it’s a split-level, and it’s a long, narrow house, so the gas water heater is really far from the bathrooms that serve the bedrooms. How’d they do that? I did some checking and found that instead of two pipes connected to my hot water heater, I had three: one for the cold water to go in, one for the hot water to go out, and another for the cooler hot water that flowed in a loop past all the faucets to go back into the hot water heater. Hot water was slowly circulating through the pipes in my house all the time, so hot water was only a few feet away from any faucet. The really hot water would flow out of the top of the heater, through the hot water loop, and, since it was cooling off as it made its way through my basement and the uninsulated ceiling of my cold garage, it would be slightly heavier than the newly-heated water when it returned to the bottom of the water heater. No pumps, just convection. Brilliant–no wasted water going down the drain, and no wasted time waiting for hot water to arrive. Except–my hot water heater, with its nice blanket of insulation, was not the only repository of my hot water. It was as if the uninsulated hot water pipes were little radiators heating the basement and the garage. That’s really not where I wanted to put my heating dollars, so I closed the valve where the cooler water went back into the water heater. (If you’re curious about what orifice the cooler water uses to go back into the heater, it goes back in through the valve at the bottom that you use to drain the tank.)

Almost immediately I got negative feedback from my wife: “We don’t have any hot water!” After I explained what I had done and why, she still didn’t like the idea of the wait, and the idea of wasting the water that comes out as you wait. (She is from the Caribbean, where rainwater is collected in cisterns, and there is no other water supply. If you run out, you call the water truck to make a delivery, which is expensive. It’s a system that stresses personal responsibility.) I did feel guilty about the water that was wasted, and decided to measure how much water was going down the drain during the warmup. It turned out to be, at most, two gallons. What to do about that?

I decided that if the pipes were insulated, the water in them would stay hot longer. I couldn’t reach everything to insulate it, but was lucky that the ceilings in part of the downstairs areas and the garage were suspended tiles–I suppose to make maintenance and  repairs easier. I found that the cheaper, stiffer kind of foam pipe insulation worked better, because after you snap it around the pipe, you can push it along the pipe with another piece of insulation, even into areas that you can see but can’t get to. And the insulation did turn out to work somewhat– if you open a faucet up to two hours later, what comes out is at least warmer than it would have been, and the new hot water coming up the pipe isn’t trying to warm up every foot of that pipe from, say, 50 degrees. It certainly doesn’t work for the first shower of the day, though.

I did some rationalizing–the waste of water is not as bad as the waste of energy and the greenhouse gas emissions from the water heater. My best guess was that the insulation and the circulation change saves 15 percent off the gas bill. At my house, that’s 30 bucks a month, at least during the winter months.  It will probably be less of a difference in the summer, when the basement and garage are warmer and robbing less heat from the pipes. Still, well worth doing. What could be easier than closing a valve?

You probably don’t live in a house that has recirculated hot water, and you probably don’t have as much access to the pipes as I do, but you do probably live in a house that has bare copper pipes sticking out of the top of the water heater. Even insulating the first few feet of that pipe–that is constantly radiating heat away from the hot water tank–will make a difference. Most likely, you don’t spend a lot of time  next to your water heater, basking in the heat it is radiating.

Note that if you have a gas water heater like mine, the gas flue chimney is very close to the cold and hot water pipes that come out of the heater. Don’t use plastic foam pipe insulation next to that flue, because of the risk of fire. Instead, use fiberglass that won’t burn. The cheap fiberglass solution is just a band of the fuzzy insulation itself, with no backing, that you wrap around the pipe. It works, but for a little more swank factor, you can buy tubes of pre-formed fiberglass that fits around the pipe like a clamshell (buy the right size to fit around the pipe, usually 3/4″). It has a white outside coating, and even a self-adhesive flap that makes it neat. In this area, Home Depot and Hajoca carry it; Lowe’s does not. Next time I’ll tell you about my 1972 furnace and what I did to it.

Copyright 2010 Reid Oechslin

Reid is a SG2020 steering committee member and owner of Sound Light Image, LLC.

Are you eligible for an energy-efficiency rebate? Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling’s office just allocated new funds to support Virginians who make energy upgrades. Details below:

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Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling announced that approximately $6.5 million is available for a second round of the Virginia Energy Efficiency Rebate Program to make homes and businesses more energy efficient.  Energy efficiency improvements include upgrading heating and air conditioning equipment, adding insulation, replacing leaky windows, and other improvements that reduce energy consumption and utility costs.  Homeowners are eligible for rebates for 20 percent of the costs of qualifying energy conserving products and services, up to $2,000.  Commercial consumers are eligible for 20 percent of their costs, up to $4,000. Qualified home and business owners also can reserve an additional $250 for a certified energy audit.

Three appliances have been added to the program for the second round; refrigerators, dishwashers and clothes washers. The online application, rules, forms and additional information are available at www.dmme.virginia.gov.

Applicants can apply to reserve funding for a rebate.  Once approved, they then have up to six months to complete the work and redeem the reservation for a rebate check.    Applications for rebate reservations will be processed in the order they are received.  Once reservations deplete available funds, applications will be placed on a wait list in the order received.  Wait-listed applicants may be approved for rebate reservations if additional funds become available. (The first round of funding for efficiency rebates totaling about $10 million was sold out in less than three weeks when the program opened in late October.)

The Virginia Energy Efficiency Rebate Program is administered by the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. More information is available at www.dmme.virginia.gov.

A separate Solar and Wind Incentive Program also has opened a $3.5 million second round of funding to help defray the costs of solar electric, solar thermal and small wind energy systems for residents, businesses, and non-profits. Information is available at www.dmme.virginia.gov.

Last week we urged you to contact Governor Kaine about light rail along Interstate 81. Thank you to those of you who took the time to make your voices heard. Happily, $62 million was earmarked for light rail in Virginia.

However…

There is still resistance to light rail along Interstate 81 by Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer. Forty-six (46) local and regional planning bodies agree that light rail would significantly benefit Virginia. It is never too late to show your support of light rail and other forms of transportation. Our officials won’t listen unless a lot of us make noise!

Please contact Governor Kaine by telephone (804) 786-2211 or email him from his website: http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm.

Thank you for your support; we’ll be back to covering Staunton-specific environmental actions soon.

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Helping the environment and reducing carbon emissions is as simple as making some changes in your kitchen. Here are recommendations from SG2020 member Gena Adams who will be providing tips for around the home:

Kitchen

• BYOB (bottle) of water.
• Pack your lunch in reusable containers.  Try snacktaxi.com for cute reusable bags that hold up well.  We use them in our lunchbox.
• Use cloth napkins that you can wash instead of paper towels.
• Bring your own bags to the grocery store.
• Purchase products in bulk to avoid excess packaging.
• Recycle plastic bags when you forget to bring your own bags to the store! (You can do this at most grocery stores.)
• Recycle your cans, bottles, paper and plastic. On your next trip to Charlottesville or Waynesboro fill your car with recyclables that the city does not accept and drop them in Fishersville at Sonoco Recycling. (UPDATE: Staunton now recycles plastics #1-#7!)
• Switch to a reusable or unbleached coffee filter.
• Join a CSA.  We use JMD Farm in Staunton.
• When renovating purchase Energy Star Appliances.  We upgraded six years ago and have saved hundreds of dollars.
• Don’t let the sink faucet run constantly when washing the dishes.
• Choose reusable instead of disposable products.
• Avoid plastic cups, especially those containing phthalates.  These are being phased out in Canada, the European Union and finally the US due to health concerns.

Thanks, Gena!

We want to highlight Staunton and immediate area companies who are “green” businesses, or who provide “green” products or services for inclusion on this website. Who is part of our local green economy? We want to know and recognize you.

Want to be listed? Please send your name, business name, product(s)/service(s)/certification(s), address, website, and contact details.

Send all materials with the email subject: “2020 Green Economy Listing” to this author @gmail.com.

[We still need signatures to establish Staunton's Green Task Force. Add your signature here!]

What’s a simple and free thing you can do? BYOB.

BYOB – As in, Bring Your Own Bag. Bring your own bag instead of using a plastic bag! It’s one of the easiest things you can do for a cleaner world, and makes a difference locally and globally.

Here’s how: Pack your tote in your car for easy access on unplanned shopping trips. Or, take your bag on any of your walking errands. It’s an easy habit that makes a difference.

Why the fuss? Check out this devastating presentation on the pollution and destruction caused by plastic bags. Plastic bags are made from crude oil and create a multitude of environmental problems.

Several local merchants will even give you a discount if you bring in a reusable bag. So, this simple step can save you money, too!

If you start today you can save an average of 22,176 plastic bags in your lifetime according to the link above.

Do something drastic… cut the plastic!!

One of the best things about Staunton is its preserved architecture. Thankfully, there is growing interest in green building and preservation. At least four small architecture and design companies around town focus on green-themed practices.

Here’s a contest worth entering if you’re a student or professional: Lifecycle Building Design Contest.

“Lifecycle building is designing buildings to facilitate disassembly and material reuse to minimize waste, energy consumption, and associated greenhouse gas emissions.”

Similarly, conversations around town are focused on sensible, sustainable growth that recognizes the unique needs of our city. Specifically, how can we revitalize the city core to prevent undesirable sprawl into our nearby rural areas?

One common complaint, for example, concerns the number of church parking lots downtown. They are only in use one or two days a week. Savannah, Georgia had a similar issue and decided to build on top of these parking lots — preserving parking, but also expanding living quarters and denser population. Our group isn’t suggesting this answer specifically. But Savannah’s creative re-use of space does demonstrate how critical green architectural design and city infrastructure will be for our city moving forward.