Our Renewable Nation

ORN#12 Concentrating Solar Power

2010-11-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,

It’s been a while.

We haven’t released a video for weeks now, mostly due to me spending a lot of time learning the ropes of the new job as a home energy auditor. It hasn’t left me much time to do video editing. Things seem to be going smoother now so we should be back to a more regular pace. It’s been incredibly gratifying to me in the new job though, and it’s a great feeling to spend my working hours helping people save energy. (and money!) It’s truly the kind of work I would do even if I wasn’t getting paid for it (shhhh….don’t tell my boss).

So….our latest video is ORN#12 Concentrating Solar Power, which is Carrick’s tour of Nevada Solar One, a different way of generating electricity from the sun. We’re used to seeing solar panels as a way of making electricity, but out in the desert of Nevada they are concentrating the heat from the sun using parabolic mirrors, which eventually turns a steam generator and makes electricity. This was yet another stop on our cross-country journey that was not open to the public, and we had to make special arrangements for a tour of the facility. Fortunately we sounded professional enough that they let us in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hna-SERm1uw

Nevada Solar One is one example of concentrating solar power (CSP) to generate electricity – here they use rows and rows of parabolic trough mirrors that follow the sun throughout the day, and the mirrors focus the intense desert sun onto a small receiver tube overhead. The fluid inside the tube is heated by the sun to 750 degrees and is piped to a heat exchanger that produces steam to turn a generator, making electricity. Our guide explained that while the concentrating solar aspect is newer technology, the steam generator is of course many generations old, so the basis of the whole system is easy enough to build and operate, and is scalable. You may have seen other types of concentrating solar power technology, like the field of mirrored dishes (that look like satellite dishes) that reflect their light onto a central tower. It’s the same idea.

One of the most amazing things we found out about concentrating solar power is that 100 square miles of desert would be enough to power the entire U.S. if it was filled with concentrated solar power plants like Nevada Solar One. Considering the vast stretches of desert we drove through in the Midwest, it seems like a no-brainer. Of course, you have transmission issues delivering it to the rest of the country, etc. etc., but it still serves as an example of a kind of renewable energy that is already proven and could provide power on a massive scale. Our guide Bob told us that there is a lot of research going into developing heat storage capacity so that they could continue to generate electricity after the sun goes down.

During the interview out in the field of mirrors, Bob offered to have one of the mirrors rotated down to our level so we could see it up close. Carrick, not one to miss an opportunity to have some fun, walked right up to it and started making faces at himself in the mirror reflection. I had to leave that part in!

A big setback for companies building concentrating solar power plants like Nevada Solar One is the upfront cost of building the plant. It’s a lot more expensive to build a power plant like this, but then the fuel is free and in the Nevada desert there’s almost a guarantee that it’s going to be really sunny, every day. Natural gas and coal power plants are cheaper to build than CSP plants but then they have to deal with sources of fossil fuels that have costs that swing wildly up and down. Places like Nevada Solar One can set a price to sell electricity that doesn’t change – nice and dependable, just like the sunlight that powers it.

There are two issues that I’ve seen come up with concentrating solar power, that are worth considering. First is CSP plants can use a lot of water because of the steam generation and cooling. Water is scarce enough in the desert but is getting even more difficult an issue because cities and farming farther north are using the resources up. I’ve read that the once-mighty Colorado River is now just a trickle by the time it gets to the Gulf of Mexico. Another issue is the destruction of wildlife habitat in the desert if CSP plants really scale up. To my eyes the whole region of Nevada desert we drove through looked dead, dead, dead, but I’m sure there is a wildlife ecosystem there regardless. That is certainly an important issue to keep in mind when talking about building miles and miles of these CSP plants.

That’s all from here – enjoy the video and hopefully we can get another one out to you soon.

Be well,
Colin & Carrick

ORN#11 Big Solar @ Google

2010-09-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Here’s our latest video entry, ORN#11 Big Solar @ Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LI_7WlPFNw

In this video, Carrick gets a special tour at Google headquarters of their solar installation. At the time it was built a few years ago, it was the largest solar panel installation in the country by a company. Other companies have since built even larger solar installations, but the point of this video is to show an example of a company that went solar as a business investment, so it makes sense for homes AND for big businesses.

This visit was a hard one to set up – Google probably gets more media requests than they can handle. I read an interview with our tour guide in the video, Anthony, and I was persistent in getting through until I could talk with Anthony directly and he was happy to show us around. They’ve covered pretty much every available rooftop space with solar panels – over 9,000 panels altogether. They even covered the parking lots with solar carports, which charge plug-in electric cars for employees to use.

One of the local private schools in Worcester just added a big solar panel installation on their rooftop; I drove by the other day to have a look and I couldn’t see it. It’s installed on a flat roof so it’s not visible from the road. How many huge buildings with unused, open flat roofs are in your area? All those big-box retail stores are a good example. Even for people who think solar panels on home rooftops look strange, we could cover so many large buildings with flat, open roofs and you’d never even see it. That’s one thing we could do to incorporate renewables, one of many.

Be well,
Colin & Carrick

ORN#10 Biomimicry: Design by Nature

2010-08-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

I just finished and posted our latest video, ORN#10 Biomimicry. You
can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPXYMBWjIks

This is one of my favorite interviews that we did, at the Biomimicry
Institute in Missoula, Montana. Biomimicry is a design approach of
looking at nature for solutions when designing new products. Genius.
Why reinvent the wheel when there is already a design solution found
somewhere in nature? Engineering meets biology. During the interview
Carrick learned about many examples of biomimicry and saw some
first-hand, like the waterproof, stainproof fabric that mimics the
microscopic structure of a leaf!

We initially interviewed Janine Benyus, the biomimicry guru, in Boston
before we began our cross-country journey but unfortunately the video
camera we were using went on the fritz about 5 minutes into the
interview. We didn’t get enough footage to use for our video but I
decided to edit together what we did get into a bonus video, which you
can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYzj4XcOHSs

I’m now officially part of the green workforce! I was hired full-time
several months ago to do weatherization work in homes and am now in
training to start as a home energy auditor in September. I’ve been
interested in becoming a home energy auditor for several years now,
and our cross-country eco-video project has really helped to inspire
me to make it happen. I’ll be helping people to make their homes more
energy-efficient, while saving them money – it’s hard to argue with
that! Massachusetts has one of the best utility-sponsored programs in
the country to weatherize homes. So now I’ll be working as an energy
auditor and still tuning pianos on the side.

I’m definitely behind on getting these videos out, but I’m plugging
along. We still have many more in the queue so stay tuned!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

ORN#9 Hydropower at Hoover Dam

2010-07-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Our latest video, ORN#9 Hydropower at Hoover Dam, is now online and ready for your viewing pleasure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NvyAlSeZFc

We visited Hoover Dam in Boulder City, Nevada (pronounced Nev-aaaa-da) to get an up-close example of big hydroelectric power. Hoover Dam is one of the largest hydropower dams in the U.S. and a national landmark…plus it was on the way.

I didn’t want to just show up with a video camera and try to interview someone there, so I called ahead to set up something official. The contact I spoke with told me about the filming fee for Hoover Dam, which was…significant to say the least. That wasn’t going to work. Fortunately, I contacted several different people and got a reply from someone else there who gave us the in, and we interviewed one of the tour guides for Hoover Dam which worked out great! We got to tag along on the tour and film inside the dam, which is a rare treat.

Hydroelectric dams produce most of the renewable electricity in the U.S., and Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that we could easily double the hydropower in this country by replacing older inefficient turbines and adding new capacity to existing dams. In fact, only 3% of the country’s 80,000 dams produce electricity – most are used for irrigation, flood control, and water treatment.

Hoover Dam produces 2,080 megawatts of electricity every year – that’s an incredible amount of power. That’s three times more power than the world’s largest wind farm we visited in Roscoe, Texas, and it’s a constant base-load source of electricity. It’s enough to supply 1.3 million homes with power!

There are very real environmental impacts for hydroelectric dams. Dams can greatly affect the ecology of a river system. Some dams build up lakes as storage behind the dams and others are run-of-river dams that let the water flow through. While flooding areas to become lakes behind the dams dramatically changes the ecosystem, some people argue that harnessing and controlling the river flow offsets the damage that comes from seasonal flooding. Of course, that’s a natural cycle too. There are lively debates on the environmental impacts of hydroelectric dams.

I included an internet-only video extra that is just for a bit of fun, ORN Extra: Bodies in Hoover Dam. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4teeOCLqxs)

While on the tour, the guide addressed the old rumor that there are bodies buried in Hoover Dam. There were, in fact, 96 men who died on-site during the construction of the dam between 1931 and 1936, but beyond that I’ll let the video give you the answer. This video extra is not going to be included in the DVD to distribute to schools – it’s a bit dark and off-topic for that. I included it online because it’s an interesting snippet about the dam, and it may be the kind of short video that gets passed around and generates a lot of hits - we’ll see.

Be well,
Colin

2010-06-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We just released our latest video, ORN#7 Vertical Axis Wind Turbines,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp522phTgBc

While coming through Detroit we stopped in to visit Enviro-Energies, a
company that makes a very different kind of wind turbine. Vertical
axis wind turbines are more commonly mounted on rooftops and spin,
well, vertically instead of horiztonally. Think about a
merry-go-round with sails, and that’s a lot like what we saw on our
visit. Nothing like what we’re used to a wind turbine looking like.
Carrick chatted with Ken Johnson, President of Enviro-Energies about
vertical axis wind turbines, or VAWTs.

So why use a VAWT instead of the traditional propeller-type wind
turbine? WARNING: long answer to follow. From how I see it, they are
different products for different applications. Traditional horizontal
wind turbines are mounted on towers or poles – generally, the higher
you place the turbine the more consistent wind speed you’ll see.
They’re not meant to mount on a rooftop, not only because of the lower
elevation but also because the sloping roofs produce a lot of
turbulence in the airflow. The Enviro-Energies turbine actually
takes advantage of air turbulence from sloped roofs and is better able
to handle shifting wind direction.

For homeowners, putting up a wind turbine can be a tricky situation.
In our town in Massachusetts, the policy states that any pole or tower
would have to fall on my property in ANY direction, so if I have a
75-foot tower I’d better have a good amount of land. I don’t have
many acres of land so that wouldn’t work for me. Because VAWTs are
roof-mounted, this isn’t a problem for getting town approval.

VAWTs are marketed touting a number of benefits, some of which I will
take issue with. They are sold as being silent and harmless to birds
(suggesting those are problems with traditional propeller-types).
These claims play to many people’s mistaken impressions that wind
turbines are loud and a big threat to birds, which I and many other
people spend a lot of time refuting. In my experience, small
residential wind turbines do make noise when they’re really moving,
and larger commercial-sized wind turbines (newer ones anyway) do not.
The Enviro-Energies turbines they are silent at any size and speed.
Wind studies have shown that on average, wind turbines kill 2 birds
per year – again, cats, windshields, plate glass windows, etc., are
responsible for more birds killed annually than wind turbines.

What is really intriguing about the Enviro-Energies wind turbine is
that they have developed large-scale turbines that could be put on
tall buildings in cities. This is an application where traditional
horizontal turbines would not work. Usually wind power is generated
in rural areas with transmission to cities, but designs like this
could bring wind power to the cities themselves. The largest model
they can produce at Enviro-Energies is 200 feet wide, with bladders
filled with helium to significantly reduce the weight of the turbine.

Now, Enviro-Energies is not the only company out there making vertical
axis wind turbines. Actually, if you mention VAWTs to most wind
energy enthusiasts they will usually groan and roll their eyes. VAWTs
are relatively new to the game and there are a lot of new companies
making wind turbines that look neat, but haven’t been thoroughly
tested and usually produce much less energy than they are marketed
for. Just do a search online for vertical axis wind turbines and you
will see an amazing variety of designs, and a lot of amazing claims
with how much electricity they can produce at lower wind speeds.
During the interview, Ken talked about their approach to design and
how much the sails of the Enviro-Energies turbine catch wind more
efficiently at low wind speeds.

Another interesting feature of the Enviro-Energies turbines is that
they use magnetic levitation, which greatly reduces the friction while
turning. In the video you can see Carrick very easily turning a
20-foot turbine. That’s one way to get Carrick to burn off some
energy! Also, Ken mentioned that company logos and advertisements can
be added to the sails which make large and unique billboard, while
sending a green message.

So check out the video and enjoy – this visit was definitely one of
the best examples of being able to visit and report on something that
most people have never seen or heard of. I’m grateful that we had the
opportunity!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

ORN#7 GM and the Chevy Volt

2010-05-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

I just posted our latest video, ORN#7 GM and the Chevy Volt.

GM has been developing a variety of alternative fuel vehicles, seeing the writing on the wall when it comes to the future of gasoline. They are working on developing hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, E-85 ethanol, and plug-in hybrids like the upcoming Chevy Volt. Our video features Carrick’s interview with Beth Lowery, Vice President of the Environment, Energy and Safety at GM, plus a tour of their battery development lab where they are testing the battery system for the Volt.

Getting into GM was an unlikely opportunity, to say the least. Months before we left on our cross-country journey, I had been, er…plugging away at trying to get an interview there about the Volt. I didn’t figure it was a good idea to just show up with a camera ala Michael Moore, so I researched the contacts there and tried everything I could but didn’t get anywhere. While we were interviewing Chelsea Sexton in Los Angeles I mentioned that I didn’t have any luck and sure enough, she had the connections to get us in. There is great irony there if you’ve seen the documentary, ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’. So, as we were coming through Detroit on the way back home we got the red carpet treatment at GM and were fortunate enough to get the interviews we needed for a video about the Volt.

The Chevy Volt is a plug-in hybrid car that is very different technology that what we’re seen so far. The car has a 40-mile range on electric-only, then instead of a motor an on-board gasoline-powered generator produces the electricity to provide power. Unlike a combustion engine that is constantly under different demands for power, i.e. going up hills, changing speed, etc., the generator runs at a single, optimum speed for better fuel economy. The average commute to work and back is about 40 miles, so for many people the Volt would have enough range to get around without using any gasoline, but has the extended range with the generator if people need to drive further. The Volt is due out this November and I can assure you there will be great publicity and fanfare when that time comes!

Carrick’s interview with VP Beth Lowery was in downtown Detroit at GM’s Renaissance Center, which is the big skyscraper with the GM logo. The lobby of the building is a showcase of GM vehicles – it’s a busy, noisy place as you’ll see. One part that I did not include in the video is where Carrick tells Beth that when he grows up his first car is going to be a Tesla Roadster – she was a good sport and had a big smile at that one. Way to tell the vice president of one of the world’s largest automakers that you want to buy a competitor’s car….It was great to hear about the variety of alt fuel technologies they are working on, giving people a lot of choices in the future about how they want to power their cars.

We then traveled over to the battery development lab that is working on testing the battery system for the Chevy Volt. Carrick interviewed Doug Drauch, lead developer at the lab, about the technology that goes into the battery pack on the Volt. Outside the lab we also got to see GM’s earlier electric car, the EV1 (we actually saw the first EV1 made). The EV1’s were leased but never sold to customers, and that program certainly came to a controversial end about a decade ago. The Chevy Volt, however, will be for sale and they are projecting 10,000 vehicles off the line in the first year.

In the past, we’ve had our bit of fun with GM but it has all been in fun. Back in 2007 Carrick and I made a video about the Volt called ‘Darth Vader and the Chevy Volt’ which took some pokes but ultimately was a fun way to spread the word about the Volt.

My guess is GM probably hadn’t seen that one before they agreed to let us in. Considering their previous history with electric cars I think they deserve some ribbing, but beyond that I think what they’re doing with the Chevy Volt is great and I hope they are successful. GM is very much in the public about their strong commitment to the Volt. You can keep updated on their progress at the Volt website, www.ChevroletVoltage.com.

Be well,
Colin

ORN#6 World's Largest Wind Farm

2010-04-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite interviews from our cross-country eco-video
project, when we met Cliff Etheridge in Roscoe, Texas, home of the
world’s largest wind farm.

The way Cliff explained, the rural town of Roscoe was dying out, and
once the Dairy Queen left town they knew they were in trouble. Cliff
had just retired as a cotton farmer and knew about the wind farms in
nearby Abilene and Sweetwater, and was interested to find out if
Roscoe could have a wind farm too. There is both plenty of wind and
plenty of open space in Roscoe. He brought in wind experts to assess
whether or not a wind farm would work there, and then got the support
of the townspeople for the idea.

A few years later, the world’s largest wind farm now stands in Roscoe,
Texas with 631 wind turbines producing enough electricity for 250,000
homes. Farmers and landowners are paid by the company who owns the
wind turbines for leasing their land, and they continue to farm around
the turbines. In a rural farming community, that extra money really
helps keep the local economy going. As we saw in so many places,
there are a variety of reasons to support renewable energy: the
environment, the economy, national security, etc. In fact, the week
before we arrived in Roscoe, Cliff won ‘Environmentalist of the Year’
from the state of Texas!

Standing in a field of 631 massive wind turbines was an amazing
experience. It was actually very quiet - just the noise of the wind
blowing. It made me wish that everyone who opposes wind farms could
stand where I was to experience it for themselves. They are quite
majestic, in my opinion. Our local newspaper just featured an article
on building wind turbines here in central Massachusetts, speaking of
the several that have been built in the last two years, and others
that are on the way. I read the online version of the article and it
was of course followed by comments on the website about how wind
turbines are noisy, kill birds, are a bad investment, etc. People may
not like how they look, and that's their opinion of course. I've
heard some complaints about wind turbines being noisy but I've never
experienced that myself with the turbines I've been close to. I know
the smaller residential wind turbines are are noisier. Many studies
have been done about bird mortality with wind turbines and it's
generally found that wind turbines kill about 2 birds per year. Cats,
windshields, and plate glass windows are a far greater menace to bird
populations than wind turbines. As far as wind turbines being a bad
investment, our first video in the ORN series features the wind
turbine at Holy Name High School which has a 7-year payback and then
free heat/electricity for years afterward. The Roscoe wind farm was a
business decision, to boost the economy of a rural town that was
dying. People can argue the numbers all day but in the meantime that
doesn't stop people from investing in renewable energy and
experiencing the very real benefits. If you hear or see these
arguments I encourage you to help counter them and try to correct some
of the misinformation out there.

Enjoy!
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

ORN#5 Cellulosic Ethanol

2010-04-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Before I get to the newest video, I want to say thanks for the ratings and reviews on ITunes! If you haven’t yet, please check us out on ITunes and leave a rating and/or review, which helps us get notice in a very large ITunes world. Just do a search for Our Renewable Nation in the ITunes store.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nHLctl761k

Our latest video, ORN# 5 Cellulsoic Ethanol, is Carrick’s tour of Verenium’s demonstration plant in Jennings, Louisiana. Verenium has been developing a process of using high-energy crops and native plants to make cellulosic ethanol to fuel cars and trucks.

Ethanol has been a controversial alternative fuel to gasoline, with a lot of headlines and politics involved for the last several years. Much of the gasoline now sold in the U.S. has a blend of 10% ethanol, which is being made from corn. Making ethanol from corn really gets into a whole host of issues, like growing food crops for fuel. Corn is an energy-intensive crop to grow and farmers end up using a lot more energy to grow and harvest the corn than we get from using the ethanol in our cars. Then there’s the problem of rising food prices because the corn is being used for fuel instead of food, and corn is in A LOT of food we buy (watch the movie King Corn or read the book ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ by Michael Pollan for more on that). Plus, even planting every acre of land available in the U.S. with corn to make ethanol wouldn’t get us anywhere near what we use for transportation fuel in this country.

Cellulosic ethanol can be made from native plants and grasses that need very little help to grow abundantly, and from crops that are able to produce many times more ethanol per acre than corn. One of the big challenges with producing cellulosic ethanol is breaking down the cell walls to get at the sugars trapped in these plants materials. Verenium has developed a process of conditioning and pressurizing the plant materials then adding enzymes to break down the cell walls, making it possible to yield a much greater amount of ethanol from plants than the process of producing corn ethanol.

On our cross-country journey we were given a rare opportunity to visit and tour Verenium’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in Louisiana. This is not a place that is open to the public. In fact, no kid has ever walked through the facility before Carrick. There is a lot of money invested in developing this process and a handful of other companies are in the race to perfect the secrets to making cellulosic ethanol. Naturally, they are selective about how many people they bring through, so we were very lucky!

You may notice this is a short video, shorter than normal. During our tour of Verenium I couldn’t imagine how we were going to take a subject as complex as cellulosic ethanol and make a 5-minute video for a broad audience including kids. There was so much to show and tell, and so many issues involved that in the end I decided to keep it short and not overload it with information. There is a lot of discussion and debate about ethanol on the internet, so our video serves as a “taste of” and anyone interested can do more poking around on their own.

We use SO MUCH gasoline in this country for transportation that it’s hard to imagine any one source of fuel that we can produce to take its place. That’s not to say it can’t be done, it’s just to highlight the tremendous challenge any alternative fuel faces. Making vehicles more fuel-efficient is one way to help meet that challenge. Also, the idea of a Chevy Volt-style hybrid with a fuel-driven range extender would dramatically lower our use of fuel by letting us drive on electricity most of the time and only use fuel when driving farther than 50 miles.

Before I close this out I want to mention the upcoming sustainability fair in Hull, Massachusetts by our friends at Sustainable South Shore, who helped sponsor our project. We went last year and it was great – here’s more info:
7th Annual Earth Day Sustainable Living Expo
Sat., April 17, 2010 at the DCR Mary Jeanette Murray
Bathhouse, 204 Nantasket Ave., Hull, MA 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
FREE. See website: www.sustainablesouthshore.org
for details about last year's Festival vendors and organizations
plus updated information for the 2010 Sustainable Living Expo.
40 Table spaces, inside and outside, of sustainable living related
companies and organizations. Sponsored by Sustainable South
Shore Inc. (18 So. Shore Towns), a Chapter of MCAN,
www.massclimateaction.net.
Info.: 781-925-9066 nancy@sustainablesouthshore.org
Hull Wind 1 Turbine tours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Special Announcement and Our Newest Video

2010-01-31T20:19:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,

We just finished and uploaded our latest eco-video, but first I have a big announcement and a request for a little help!

I have set up our eco-video series, Our Renewable Nation, as a video podcast on ITunes. ITunes is the premier online music store and directory for podcasts, so being listed as a podcast there is a BIG DEAL and exposes our videos to a much wider audience, potentially. On ITunes, people can subscribe to our videos to play on their IPods, IPhones, or on their computers, updated as soon as each video is online. There are very few environmental video podcasts listed on ITunes, so we don’t have much competition.

ITunes can give a podcast a lot of publicity by listing it as a featured podcast, but in order for them to notice it the podcast needs to have a lot of good ratings and reviews. If you use ITunes, could you help give us a boost? Do a search in the ITunes store for Our Renewable Nation, and our podcast will come up. A quick rating and/or some comments about the videos would be a big help! If you don’t already use ITunes, you can download it free from www.Apple.com – I very highly recommend browsing through the available podcasts, all free and an endless source of brain food. Really, my IPod was one of the best purchases I ever made; I listen to podcasts for hours every day and learn so much.

OK, now our newest video, ORN#4 Solar Decathlon 2009. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPVyrGeSMLM) We visited the Solar Decathlon in October down in Washington DC; it’s a competition of homes from universities all over the world that are completely powered by the sun. The homes are assembled on the National Mall for 2 weeks and are open to the public to show just what’s possible. When built specifically with renewable energy and energy efficiency in the design, there are amazing possibilities for zero energy homes. For example:

-Team Germany’s house is almost completely covered in solar panels, both traditional PV and new thin-film panels on the siding of the house, which generates several times more electricity than the house uses (selling the rest back to the electric company!).
-The University of Illinois house is so energy efficient that it could be heated with a single hair dryer.
-Team Spain’s house features the first-of-it’s-kind tracking solar roof that follows the sun throughout the day.
-Team California’s house has computerized lighting, heating, and cooling controls that can all be changed on-the-go using an IPhone.

As you’ll see in the video, these are very high-tech houses featuring solar technology for electricity and heating, super-insulation, passive solar heating with south-facing windows, etc. The Solar Decathlon houses stand in strong contrast to the very low-tech zero-energy homes we visited in Taos, New Mexico, called Earthships. Very different approaches to building! Stay tuned for our upcoming video about Earthships!

There were 20 houses at the Solar Decathlon and we filmed each one, but in this video we covered 5 of the most interesting and high-scoring houses. I want to put together a few more videos that cover the other houses but that would take weeks, and I want to move on to the other exciting videos that are next in line. Maybe once the video series is finished I’ll return to these remaining Solar Decathlon houses and make some ORN web extras. In the meantime, you can visit the Decathlon website, www.SolarDecathlon.org, which has plenty of information about all 20 houses, plus lots of pictures and videos of the competition.

In the 2009 Solar Decathlon, there was a focus on how much it would cost to build these houses. For example, Team Germany’s house cost roughly $750,000 to build (it features some very cutting-edge technologies). Some things to consider about the costs though:
1. 1. You’d never have an electric bill or heating bill again.

2. 2. You could get paid for the excess electricity you produce.

3. 3. State and federal credits can make solar technology much more affordable.

4. 4. These are prototype homes; if they were mass-produced the cost would be much lower.

We hope you enjoy our latest video! As always, feel free to leave comments on YouTube and rate the videos.
Thank you everyone for your support!
Be well,
Colin & Carrick--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

ORN# 3 Reusable Shopping Bags

2010-01-05T19:19:00.001-08:00

Hi friends,

Our latest video, ORN#3 Reusable Shopping Bags, is ready for viewing! Click on the blue title or visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8U6vxJu1tI
We visited the ChicoBag Company in Chico, California to learn more about reusable shopping bags and the reasons they are a more sustainable choice than paper or plastic. Carrick interviewed Andy Keller, the president and founder of ChicoBag, and it was a great interview with a lot of great points. In fact, I decided to make this video a 2-for-1 special; ORN#3 Reusable Shopping Bags is the “official” video of our visit, and I also put together a second video, ORN ChicoBag Extended Interview, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP7nDSrVlQk) which is a longer version of our interview that includes a lot of Q&A not in the ORN#3 video. Andy gave such a great interview with a lot of great points that couldn’t make it into the shorter format for our video series, so if you like the “official” video then go ahead and watch the extended interview.

I think of this video as the sister video to our last, ORN#2 Stainless Steel Water Bottles. Both videos talk about sustainable alternatives to disposable items we use every day. Stainless steel water bottles and reusable shopping bags are two easy ways to reduce our environmental footprint – Andy told us that the average American uses on average about 500 disposable shopping bags every year! He gave lots of amazing statistics that will be sure to surprise you.

ChicoBags are unique among reusable bags because they are designed to be smooshed down into the small attached pouch with a drawstring, which make them easy to carry and keep where you need them, like in the car, purse, etc. Our family has been using canvas bags for years but they are bulky to carry around and they get stained after a while. ChicoBags are more convenient and are easy to clean. Also, they are popular for fundraising because they can be printed with whatever logos and ads necessary and sold to help raise money.

After the interview there is a scene we shot that is probably the most bizarre thing we filmed in the entire two months: a fight scene between the Paper Bag Monster versus the Plastic Bag Monster. Andy & company came up with the Plastic Bag Monster costume a few years ago as a great visual example of the disposable bags used every year – they took 500 plastic bags and tied them all together into this big, rustling, bizarre costume. They rent the costumes out for events and festivals to draw attention to the issue of plastic bags. Some great videos are on YouTube that feature the Plastic Bag Monster, just do a search. We wanted to incorporate the Plastic Bag Monster in our video but do something different from what’s already online. Fortunately for us, Andy had just finished the week before a new Paper Bag Monster costume, and we filmed the WORLD DEBUT. Hats off to Andy for going above and beyond what we asked him to make our video fun! So in the supermarket battle between paper vs. plastic, we settle the score once and for all. Both paper and plastic bags have significant environmental impacts and neither is a sustainable choice.

At the very end of our video, make sure to watch the credits to see a funny blooper reel of Carrick working on the video intro. He and I have a fun time making the videos – there’s a lot of goofing around that you don’t usually see. I showed him the blooper collection and he thought it was great – it’s just him being a goof. I occasionally get comments that I “force my poor kid” to do these videos. Some of the comments we get on YouTube are…interesting, usually aimed at me the parent who is obviously brainwashing my son and mentally abusing him with nonsense about renewable energy, sustainability, climate change, etc. If you feel like posting responses to the cranks please feel free: www.youtube.com/carrickgareth.

I had a big challenge with this and the water bottle video: getting good visuals. I try to add interesting things to look at during an interview, because even with the most compelling speaker it can be hard to watch someone talk for 5 minutes straight. The video we made about the wind turbine at Holy Name High School, ORN#1 Wind Over Worcester, had plenty of footage of the wind turbine, on top of the interview audio. That was easy. Finding good visuals for water bottles and shopping bags was harder. Sometimes we’ve used images from the internet, which are free to use if given credit. Other times we use (hopefully) funny bits to break the interview up, like the Abe Lincoln animation from the last video. We do what we can to make the videos fun for kids and grownups!

That’s a wrap on reusable shopping bags, now onto the next video! There are a few time-sensitive topics we filmed that I will jump to next, like the Solar Decathlon, the Chevy Volt, and cellulosic ethanol. As usual, you’ll be the first to know!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our first eco-video is ready!

2009-12-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,

At long last, our first video from our cross-country eco-video series is ready and uploaded to Youtube for your enjoyment:

This first video is an interview with Jeff Cresswell at Klean Kanteen, a company in Chico, CA that makes stainless steel water bottles. Jeff talked to Carrick about the benefits of using stainless steel water bottles over the disposable plastic ones. This is a really interesting topic with lots of angles, but we are focusing on the question of sustainability.

We have a handful of Klean Kanteen bottles at home and use them constantly, so I can attest first-hand that they are very durable and convenient. We also have several SIGG bottles, which are aluminum and haven’t held up quite as well. We got a recall notice lately from SIGG, saying that their bottles have an inside lining that contains BPA (Bisphenol A), a controversial ingredient in some plastic that is thought to be potentially hazardous, so we sent the old ones back and we are getting new ones without the BPA lining (gee, I feel so much safer). Klean Kanteen, on the other hand, is made from stainless steel and has no lining – it’s an inert material that doesn’t need a lining. I’m seeing metal water bottles pop up all over the place in catalogs and stores now, so you may want to look closely before you buy to see what kind of metal the bottle is made from. If you see a big metal water bottle for $1.99, be aware of what you’re buying.

I recently read Daniel Goleman’s book, ‘Ecological Intelligence’ which talks about life cycle analysis of different products, and what products are really “green” and what is “green-washing”. He talks about stainless steel water bottles and isn’t so enthusiastic – he claims that because of the energy needed to produce a stainless steel water bottle and transport it to the store, it would need to be used 70 times before having a lower eco-impact as disposable plastic water bottles. There are lots of variables that go into that analysis so I take it with a grain of salt. We’ve used our Klean Kanteens hundreds of times and they keep right on going. One of the major benefits of the stainless steel water bottles is that they are 100% TRULY recyclable, meaning they can be melted down and reused again and again to make new stainless steel water bottles, not downcycled like plastic bottles. If the bottles were made from recycled steel and made in the U.S., that statistic of using the bottle 70 times would be very different.

One thing I really wanted to make sure we covered in this video is drinking water from the tap and public drinking fountains. I’ve seen many times people advocate tap water instead of buying plastic water bottles, but nobody seems to acknowledge that in so many parts of the country the water tastes awful! I know – we drove it! One of the first things I did when we got home to Sutton was drink several glasses of water – I take for granted that our wonderful home well-water just comes in endless supply for us to drink. Fortunately, different kinds of water filters for the whole house, sink, or a water filter pitcher are easy ways to make tap water taste much better in places where it’s not good.

Another issue is convenience – buying a bottle of cold water on a hot day is a relief! The bottled water companies don’t hesitate to point that out, and they’re right. If bone-chilling cold water is what you want then it’s a lot less convenient to bring your own bottle. It’s also interesting to consider that most of what convenience stores sell for drinks, like soda, juice, iced tea, etc is really bottled or canned water, with flavoring and sugar added.

As a side note, many companies that sell disposable plastic water bottles officially recommend NOT reusing their bottles. That’s not just because they would rather keep selling you new bottles; disposable plastic bottles are not designed to be reused. They were never meant to be refilled and used again. There’s a lot of media online about plastic from bottles leaching into the water. Personally, I find that water in plastic bottles usually tastes like….plastic water. I don’t need studies to tell me it’s leaching, I can taste it.

In the interview at Klean Kanteen, Jeff also talked about how the company got started – it was interesting but I ended up leaving it out of the video. It began as a response to reusable plastic water bottles, such as Nalgene bottles, that were a big trend 5-10 years ago but became a big controversy with…our old friend, Bisphenol A again. You may remember hearing about BPA found in plastic baby bottles and that caused a big stir in the media. Klean Kanteen was started to offer stainless steel as an alternative and was marketed more to the sports enthusiasts at stores like REI. As disposable plastic water bottles became more of an environmental concern, Klean Kanteen has been getting more recognition from the green movement.

So, I hope you enjoy our first video from the trip. Now that I have the basics of using the video editing program, Final Cut, things should move much more quickly and we should be putting the videos out regularly. The Klean Kanteen video is also on the OurRenewableNation.org website, embedded from www.GoGreenTube.com instead of YouTube so that all you teachers can access it in schools (schools generally block websites like YouTube).

Thanks again for all your support in making this eco-video series happen! Please send this email to friends and family who you think would enjoy our video, and encourage them to sign up for our email list so they can get the videos as soon as they go online, just like you!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Latest Video News in October

2009-10-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

It’s been some time since my last message so I wanted to give an update on where we’re at with our eco-video series.

We got a great computer as a result of the grant from EFI that I mentioned before – it’s a Mac tower that is ridiculously fast and has plenty of hard drive space, which you need if you’re going to be doing a lot of video work! I’ve been spending hours transferring all the video footage onto the computer to begin editing – it’s a long process.

In the meantime, we’ve been continuing to film more interviews over the last month!

Several weeks ago we visited Silvermine Farm, a family-owned farm in our hometown of Sutton. Carrick interviewed farmer Martha Cole about the sustainability of local farms vs. large agribusiness, and what CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) are all about. Our family joined the CSA that Silvermine is part of in Sutton and we got a tasty supply of fresh veggies throughout the summer - we know where it came from and who grew it. Carrick also talked to Martha about the debate over buying local food that may not be organic vs. organic food that is grown and shipped thousands of miles.

We recently spent the long weekend in Washington DC to visit the Solar Decathlon 2009, a competition of 20 universities from around the world to design and build the best solar house. They set up each house on the National Mall and open them up for 2 weeks for the public to come tour. Carrick and I visited in 2007 (it happens every 2 years) and filmed a video compilation that turned out to be the only video overview of the competition on the internet. We toured again this year and shot plenty of video footage to include in our eco-video series. It’s such an inspiring sight to be there, seeing these homes that get all their electricity, heat, hot water, etc. from the sun. You can learn all about the Solar Decathlon at their website, www.SolarDecathlon.org.

While in Washington DC, Carrick also interviewed Bracken Hendricks about the government’s role in supporting renewable energy and sustainability. Mr. Hendricks works at the Center for American Progress and co-wrote the book ‘Apollo’s Fire’ with Congressman Jay Inslee, which proposes to move forward with clean, renewable energy with the same speed and urgency that we Americans were challenged with putting a man on the moon in 10 years.

This last weekend Carrick and I drove out to Great Barrington in western Massachusetts to interview Bill McKibben, who is one of the leading authors on climate change and organizes international actions to support climate change legislation. We’ve found along our travels that people support clean, renewable energy for a variety of reasons, whether environmental, national security, the strength of the economy, religion, etc. I thought it was important to have someone to speak to each of these reasons, and for climate change it would be hard to find anyone more qualified to speak to the issue! What I found after our cross-country journey was that we had filmed many great examples of the solutions that are happening all over the U.S., but we needed more context, the ‘why’ we should care about these issues, not just the ‘how’.

So that’s the latest – we’re still filming and transferring all the video footage. Breaking my ankle really threw a wrench in the works but now that I’m walking without crutches or cast and can drive again we’re moving forward. I’m excited to get editing now that we have so much footage ready on the computer – you’ll be the first to know when we have videos ready to show!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Broken Ankle, New Computer

2009-09-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

It's been some time since I last sent anything out, and you'll remember that I had broken my ankle several days after we came home from our cross-country trip. Broken ankles sure take a long time to heal! I'm in a removable cast now and I should be able to put weight on my foot in a few weeks. Needless to say, the broken ankle has put a serious wrench in the plans to continue filming for the project in New England, at least until I'm all healed.

At least I could get a good start on editing all the video footage from the trip, right? Ah, technical difficulties. I wasn't able to transfer the footage on my Macbook, but we were lucky enough to get a grant from Energy Federation Incorporated here in Massachusetts (www.efi.org) and we were able to use it to buy a Mac tower that has enough power and storage to transfer the video and do all the editing I need. I just got the grant check last week and bought the Mac tower online, so it's on the way! I applied for the grant before we left for the trip, so it was great timing. EFI is a company in central Massachusetts that sells energy conservation products and teaches the public ways to use energy more efficiently.

The other piece of news to share is that we got a sponsorship donation from Sustainable South Shore, a chapter of Massachusetts Climate Action Network. They have been a big supporter of our project by having us at the Hull Sustainable Living Expo back in April (which was fantastic!) and promoting our cross-country journey on their website, www.sustainablesouthshore.org. Many thanks to Sustainable South Shore for their support for our work!

That's all for now, I just wanted to check in and let you know where things are at for us. We should have something ready for you soon!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

We're Home! How Many Miles Was That?

2009-07-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We’re home! Actually, we’ve been home for days now but we needed some time to get unpacked and get settled, so I’ve been a bit behind in the updates.

The official grand total number of miles for the trip: 12, 624 in two months!

So now what? There is a lot to get working on now that we’re back in Massachusetts; I have to transfer many hours of video onto the Mac for editing and get working on that, plus we have more video to shoot here in New England that we weren’t able to get to before we left in May. Here is a list of the upcoming New England topics yet to film:

Red Sox – Fenway Park sustainability measures
Cape Wind project – Cape Cod, MA
Hull, MA - municipal wind turbines
Poulson Hybrid, CT
Verdant Power, tidal power, East River, NYC
Stephen Lacey, Inside Renewable Energy Podcast, NH
Francis Moore Lappe, author, MA
Deep-Energy Retrofits, VT
Green City Spotlights: Boston, MA
Fosters Farm, methane digestors, VT
Timberland, NH
Recycline, MA
Owl Power, veg oil for power, MA
Geothermal heat, residential example, MA
Maine Solar House, net-zero solar heat and electricity
Connecticut small-scale hydropower

Just a few more topics…we also are planning a visit to Washington DC in the beginning of October to see and film the Solar Decathlon 2009, and visit the Green Festival put on by Green America. I’m also working on getting interviews while we’re there with William McDonough (author of the book ‘Cradle-to-Cradle’) and Bracken Hendricks (author and fellow at the Apollo Alliance, a non-partisan advocacy group for renewable energy in Washington DC).

I managed to break my ankle soon after we got home so that affects things, but I’m using whatever downtime I have to get cracking on the videos. I’m able to continue working until I have surgery a week from Monday, then I’m supposed to stay parked with my foot up and let it mend.

On the advice of friends of mine who work on video production professionally, I began using Final Cut Express for the Mac to edit videos, which is a program that is a big leap from what I’ve always used, which is the free editing software that comes with PC (Windows Movie Maker) and Mac (IMovie). I’m putting myself through a crash-course in how to use the new program, plus there are many features that I can use to make our videos even better than what we’ve done before. I’m also upgrading the computer memory to handle the strain and am picking up an external hard drive (video footage takes an incredible amount of hard drive space!)

I have plenty of thoughts to share about all we’ve seen and done over the last two months, and to speak of the things I feel the most hopeful about, but I’ll make that a separate post so I don’t go on forever here. I’m overdue in getting this message out, so I’ll leave it at that.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Visit to Farm Sanctuary

2009-07-06T18:43:00.001-07:00

Hi friends,

In the final stop of our cross-country journey, we stopped for a few days in upstate New York to stay at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen.

We are looking at several angles of sustainability when it comes to what we eat, since food accounts for a large piece of our environmental footprint. Vegetarian vs. meat? Organic vs. conventional? Local vs. global? There are many issues to look at here and when it comes to food it can be controversial. At the very least I'm hoping our videos spark some conversations on sustainable eating.

Farm Sanctuary is a home to downed and sick farm animals that come from the industrial factory farm system that brings us most of the meat we buy at the supermarket. We visited with the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits and others that are living out the rest of their lives at Farm Sanctuary, being cared for by the folks who work there. Carrick interviewed Matt Rice, the campaign coordinator at Farm Sanctuary, about the factory farming system and how that model is unsustainable to the environment.

I saw a statistic last year that eating vegan (no meat or dairy) has more of a positive environmental impact than buying a Prius. Of course, there are a lot of factors there to consider, but in general the idea makes sense. The majority of food grown in this country is grown for farm animals, not people – in turn, farm animals consume a massive amount of food and water. While human sewage is treated and regulated in the U.S., farm animal waste has much less regulation for disposal, and it produces a great deal of methane, which is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Factory farms are unsustainable because they aren’t responsible for the waste they create and they rely on cheap fossil fuels in fertilizing and harvesting the crops to feed the billions of animals.

When it comes to factory farms there is a lot of shocking material out there, with images that are hard to look at. Our videos are focusing on sustainability, so we’ll be looking at the environmental impacts of factory farms and not the animal cruelty and confinement issues with the graphic images.

People have a lot of choices when it comes to the food we buy and consume, and food can be a very touchy subject. I understand that leaving out meat and dairy can be a radical shift in how people eat. Many of the places we’ve visited on this cross-country journey have been good examples of how living sustainably will mean new ways of doing and thinking. It’s worth looking at different ways in which how we eat affects our environmental footprint, and to consider the benefits of eating lower on the food chain.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Big Day in Detroit

2009-07-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

What an exciting day we had in Detroit – a real treat!

I was hoping to make a video about GM’s efforts in developing alternative fuel vehicles, specifically the Chevy Volt, which is their next-generation electric hybrid. GM is a massive company and I never had any luck reaching anyone there about coming in for some interview time. When we interviewed Chelsea Sexton in Los Angeles I mentioned that we wanted to make a video about the Volt but never got anywhere with contacts, and she offered to put in a call to her contacts at GM for us! I was just hoping for a chance to see a Volt (slated for release in November 2010) and any interview we could get would be a bonus.

I heard back last night from Chelsea’s GM contacts and we got quite a welcome! First we went downtown to GM’s Renaissance Center (GM Headquarters) and interviewed Beth Lowery, Vice President of Environment & Energy. She told Carrick about GM’s efforts on a number of green fronts, including ethanol (that’s what those ‘Flex-Fuel’ badges are on the back of some GM cars and trucks you may see), hybrids, hydrogen fuel-cells, and electric vehicles. Cars of the future may be a mix of these technologies so they are developing a variety of technologies.

We then drove to GM’s battery development lab for a personal tour, which is a rare thing and we were very fortunate to get this time! There we saw the battery packs for the Volt being tested in all kinds of simulated temperatures and humidity. They are being continuously charged and discharged to make certain that the lithium ion battery packs will last for 150,000 miles of driving conditions, at least. They showed us the battery pack that they used in the EV1, GM’s electric car from the 90’s and feature of the documentary ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ and put that battery pack next to the Volt pack, which is 1/3 the size and weight with more storage capacity. We also saw the first EV1 GM produced, which was on display (there are only a handful left in existence, see the documentary to find out why). All in all, the folks at GM really gave us a lot of time for video and interviewing and answered all of our questions.

Here’s a quick description of the Chevy Volt if you don’t already know: the Volt is a 4-door electric hybrid, but fundamentally different than a Prius. The Volt plugs into any electric outlet to charge and the first 40 miles of driving is electric-only; after that a small gas (or ethanol) powered onboard generator makes electricity to keep the car going. There is no gasoline engine, and the small generator runs at a continuous speed to produce electricity, so it’s much more efficient than a traditional engine. Since the batteries are expensive, GM’s strategy is to build in enough electric-only range to get people to work and back every day, plugging in at home or work, and for most people they could commute each day without using any fuel. For any driving over the 40-mile electric-only range, the generator is there so people can drive as much as they need to. There is a lot of controversy surrounding their previous EV1 program but during our tour they insisted that they used much of the technology from that program in the Volt, and many of the Volt team is from the EV1 program. They look at the Volt as the next generation of technology from the EV1. The Volt is projected to be priced somewhere under $40,000 and they are committed to the program no matter what state the company may be in financially.

In our tour at GM they also told us about the upcoming sequel to ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ which is going to be called ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’. The sequel is going to focus primarily on GM and Tesla’s electric car developments. Tesla has shown how exciting an electric car can be with the Roadster (let me say from first-hand experience, it’s very exciting!) but they are a startup company and building cars in large numbers will be a challenge. GM is focusing on technology like the Volt that will give a limited electric-only range (40 miles) but they have the ability to produce cars in huge numbers, and a dealership network to sell them in. They are different visions of what an electric car should be, and it will be exciting to see which one the public embraces.

We traveled over to visit Enviro-Energies, which makes vertical-axis wind turbines. The big wind turbines we’re used to seeing are horizontal-axis machines but Enviro-Energies makes wind turbines that mount to rooftops and capture wind energy in a different ‘twist’. Instead of the usual propeller-type these look more like soft-serve ice cream cones turning on the rooftop on a vertical axis, able to capture wind from any direction. They don’t have the same issues with height that traditional wind turbines have for residential use – for many towns the laws make it difficult for the majority of homeowners to put up a wind turbine on a pole 60 feet in the air, unless people have many acres of land. Also, vertical axis wind turbines (called VAWTs) need less wind to produce electricity, they’re very quiet, of course no problem with birds or bats, and they would stick out less than a pole-mounted wind turbine. We saw several sizes of their turbines including a 6-foot wide model going on Ed Begley Jr.’s house, and a 20-foot wide model that will be installed on Jay Leno’s huge garage of collected cars. They have designed and are planning to install some much larger-scale turbines on the tops of skyscrapers, which would be impossible with traditional propeller-type wind turbines (or very difficult anyway). It was a great opportunity for us to see a kind of renewable energy technology that hasn’t really become widely known yet but has a lot of potential.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Oh Canada! Our Visit to Toronto

2009-07-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We just spent the weekend in Toronto, Ontario for a brief trip over the U.S. border with a few videos planned there.

Toronto is a great example of a green city, by the standards of those we saw on the Top 10 lists we’ve been using for our Green City Spotlights. They have great public transportation, many parks throughout the city, and a great recycling program. Right outside the city hall building was a huge wind turbine, clearly visible when entering the city. There were throngs of people walking everywhere we went throughout Toronto, surely a healthy sign of an active city.

We were planning to do an interview at Zenn Motors in Toronto, which produces neighborhood electric cars. Unfortunately our contact there had to change plans and go to Chicago, so that didn’t work out. That’s OK, because with our videos at Tesla Motors and GM we got two different perspectives on electric cars from the two companies that will most likely be playing key roles in the future of the auto industry.

We did travel north of Toronto to Wildflower Farm for an interview with Miriam Goldberger, who runs the farm. They produce Ecolawn, which is a grass seed blend that provides a much more sustainable alternative to the traditional grass we’re all used to. Ecolawn looks like normal grass but doesn’t need to be watered, uses no fertilizers or pesticides, and it grows slowly to need less mowing. The secret is the long roots that grow down into the soil almost a foot, which aerates the soil, pulls water and nutrients from further down, and the roots grow close together to crowd out grubs and shallow-root weeds like crabgrass. It grows well in either shade or sun in a variety of climates, and is non-invasive so it won’t spread into anyone else’s yard. Check them out at www.Wildflowerfarm.com.

Wildflower Farm also produces seeds for hundreds of wildflower varieties, and they have many demonstration beds to show that wildflower gardens can be a very easy, low-maintenance and beautiful alternative to big lawns. Miriam talked about the history of lawns and why we in the U.S. came to be so obsessed with surrounding our homes with “green carpets”, and the bizarre turn in the last 60 years of using however many gallons of water and chemicals necessary to “conquer” the lawn. It was an eye-opener, believe me. Many of us have lawns so Carrick interviewed Miriam about rethinking lawns and open space to be more sustainable, beyond switching to a reel mower!

We also visited Niagara Falls since we were driving through – we didn’t do any filming there but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. The Canadian side of the falls is shaped like a big horseshoe and we went aboard the ‘Maid of the Mist’, a boat that brought us to the bottom of the falls. Standing on the deck of this boat (getting soaked) and seeing the giant falls up close, was an amazing sight. The height and power of the water sure made me feel very small! I could feel the shaking of the engines working hard just to keep the boat in place.

That’s all for now – onto upstate New York!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Chicago, the Windy Green City

2009-06-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Greetings from Kalamazoo, Michigan! We just spent the last few days in Chicago for our Green City Spotlights and saw some great things in the Windy City.

We came into Chicago on Saturday night and stayed with hosts in the city, then visited the 2nd UU Church in Chicago on Sunday morning and gave a presentation there afterwards. We spent the afternoon in the city then drove up north to Deerfield and gave another presentation at the North Shore UU Church there. Both were great crowds, and now the only presentation we have left on our cross-country journey is in Toronto next Sunday. If anyone is wondering why I am mentioning Unitarian Universalism in these posts it’s because most of our hosts are UU’s and most of the presentations we’ve been giving along the way have been at UU churches. Staying with the many generous folks who have hosted us on our travels has been a tremendous help in making our two months more affordable and we are very grateful. It’s also made traveling much more interesting, meeting folks everywhere we go instead of staying in one boring hotel after the next!

We had a chance to see Chicago’s green offerings yesterday and today – there has been a strong push recently to make Chicago the #1 green city in the U.S. and they’ve made great strides. Having been to the #1 green city, Portland, Oregon, I have to say they’ve got a ways to go but a big tip of the hat to Chicago for their efforts. We were pleasantly surprised to see just how much green space there is in Chicago, especially along the lakefront. There are miles of bike paths and walking paths, beaches along the coast, etc. They are putting in many new bikes paths throughout the city, which seems a great place for riding since the city is pretty flat. The elevated train (or just the ‘L’) runs all over the city and makes public transportation easy, plus a number of commuter trains coming into the city from the suburbs. Chicago has one of the strictest green building requirements in the country for all new construction, and City Hall proudly boasts a green roof with gardens on top. We found Chicago to be a fun place to visit!

Here’s a random thing we’ve learned while driving around the country: oil refineries smell really, really badly. We’ve seen the iconic oil pumps moving up and down as we drove through Texas and in different spots since then, and it was a foul smell coming just from those, but the big refineries just smell terrible and look like huge industrial behemoths – a real eyesore. We just passed one on the drive out of Chicago in Gary, Indiana and couldn’t imagine how people who live there put up with the awful smell, with the refinery on one side of the highway and the houses on the other.

We are heading to Detroit tomorrow for more filming that we almost didn’t get. I’ve been trying to line up these interviews for some time now and didn’t know if they were going to happen for certain until, oh, 7:00pm tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Be well,
Colin McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

On the Way East

2009-06-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Since we left Montana we’ve been driving for several days on the way back east, and until we reach Chicago we won’t be doing any filming. Actually we only have a handful of interviews left before we get back home in 2 weeks, then another 15 videos/interviews to film back in New England. We’ve been to some interesting places since Missoula so even if we didn’t film much I thought they’re worth mentioning.

Saturday night we stayed outside of Missoula and got to meet Priscilla the blogging goat (http://www.pricillaspeaks.blogspot.com/) I knew kids were computer savvy but this was something else…(pun intentional)

Sunday and Monday we stayed in Burlington, Wyoming, which is about 2 hours outside of Yellowstone National Park. We stayed at the Wayfaring Traveler Llama Ranch which has a vegetarian bed and breakfast, enjoying the hospitality of our hosts Mike and BJ Carlson and the 35 llamas they have. One llama, Pudley, wrote their last Christmas letter. First a blogging goat then a letter-writing llama, go figure. We visited what we could of Yellowstone, but the park is so big as to need several days to see everything! We saw Old Faithful, the most popular geyser in the world (not the biggest but the most popular because of it’s regularity, about every hour give or take). I did film the spouting of Old Faithful to use in a video about geothermal energy, since we weren’t able to get an interview with a company in California that is developing deep-geothermal energy production for electricity. We saw bison, a moose, and outside the park we saw a few hundred (yes, we counted) pronghorn antelope.

Tuesday we drove to Cheyenne and stopped in Thermopolis to visit the Wyoming Dinosaur Museum, which has 60 active dig-sites in within the 500-mile area. On the way out of Thermopolis we drove down into a canyon aside the Wind River, and saw the most amazing natural optical illusion ever! The river was flowing in the wrong direction! We drove down….and the river was flowing….up? We checked the GPS and we were actually ASCENDING even though it looked like we were driving DOWN into the canyon. It was totally bizarre. I kept checking with Jen reading the GPS but our elevation kept going up, and the river was indeed flowing down even though it looked like it was flowing up. Very strange.

We got into Cheyenne, Wyoming after dark and suffered the consequences – the entire front end of the Beetle and the cargo carrier on the roof was COATED in bug splatter. The next morning we saw the carnage and it was really disgusting. There were actually flies buzzing around the front of the car. I didn’t even want to touch the roof rack to get the luggage out.

We drove most of the day yesterday to get to Lincoln, Nebraska for a presentation at the UU Church in the evening, and enjoyed talking with the folks there. One of our hosts works for the Nebraska Forestry Service and is working with the University of Nebraska to develop a new crop to grow in the state for biodiesel: hazel nuts (also called filberts). Hazel nuts have double the yield of vegetable oil as one of the most popular crops here, soybeans. They have many environmental benefits including no irrigation or pesticides required, they sequester carbon, they are perennial so they don’t need to be replanted every year, and they are harvested using current equipment. They’ve been working on developing a hybrid variety that will grow well in the Nebraska climate. Yesterday afternoon we heard tornado warnings on the radio for southern Nebraska – the kids looked worried and I was excited – great video! Fortunately for us, no tornados.

So that brings us up to speed on our way east – we’re in Des Moines, Iowa then to Chicago where we’ll spend several days and get some video for our Green City Spotlight series.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Biomimicry in Montana

2009-06-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We continue our return trip back east, stopping in Missoula, Montana to visit the Biomimicry Institute.

Biomimicry is "the process of learning from and then emulating Nature's genius to create more sustainable designs. It's studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell or an electric eel to make a better battery." The Biomimicry Institute works to educate designers and inventors to ask nature first - before trying to reinvent the wheel, look to nature first for solutions for design ideas, because whatever the design challenge nature has already done it somewhere!

You may remember back before we left for our cross-country journey in May we interviewed Janine Benyus, who founded the Biomimicry Institute, has written several books, and travels for conferences, training, etc. Janine wasn't going to be in Missoula while we came through so we were able to get some time with her while she was stopping in Boston. Unfortunately for us, five minutes into the interview our video camera completely 'spazzed out' and we had to cut the interview short. I felt that biomimicry was such an important topic for our video series that I asked to interview someone at the Institute in Missoula to complete the video. They were gracious enough to give us some more time and this time the camera cooperated!

Carrick interviewed Bryony Schwan, the Executive Director of the Biomimicry Institute, and it was a great visit. Bryony showed us several examples of biomimicry, really fascinating stuff. One fabric company wanted to make a waterproof and self-cleaning fabric without chemicals, and they found a great solution in biomimicry. When water falls on a lotus leaf it beads up and runs off, and any dirt that collects on the leaf washes right off. The secret is in the surface structure of the leaf itself, with many small bumps we can't see. Bryony showed us two swatches of cloth identical in appearance. The first she held under the tap and it absorbed water as you would expect. The second cloth was using the same material but when it was sewn it was given the same surface structure as the leaf and when held under the tap the water just rolled right off. From our eyes and touch both cloths were the same. Imagine the applications for something like that - building surfaces, car paint, etc.

She also showed us a few other examples that were fascinating: Carrick's watch is coated with a film that makes it glow in the sunlight, without using any power. The film was developed by Qualcomm for cell phones and was created with biomimicry. Both abalone shells and butterfly wings have that same iridescent glow and they were both analyzed to find out what compound makes them reflect light that way. They used the same coating on cell phone displays, since backlighting the displays uses a lot of battery power. From there other companies have used the coating and it turned out that the watch Carrick got has that same coating. We also saw a new design for fans and water mixers - think of the spiral shape of a conch shell and other seashells, or that of fiddlehead ferns. The new design reduces energy consumption by 35-70% and noise up to 75%.

There are many amazing examples of biomimicry at www.biomimicryinstitute.org.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Fun & Games in Seattle

2009-06-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We recently spent a few days in Seattle, with some unexpected surprises (good ones).

Our first stop was to Xeko, a company that makes trading cards for kids (think Pokemon) but Xeko features hotspots of endangered animals around the globe instead. Carrick interviewed Amy Tucker, inventor and president of Xeko, about why she started the company and the line of trading cards. She also played a few games of Xeko with Carrick and Gareth, and they got some hints from the master herself. Here is the official description of Xeko from the website: "Xeko is the eco-adventure game for kids, by kids, making a difference in the world. Join the Xeko online adventure, play the
Xeko trading card game or collect Xeko Pals earth-friendly toys, and help save endangered animals. Be a force of nature!"
You can check out Xeko at www.xeko.com.

Once our interview was over, Amy brought us over to meet her friends at Theo Chocolates, the only organic, 100% fair-trade bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the U.S. Theo imports the cacao beans directly from farmers who are paid a fair wage and have good labor practices (much of the chocolate we're used to seeing at the store is made using slave-labor conditions, often by children). We got a tour of the chocolate-making at Theo and sampled...and sampled...a number of their dark chocolate bars they had out to try. Unfortunately I didn't have the video camera with me for the tour so we didn't get that on film. Their website is www.theochocolate.com - they started 3 years ago and have been doing very well, selling at Whole Foods and other natural food stores.

We were going to make a video about Seattle for our green city spotlights, but I changed my mind at the last minute and did something different instead. In researching the green city attributes for Seattle (Seattle is one of the Top 10 Greenest Cities in the U.S.) I found that most of the green things are similar to Portland, OR including great public transportation, parks and open space, high percentage of renewable electricity in the grid, etc. I decided it would be somewhat redundant to make a similar video about Seattle, so I took a different approach.

We stayed several days with our hosts right outside of Seattle in Issaquah in a newly-built model green community. The development is called a Rural Cluster Development (RCD) and it's a controversial development model that I thought would be interesting to explore, as one example of a green community. The houses are built close together, rating high in green building practices, and schools, shops, and public transportation are all nearby, with 70% of the land left as public open space and forest. Many environmentalists are up in arms because some of the homes are large (4,000-5,000 square feet) and it can be hard to consider such houses green. Also, in order to construct the thousands of homes many acres of land were completely torn apart and built upon. While the houses are more energy-efficient than a standard house, they don't incorporate any renewables and they are far away from a self-sustaining design like the earthships we visited in New Mexico. We toured the development to make a video and it should turn out to be a great debate issue for classrooms, about what a green, sustainable community should look like.

At this point in our cross-country journey, we headed east for the first time, beginning the way home. We still have some more interviews and videos to shoot and presentations to give, but the bulk of the filming is behind us at this point until we get home.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Green City Portland, OR

2009-06-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We just spent a few days visiting Portland, Oregon, which is ranked #1 in several lists of Top 10 Green Cities in America.
Here is what SustainLane wrote about why Portland gets top honors:

"Portland's support of local farmers and farmers' markets; its explosion of green buildings and commitment to renewable energy, and its emphasis on mass transportation, including light rail and bicycles, shows that a city can not only be kind to the earth, but also flourish economically and grow by being green.

America’s top green city has it all: Half its power comes from renewable sources, a quarter of the workforce commutes by bike, carpool or public transportation, and it has 35 buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council."

One of the things that was most evident in driving through Portland is the bike lanes everywhere and the separate bus and train lanes throughout the streets. According to the city's sustainable development director, Portland aims to be a "20 Minute City" -- where residents spend 20 or less minutes traveling from home to work, shop or play. Portland also ranks as the #1 best biking and #1 best walking city in the U.S.

Portland also has many, many parks throughout the city. Our host in Portland told us an apt quote "New York is a city with a park in the middle, and Portland is a park with a city in the middle". We visited Forest Park on the west side of Portland, with 5,156 acres, one of the largest urban forests in the U.S. On the other end of the size spectrum we visited Mill Ends Park, which is the smallest park in the world measuring just 24 inches in diameter. It was created as a park for leprechauns and snail races!

It was great to see such a vibrant, green city!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Beauty on the Road

2009-06-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Since we left Chico, CA several days ago we've been traveling northward into Oregon. We haven't had any interviews since then but I wanted to check in and describe some of the beautiful scenes we've been through on our travels.

On Saturday we left Chico and traveled west on Highway 299 out to the coast, and incredible drive through the mountains. Jen and I agree it was the most beautiful drive of the trip so far, plus it was fun driving such a twisting road through the mountains. We wanted to see the coast and drive through the Redwood National Forest before going into Oregon, but it was getting dark as we went into the forest. We first came upon a herd of elk crossing the highway, with a little baby in the mix! It was eerie driving through the redwood forest at night because it's completely dark and we were driving past these MASSIVE tree trunks. We arrived late in Grants Pass, Oregon to stay at the Motel Del Rogue on the bank of the Rogue River.

Sunday morning we visited the UU Church in Grants Pass where I gave the sermon about sustainability and had a great time visiting with the folks there. The owners of the motel are UUs and generously offered to host us for two nights while we were in Grants Pass! In the afternoon we drove back to the redwood forest so we could see them in the daylight and actually stand among them. So amazing to stand next to these trees that have been alive for 800 years, and of course they are quite humbling in size... We enjoyed dinner that night with the two ministers from Grants Pass UU.

Monday we traveled from Grants Pass to Crater Lake to take in another natural wonder. Formed thousands of years ago by a volcanic explosion, the crater that was left filled with water and is now the deepest lake in the U.S. One big surprise was how much snow there was - it snows so much there that it takes until late summer to melt. Carrick and Gareth were running over fields of snow ten feet high with shorts and T-shirts having a great time throwing snowballs at each other. From Crater Lake we drove past a 275-foot waterfall and stopped to stretch our legs and take some pictures. We stayed the night in Roseburg.

I've included some pictures here for you to enjoy!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Flat Tires & Video Perspectives

2009-06-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We got another chance to talk with our good friends at AAA today! We were driving through Salem, Oregon on the highway to Portland when small pieces of tire came flying off and our left rear tire was smoking. The two rear tires were getting warn but the mechanic at home thought they'd be fine for the trip. I've had flat tires but have never disintegrated and destroyed a tire before! AAA was fast and got us to Firestone for two new tires, and we got back on the road.

I've been thinking about how much to include our own personal story in our video series. There's a series on Planet Green about a road trip to visit different eco-places (hey, great idea!) but their shows are as much about the three travelers and their misadventures than the topics themselves. Personally I find that really annoying and distracting. I don't think we need to go that way to make the videos entertaining. Still, one of our recent hosts suggested having some "extras" of a few additional videos about our family's experience on the road. We are very fortunate to have this opportunity to spend two months traveling the country and we're getting many questions about how it's working out. Just how do four people fit into a VW Beetle for two months without killing each other, and the trials of driving a car coast to coast on vegetable oil.

I'll plan on putting a few things together to add our own personal perspectives in this project. First, I'll be putting together a bunch of funny video clips of us plus video of our favorite destinations, both project people and places and all the other places we loved. Plus the tow truck and flat tire pics, of course! We'll make a video collection of all these for the song 'Tin Can' which our friend Greg Hare wrote and recorded about our family, our Beetle, and our cross-county adventure.

I'm also planning for Carrick to interview Jennifer, Gareth and me when we get back home. I'll interview Carrick and we can all have a chance to talk about our favorite places, things we've learned, experiences on the road, and how we look at things differently now that we've seen so much in person.

Safe and sound in Portland Oregon,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

A Busy Day in Chico

2009-06-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Our day in Chico, CA was one packed day! We filmed four interviews and were interviewed as well, plus our hosts threw a great party with friends from the green community in Chico.

Our first stop for the day was at Chico Bag, a company that makes reusable shopping bags. Their unique twist is to make durable bags that stuff down into a tiny pouch that is easy to carry, making them very convenient. Carrick interviewed Andy Keller, president and inventor of Chico Bag - Andy was inspired to create the Chico Bag after a visit to the landfill, where he saw disposable plastic bags everywhere. Part of the Chico Bag fun is the Plastic Bag Monster, a crazy costume of 500 plastic bags, which is the amount of plastic bags an American uses each year on average. The Plastic Bag Monster made an appearance in our video, in a face-off with the world debut of the Paper Bag Monster! We got the exclusive!

Carrick and I then went over to visit Dori and Val of the podcast 'More Hip Than Hippie', which is a great weekly eco-funny show. I've been listening to their podcast for the last 3 years and have always had fun listening to their interviews and green discussions - they have a great time and are two funny ladies! They always encourage listeners to do what they can, making baby steps to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. They invited us to be on their fourth anniversary show, which was a big honor! Once our interview was done we turned the tables and interviewed them for our project. You can visit their website at www.MoreHipThanHippie.com, or look for them on ITunes.

Val is also the founder and president of Greenfeet, an online green retailer that was recently voted in the Top 10 green businesses in the U.S. Val and her husband Rob started Greenfeet 10 years ago and they've built a model green business from the products they sell to all the info on their website, and their packaging and shipping. We interviewed Val about running a green business and about some of the products they sell. Greenfeet is one of the sponsors for our eco-video series, and we appreciate their support for our work! Check out Greenfeet's website at www.Greenfeet.com.

From Greenfeet we went over to visit Klean Kanteen, a company in Chico that makes stainless steel water bottles. Billions of plastic water bottles are thrown out every year and only a small number of those are recycled. We've been using Klean Kanteens for the last 2 years, filling them up at home and taking them with us wherever we go (including cross-country). Klean Kanteens were originally created as an alternative to reusable plastic water bottles on the market, many of which were found to have dangerous chemicals in the plastic. Stainless steel bottles like Klean Kanteens are safe and durable, a great alternative! We visited Klean Kanteen HQ, to find out about how the company got started and get some stats on disposable plastic water bottles. Check them out at www.KleanKanteen.com.

After all-day interviews, we had a great time at a party put on by our hosts, who invited some of Chico's green notables. Dori and Val were there, plus other friends! It was a fun way to end a busy day!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

San Francisco!

2009-06-07T23:18:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We escaped...er....finished our sightseeing adventures in Bakersfield to move onto San Francisco with the newly-improved Beetle ready for action. Many thanks to the donations that were sent to us by our friends and supporters to help us with that unexpected hit to the project budget!!! Your generosity was just amazing and lifted our spirits while feeling down in Bakersfield! I was trying to stay positive as you could see in my last post but it was frustrating nonetheless.

The drive north to San Francisco took several hours was an interesting drive through the central valley of California, where much of our produce comes from. As we drove through the reservoir we saw a large windfarm on the ridge line. We actually stayed overnight in Redwood City which is just south of San Francisco. The most frustrating part of our down time in Bakersfield was that we had to compact our planned stay in San Francisco over several days down to an overnight and then an afternoon in the city the next day. We had so many video interviews planned for the rest of the week that I just couldn't push everything forward a few days.

The next morning started with a visit to Google in Mountain View, where we had a personal tour of their solar array. GooglePlex, as the Google campus is called, has one of the largest solar panel installations by a company in the U.S. (it was the largest when it was built). Google is one cool place! They made a great website that has lots of info about their solar installation - check it out:
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home

We drove up into San Francisco for the afternoon and saw all that we could see in that small amount of time, filming for our Green City Spotlights. San Francisco pretty much tops every list of Top 10 Greenest Cities in the U.S., and for good reason. The city has an extensive public transportation system with light-rail, buses, streetcars, etc. Parking is VERY expensive (I put 45 cents in the parking meter and got 10 minutes, I'm not kidding). Recycling is big - one big blue bin for recycling, a big green bin for compost, and a little black bin for trash. The city is also a big proponent on solar, with the largest solar array by a city in the U.S., and they also offer big incentives for residents to go solar.

We took an excursion to drive the Beetle down Lombard Street, which is the steep, curvy street that is iconic in San Francisco. We also stopped in the Haight-Ashbury district, famous for being hippie central in the 60's. That was fun trying to explain THAT one to the kids.

We drove after dinner several hours up to Chico for a full schedule of interviews the next day, but at the risk of writing an endless post I'll stop it here.

Many thanks again to everyone who has supported us on this cross-country adventure - we've seen so many amazing things through the camera lens and met many inspiring people along the way. While we've met a few famous people, most of them are everyday folks who found a passion and made great things happen, with the support of many around them. For Carrick to meet these people, interview them and get their stories to share, is such an experience. Thank you all for helping make that possible.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Down and Out in Bakersfield

2009-06-02T22:29:00.001-07:00

Hi friends,

We've had to make an unplanned visit to see the great sights of...Bakersfield, CA. We left yesterday from Los Angeles to drive up to San Francisco and stopped in a rest area along the way, when the clutch gave out on the Beetle. It was feeling a little weak for the last several days (I was hoping it was just my imagination) but it was done. We had it towed to Bakersfield, as we weren't too far away from there, to the VW dealership. The dealership was closed already so we left the car there and got a hotel room for the night (at least they have a pool!). I called the VW dealership this morning for the bad news and it was bad indeed - new clutch and flywheel have to be overnighted and they will have the car done by the end of tomorrow. We're looking at a repair bill of $2,100, making a grand total of $3,000 we've spent on car repair bills in the last 2 weeks. Needless to say we are frustrated and disappointed.

Still, there are things to be grateful for. When the clutch went we weren't far from Bakersfield, the VW dealership, and a decent hotel. We could have been in the desert, and we have certainly seen plenty of desert. I took the kids to a family fun place this afternoon that had minigolf and arcade games, all you can play for $10, so they had a blast there. I was able to reschedule most of our San Francisco video appointments for Thursday so our video schedule shouldn't be too badly affected. Jen and I are just disappointed because we had 3 full days planned in San Francisco and we were really looking forward to spending time in what so many people have described as a truly amazing city. To extend the stay there would be to completely torpedo everything for the next week and we have too many hard-earned appointments to move everything.

Here's a pic of the Beetle getting great mileage - 30 miles and we didn't burn a drop of fuel! he he he at least I can laugh about it...

Tomorrow's my birthday and hey, I get a new clutch for my birthday!!! Well, hopefully the car will be ready to roll tomorrow afternoon and we can be on our way to San Francisco.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Carrick's Interview with Ed Begley, Jr.

2009-05-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Today Carrick and I headed for Hollywood, for an interview and personal tour of Ed Begley Jr.'s green home. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start when we were about to head out for the interview and found our left front tire flat as a pancake! No spare tire, that's where the vegetable oil tank goes. Luckily I planned ahead and brought a little air compressor that plugs into the car. I couldn't find what the problem was but I've been having to add air to the tire for the last several days. We got to Ed's house with about 5 minutes to spare, even though we left with plenty of extra time, but that Los Angeles traffic is awful, even on a Saturday!

If you don't know, Ed Begley Jr. is an actor who has been in many TV shows and movies over the last few decades, and currently has a reality TV show called 'Living With Ed' about all the things he does in life and at home to be green, at times to the dismay of his wife! Ed has been widely recognized as one of, if not the most long-time, visible proponent in Hollywood of living an eco-friendly lifestyle.

Ed was very kind and generous, and Carrick got a great interview with him in his living room for 30 minutes, asking him all about what sustainability means and what we can all do as individuals. If you're going to talk sustainability, why not go right to the green guru himself? Unlike some famous people who promote going green, Ed actually walks the talk, big time. I emailed around as a long shot back in the fall to see if we could meet him and to my surprise he emailed back promptly and invited us over! After the interview Ed gave a tour of his house to a visiting group, with Carrick in the lead! Ed's home is a modest ranch house in a neighborhood of Hollywood, and he did all the retrofits he could to make it eco-friendly. It was great to spend some time with him this afternoon!

When we returned to the car the tire was, again, flat as a pancake. I was so embarrassed but took out my little air compressor and inflated the tire again, making lots of noise in this quiet little neighborhood. Ed probably was looking out the window wondering what the heck all that noise was! I took a picture so that I could laugh at myself later...

Once again thanks to the GPS, I quickly located a tire shop a few blocks away from Ed's house and drove over for a quick tire replacement! At least I don't have to worry about that any more...

Two more reader questions today:
Question: How do you keep the school truant officers/CPS, who are notorious for insisting via force that their way of life is the best way of life for every child (i.e. full days indoors at government schools, sleeping in a non-moveable house every night, etc), from interfering?
Answer: So far nobody along the journey has given us any trouble about our kids being out of school. We homeschool our kids, and our cross-country journey has been one big schooling adventure! Forget geography books, they're experiencing it! I can't imagine we will encounter any trouble with truancy officers but I'll let you know if we do!

Question: OMG, you guys are having such an adventure! So many experiences! How do you process it all?
Answer: Hmm...well, for starters we have lots of time sitting in the car to contemplate our adventures! We've been taking lots of pictures along the way, and writing these email updates have been a great record of our project. Once we've done our interviews we put the video tape in the bag and get ready for the next one, and the tape will stay in the bag until we get home and ready to edit. It's all going by so quickly but we're continuing to have so much success with our interviews and destinations.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our visit at Tesla Motors in Los Angeles

2009-05-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Greetings from Los Angeles! Here's our latest update:

Yesterday we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo, with passes given to us from some generous UU folks there. The zoo was fantastic and the kids were wide-eyed the whole time! Last night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the First UU Church in San Diego to a fun crowd and enjoyed visiting and some yummy vegan food before and after.

Today we did a lot of video work, starting at the Rainbow Material Recovery Facility in Huntington Beach outside of Los Angeles. We got the grand tour of the facility where they take all residential and commercial trash from the area and sort everything with machines and manually to pull out all the recycling and food waste. The state of California passed a law that waste haulers had to reduce the amount of trash going to the landfill by 50% and the sorting facilities were the way to do it. Now they are considering upping it to 75% and eventually 100%! Also interesting was that in Massachusetts our waste disposal is about 4 times more expensive than here, so switching to this system would be very profitable.

Next stop was at the Tesla showroom in Los Angeles, to interview Chelsea Sexton, who some of you might know as the star of the movie 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'. That documentary came out several years ago and profiled the rise and fall of GM's electric car from the 1990s, and Chelsea was a salesperson for that car who moved on to become a big advocate for electric cars in government and industry. Carrick talked to Chelsea about electric cars and their benefits, and their role in the future of the auto industry.

It turns out that Chelsea's husband Bob is the service manager at Tesla Motors, which makes the all-electric Tesla Roadster and upcoming all-electric sedan. Bob took Carrick and me out for a ride in a roadster and we were both absolutely blown away. That is one incredible ride - the acceleration is just unbelievable! It's like a high-speed roller coaster!

We have two reader questions today:
Question: This trips focus is to help educate the youth of America about Green living and Technology. How does that change your filming style, your eye for content, knowing your goal audience will be children?
Answer: Sometimes I have to remind the people we are interviewing to keep the answers general and not get too technical. Some of the people we've filmed so far are on the engineering end and it's easy for them to get too technical. What I'm trying to do is make 5-minute videos that provide a general overview that would be interesting for kids, but also for adults too. Our Holy Name wind turbine video is a good example of that.

Question: A humorous road anecdote?
Answer: One funny thing that comes to mind is when we were driving through Mississippi. We pulled off the highway to get something out of the cargo carrier on the roof, which has two little padlocks to keep it secure. I pulled out what we needed and left the set of keys on the roof and drove off down the highway, which to our horror and amazement we found somehow wedged into the roof frame! What are the chances, really?

More filming tomorrow in Los Angeles, with more stories to tell I'm sure.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Big Solar and Big Hydro!

2009-05-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We just hit our half-way mark tonight as we arrived at Chula Vista, California, which is just south of San Diego. We've officially gone coast to coast and just passed 5,000 miles on the trip odometer. We also experienced the lovely 108 degree heat in the Mojave Desert this afternoon as we stopped to stretch our legs!

On Monday we stopped to gawk at the Grand Canyon, because of course you can't go through Arizona without seeing the Grand Canyon! We parked and walked along the south rim trail at the top for a while, then returned to the car to find people taking pictures of the Beetle and getting some video. Everywhere we go people love to ask about the car!

Yesterday we drove to visit the Hoover Dam in Nevada, which is one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the U.S. I figured if you're going to make a video about hydroelectric dams in the U.S., it's hard to beat the Hoover Dam for sheer size and magnificence! We got some interview time with one of the tour guides at the dam, then we all took the official tour and got lots of great video. The dam generates 2,080 megawatts (the big wind turbine at Holy Name High School in Worcester, Massachusetts that we made a video about generates 2/3 of a megawatt, just for a comparison) We had to get special permission to film at Hoover Dam and we were grateful to have some one-on-one time with the tour guide for an interview - a unique opportunity that will make a great video!

Last night we drove the Beetle down Las Vegas Boulevard to check out "the strip" all lit up and teeming with people. I can see where all that power from Hoover Dam goes to... It was great to cruise the strip, veggie-style, and we got many waves and thumbs-up as we drove along taking in the sights.

Today we got a very special tour of Nevada Solar One, which is a concentrated solar power facility in Boulder City. It's rows and rows of long mirrored troughs with a pipe suspended overhead, and the sun reflects off the mirrored troughs, concentrated on the overhead pipe. The liquid in the pipe is heated to 750 degrees from the intense sunlight and is piped to a steam generator to run a turbine. Nevada Solar One generates about 70 megawatts, and they estimate that 10 square miles of concentrated solar power would generate enough electricity to power the entire U.S.! It's a sight to behold, being among the rows and rows of giant mirrored troughs. Nevada Solar One is not open to public tours, but we managed to get a personal tour with the plant manager, who took us out to the field and talked with Carrick about concentrated solar power. This video will be a great example of highlighting a proven renewable technology that can be scaled up on a massive level, but yet few people have heard of it.

We were forewarned by someone last night that California is a little nutty about people driving their cars on vegetable oil, and because of our stickers on the car we might get pulled over and fined. The state is especially concerned that veggie car drivers are not paying their road fuel taxes and they will charge a fine based on how much un-taxed fuel they estimated you've used. How on earth can they figure that out? How could they even prove that I am running veg oil anyway? The stickers are staying put and I'll take my chances thanks!

One of our interviews have made it into a podcast! I passed along the audio from our interview with Cliff Etheridge from the wind farm in Roscoe, Texas to Stephen Lacey at the Inside Renewable Energy podcast, and he was able to use it in this week's show! You can listen to the show by clicking this link (or visit www.renewableenergyworld.com and follow the podcast links) It will probably be a few months before our video is ready so here is a sneak preview, plus it's Carrick's first interview on a podcast!

We've had a few interview requests denied after many emails and phone calls. We were hoping to visit Aptera Motors while in San Diego but the official word is no. With plans to distribute our eco-video series to schools nationally, it's kind of hard to believe it's not worth just*a*little of their time for that kind of audience. I may be able to use some stock footage but that's not very interesting. While I will still probably mention the companies, I won't be able to profile them in their own videos as planned.

Reader question: What keeps your younger son (Gareth) going on this trip, being probably too young to be stimulated by all the environmental technology questions you and Carrick are pursuing?
Answer: Gareth (age 6) has joined us for some of the tours where there are interesting things to see, but otherwise Jen takes him out to walk around or visit a playground, or sometimes they hang out with the Macbook inside where it's nice and cool, and poke around online.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Video Stops in Arizona

2009-05-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Our latest videos were a bit of a surprise!

We drove to Flagstaff, Arizona on Thursday and discovered once we arrived that one of our hosts for the night works at Southwest Windpower (www.WindEnergy.com), and he invited us to come to the factory for a tour. Couldn't turn that down! Southwest Windpower makes residential wind turbines, a much smaller scale than those we saw at the Roscoe wind farm! Their best-known wind turbine is the Skystream model, which is an all-in-one unit that includes the mounting pole, turbine, and inverter, which makes it easier to get up and running. Carrick got the guided tour of the factory and saw how they make small wind turbines, a real unexpected treat!

From Flagstaff we drove down to the Scottsdale Water Campus for a last-minute video about water recycling. The crude but descriptive term would be 'toilet-to-tap'...the city of Scottsdale takes the city wastewater (yes, including what we flush down the toilet) and filters it many times over then injects it back into the ground, which eventually ends up back into the water table, which eventually ends up in the municipal water supply....recycling at it's best! The southwest region has limited water resources so water conservation here is especially important! It was last-minute because until the day before we didn't know for sure whether we'd be able to come and get a tour! We got to see the different stages of filtering and talk about why water conservation is so important.

For the next few days we are doing some traveling and visiting, with our next two videos in the Las Vegas area.

READER QUESTION: Are you finding it easy for the whole family to eat
healthy on the road? I mean, it's easy at home when you have access
to good food, but while traveling through McDonald-land it must be
tough.
We're using the website www.VegDining.com to help us find healthy places to eat along the way - not too many vegan options at Waffle House! VegDining has listings of veggie restaurants all over the country. When internet access has been scarce we've used the GPS to help us find a veggie restaurant, which has a much more limited list but it's worked. Taco Bell works in a pinch with some bean burritos, but at best it's just utility food.

There probably won't be much to report for the next few days, but I'll write again once we've made it through Las Vegas.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Wind Farms and Earthships

2009-05-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Greetings from Albuquerque, New Mexico! We got here this afternoon and gave a presentation tonight at the UU church here in the city. It's beautiful landscape here, so much different from back home - the surroundings didn't really look TOO different until we got down to Louisiana, and since then we've crossed through long plains with less and less vegetation through Texas, then into New Mexico through beautiful mountains and deserts, driving alongside the Rio Grande. The houses have also changed a lot, with a lot more ranch houses, and in New Mexico a lot of adobe buildings (we even passed an adobe-front Wal-Mart).

So since we left Austin we've stopped at two more project locations that were just amazing and inspiring.

We left Austin Monday morning and traveled up to Roscoe, Texas, a small town west of Abilene that is hard to find on the map! Carrick interviewed Cliff Etheridge, who rallied the small town to bring in investors for a large wind farm, and when the project is finished over the next two years it will be the largest wind farm in the world. Just to stand in the field of turbines and turn 360 degrees surrounded by them everywhere was an amazing sight. Mr. Etheridge's story is so inspiring - he is a hero, one individual who has accomplished something amazing, though he is humble as it gets. I can't wait to get to work on the Roscoe video when we return. Just a quick tidbit, standing in a field of several hundred wind turbines, they barely make a whisper, and I didn't see any dead birds on the ground!

We went on from there to Lubbock, Texas where we gave a presentation at the UU church after a great vegan potluck!

Tuesday we arrived in Taos, a small city in northern New Mexico, where we stayed overnight in an earthship. A what? Earthships are self-sustaining houses made from different renewable and waste materials: most prominently 3 of the 4 walls are made from used tires filled and rammed with dirt, and the walls are covered with adobe and cement. These are truly amazing and beautiful houses, and it makes our house in Massachusetts seem so unnatural and designed against nature instead of with it. I'll have to upload some pics we took of the earthships we visited so you can see what I mean. They rent them out for overnight stays so we got to experience living in an earthship and this morning we got a tour of an earthship that was recently built, all on video. There are so many unique elements it will be hard to edit the video down to 5 minutes - I may have to stretch that one out a bit... Carrick and I have toured zero-energy homes at the Solar Decathlon that rely heavily on technology to be off-grid and self-sustaining, but earthships are a different, more natural approach.

Car trouble strikes! Well, not that dramatic really, but I noticed for the last two days the Beetle had hesitation starting and I wanted to get it fixed before we ended up stranded somewhere (out here you can REALLY get stranded, no joke) plus we needed an oil change, so we stopped by the VW dealer here in Albuquerque who of course found other problems too. $800 later we got the car back, a lot more than I was expecting, but left unchecked we could have found ourselves in big trouble. Ugh. I'm grateful at least that they were able to fit us in on same-day notice so we can be on our way tomorrow.

READER QUESTION:
As you ride around and visit all these facilities, does it seem more likely or less likely to you that we could get all our energy from renewables?
Well, we still have the majority of renewable energy sites yet to visit, and I've been a big proponent of being able to produce all the electricity we need from renewables. I do wish people could have stood where I was in Roscoe to experience the wind farm first-hand, and I think if people saw how they looked (graceful and majestic) and heard how quiet they were (right in the middle of hundreds of turbines), there would be far fewer people who are opposed to them. There are just so few chances for people to personally experience that in this country. Although we didn't get to see the wave power buoy off the New Jersey coast, the stats from the Ocean Power Technolgies website show that harnessing wave power in select areas around the world could provide twice as much electricity as the world consumes. I hope that our eco-video series will show people the solutions that exist, and get more people asking 'why can't we do that more?' because the answer is usually that we can if people learn more about it and start making it happen.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Batty in Austin, TX

2009-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

It's been several days since the last update so I wanted to let you know our latest news. We've been in Austin, TX for a few days and are heading out tomorrow morning for our interview in Roscoe, TX at a wind farm then on to Lubbock to stay the night with hosts. Here's a review of the last several days:

On Thursday, we did visit the BuildSmart Center in New Orleans, which is a training center for contractors and homeowners about rebuilding with green, sustainable materials and renewable energy. We met with Larry Haines of Road Home Builders, a company that is building new green homes in the city; Larry did a walk-through with Carrick of the different green building materials and energy conservation measures that are on display at the BuildSmart Center. We also got the address of a few zero-energy homes that were built in the hardest-hit area of the city from the hurricane, so we went down to see the exterior and got some more video there. Zero-energy homes are designed to produce as much energy as they use, in this case using solar electric panels and solar hot water panels on the roofs. On Thursday night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the UU Community Church to a fun group - their church had to be torn down due to the hurricane damage but they like others in New Orleans have strong spirit and will rebuild.

We traveled on Friday to tour the Verenium plant in Jennings, Louisiana, which is the test and demonstration site for their method of producing cellulosic ethanol. They use different feedstocks, such as sugarcane waste, to create ethanol fuel in a process very similar to brewing beer, working to produce cellulosic ethanol in quantities much greater and much more efficiently than corn. Carrick got a guided tour of the demonstration plant and we got some great video of the process. It's very much a working demonstration site and we had to wear the hardhats, and eye and ear protection, and I don't think it's a place that the public and especially kids get to visit, so it was a big deal to get the whole guided tour! We traveled on in the afternoon through Houston then out to Austin, where we've been over the weekend.

Saturday we were planning to head south to visit San Antonio and get some shots for our video about the upcoming biogas facility, which will be the first municipal sewage treatment plant in the U.S. to capture methane gas from the solids (or, eh, poop) and turn it into natural gas to run in city vehicles. Unfortunately for us there was a torrential downpour in the afternoon and most of what we were going to visit there (including the Alamo) is outside, so we stayed in Austin for a rainy afternoon. The company that is developing the biogas plant in San Antonio, Ameresco, is a Massachusetts-based company so we can still get an interview when we come home and put together a video profile with that.

Today we gave a presentation at the UU church here in Austin then got some video in the city for our Green City Spotlight of Austin. We are traveling through 6 of the Top 10 Greenest Cities in America on our journey, so we are making a Green City Spotlight video for each city we visit, showing what they are doing to be more sustainable cities and earn their spot in the Top 10! Austin has some great examples that we visited today, including their city hall that has a green roof, solar panels, was made from local materials, etc. The city owns the municipal power company, Austin Energy, which is perhaps the most progressive electric utility company in the nation with the highest mix of renewable energy. They have many programs to encourage homeowners to conserve energy and promote renewables. One very unique and fun green aspect of Austin is the Congress Avenue Bridge, underneath which is host to the largest urban bat population in the U.S., over 1.5 million bats! At dusk every night they come FLOODING out from under the bridge to get some dinner, and to stand on the bridge and see them all come out is just amazing. What a sight! The smell was not so amazing....but there were just clouds of bats for about 10 minutes coming out from under the bridge.

TRIP STATS: 2,769 miles driven so far, we've already lost track of how many hours on the road total.

READER QUESTION: we have two this time!
Are you getting any press? It seems like such a good story. It should be turning up in people's newspapers when you are in town. ANSWER: we haven't been getting press, but I haven't been going after that either. We just don't have enough time and reliable internet access to coordinate that. It's been all I can do to keep on top of our video schedule and return emails, I really can't.
Reader Question: What's the downside to the fuel getting too hot? What is heating it up? ANSWER: This is in response to my post about how using the A/C while using veg oil gets the oil too hot, on hot days. The short answer is that the engine isn't designed to deal with fuel that gets too hot and could cause damage - diesel never gets too hot but veg oil can. I have a temperature sensor as part of the veggie system that tells me the temps of the veg oil and I get worried when it gets over 190 degrees F, so we shut off the A/C and roll down the windows, to let the oil cool down some. The veg oil system heats the oil with radiator fluid from the engine, and when the engine gets hot from running A/C in a car with a big, non-aerodynamic roof rack on top, the coolant gets hot and then the oil gets real hot. If the temps get too hot it can literally cook the injection pump, and at $1000 just for a rebuilt pump I don't want to have that problem.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

From The Big Easy

2009-05-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

friends,

Greetings from New Orleans!

Our internet access has continued to be spotty so I haven't sent an update in several days, but we've been traveling a lot and we haven't had any video stops until now anyway. We arrived in New Orleans yesterday afternoon - what a beautiful city and an amazing spirit! There were many people back home who just thought people here were crazy for coming back to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, since it's so vulnerable. It's such a wonderful place with so much history; I get a better appreciation for why people are rebuilding.

We are stopping by the Build Smart Center this afternoon to interview one of the green builders in the city. There is a big effort to rebuild using green, sustainable building products and techniques, and the Build Smart Center holds seminars and training for teaching contractors who are rebuilding the homes here. Although Katrina was devastating to the area it gave a chance for introducing green home materials and renewable energy, and there are some zero-energy homes being built now. We'll meet up with the builder this afternoon to learn more and get some video. The most dramatically hit area in the city is the Lower 9th Ward and the word we got was that many of the residents there are tired of people with cameras coming through to gawk at their misfortune, so I don't think we'll drive through with cameras rolling, to respect the folks there.

We found out that while we're driving through the heat with the vegetable oil system on, using the air conditioner in the car really heats up the engine, a little too hot for my comfort. We turn it on for a while then when I see the fuel temps get too hot (in my opinion anyway) then I turn it off for a while. Not very convenient. When we get to Arizona and it's over 100 degrees then it will REALLY get interesting. Usually the problem in New England is getting the veg oil HOT enough in the cold climate, so this is a new challenge. We planned this trip to go through the south in May so it wouldn't be too hot, but so much for those plans!

READER QUESTION: Where do you get your vegetable oil on the road?
There are conversion shops in most major cities that do conversions for diesel cars and trucks, and usually they sell filtered veg oil. We stopped at a place in Memphis that gave us 28 gallons - 13 gallons in the tank and an extra 15 gallons in our 3 containers we're carrying. It's been as easy as a quick Google search for 'WVO (waste vegetable oil) Memphis' or whatever city we're coming to. Next stop for oil is in Austin.

If you have a reader question, please don't hesitate to ask!

Like I said in an earlier message, most of our video stops are on the west coast, but we have some along the way before we get there. I'll send more messages intermittently while we're driving and when we have internet access.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington DC

2009-05-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We've been unable to spend much time on the internet over the last few days, but all has been well and I wanted to update you on our progress!

Tuesday, May 5 we spent the day in Neffs, Pennsylvania with our friends, and I spent a few hours on the phone trying to confirm interviews and making sure everything is all set for the next several weeks.

Wednesday, May 6 we drove to the beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the afternoon for some video at the coast. One of our videos will be focused on power from waves, and there is a wave power buoy off the coast of New Jersey that has been successful in proving the technology works. It turns out that there is enough potential on the coasts with wave energy to power the entire world two times over. Not bad. We gave a presentation that night at the UU church in Princeton, NJ.

Thursday, May 7 was a busy day! We visited Terracycle in the morning, touring their factory where they make products out of recycled materials. They're in Trenton, NJ, and we saw where the make "compost tea" for plant fertilizer, bags made out of recycled juice containers, and "techno-vomit"...hmmm....how do I explain that one? Guess you'll have to wait for the video. In the afternoon we drove down to Washington DC to visit the headquarters of Green America (formerly CoOp America) and spoke with sustainability guru Todd Larsen about the work Green America does to advocate fair trade, green collar jobs, and a greener America!

Friday, May 8, today, we spent some time in Virginia visiting my 95-year-old uncle and more time in Washington DC, then up to Cedar Lane UU church in Bethesda, Maryland for a presentation. Cedar Lane UU is the 3rd largest UU church in the U.S., so I'm told. Tomorrow we have a long drive from Chevy Chase Maryland, where we are staying tonight, to Nashville, TN.

READER QUESTIONS! How are you guys holding up stuffed into the Beetle? Do you have a better understanding of family closeness yet? How is the roof rack holding up?
Well, it's not the most spaceous way to travel, but it's working out OK so far. Having the roof rack is a big help - that's where we're putting all of our luggage, and the trunk is full of vegetable oil containers and the camera equipment. We definitely feel some drag from the roof rack and it's affecting the mileage, but I expected that. The kids have plenty to do so they're not getting too bored with the driving yet.

Many many thanks to the inventor of the GPS! That thing is absolutely wonderful, just amazing. I can't imagine doing this trip without it. Ours is a Magellan and has a nice female voice; we have named her Maggie!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

First Day on the Road!

2009-05-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We left today at noon on our cross-country eco-video journey and have arrived at our first destination, Neffs Pennsylvania. Neffs is a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, outside of Allentown and Bethlehem. Some long-time friends offered to host us tonight and tomorrow before we begin the video work. I just picked up the borrowed video equipment a few days ago so I need a day to get it set up and get more familiar with it, before we begin in earnest!

I should go over the timeline of our project, so you all know more what to expect. We are stopping at locations over the next several weeks as we travel the southern route across the U.S., where we have some interviews and video to shoot. The majority of our videos will be shot in California at the end of May and early June, then we have a number of video destinations as we return via the northern route. We have a concentration of videos to shoot in the New England area once we return in the end of June.

I uploaded Carrick's segment from the Bonnie Hunt Show on Earth Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe1eBJWiom4

I didn't end up seeing this until last week - well, I saw it live but not what aired. She asked more questions than what you see here but it was edited down.

Here are some photos from our first day on the road:

From Our Renewable Nation

We drove 300 miles in 5 1/2 hours, played the license plate game for a while then the kids watched some episodes of Mr. Bean. It was a rainy drive but no traffic so we can't complain.

Time for bed!
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

A Final Ask Before We Go

2009-04-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Next Monday morning we head out on our cross-country journey, with a full video itinerary that you saw in yesterday's message.

Many of you have been so generous to support our eco-video project with a donation, and we are truly grateful for that! When we began planning this project last June I was expecting our funding to come largely from companies sponsoring us, those many 'green' companies that support eco-actions. When the economy took a turn for the worse last fall the money companies spent on supporting eco-projects disappeared. Fortunately for us several companies/groups have supported us regardless, including Verenium and Sudbury Earth Decade. So Carrick and I have hit the road over the last 9 months giving presentations about our upcoming project and handing out fliers at fairs and conferences. We collected names and emails from hundreds of people who want to follow our cross-country video adventure.

If you haven't done so already, I'm asking you now to please consider donating to support our cross-country eco-video project. It is only with the support of people like you that we will be successful! Since we began planning for this last June we have been so fortunate to receive much great promotion in the media - locally, regionally, and nationally. With days left before we leave we have a huge momentum of publicity and supporters for what we're trying to accomplish.

I hate asking for money. I'm no salesperson. No doubt you are feeling the effects of the economy like everyone else. All I can say is that this is the most important action I have taken on in my lifetime, we are in the position to make a tremendous impact in a way that nobody has done before, and we need your support to be successful. I'm not asking for you to give us money to go on a 2-month vacation. Yesterday's list of destinations makes that very clear - we will be working hard for 2 months to create our eco-video series! What I didn't mention in that destination list are all the presentations we are giving along the way in addition to the video work. At some point we'll need to get some sleep :)

So here is where we stand, financially. With the generous support of many family and friends, we have raised at this point $9,000. I was originally shooting for $20,000 as a fundraising goal. Our absolute bare minimum that we need for the two months is $14,000. We'll raise part of that through donations at presentations on the road, but I know we will still come up short. I have to stress that we are not profiting from this eco-video project, that we are distributing our videos free to schools and of course all available online free as well. The people and ideas, renewable energy and sustainable living, are too important not to get out into the mainstream in as big a way as possible.

If you are willing to make a donation to support our project, you can do so in two ways. First, if you go to our website, www.OurRenewableNation.org, you can make a donation online through PayPal. It's easy and safe to do. If you would feel more comfortable sending a check by mail instead, please make out the check to my name at:
Colin McCullough
66 Buttonwood Avenue
Sutton, MA 01590
My in-laws live closeby and will be taking care of the mail for us, so if you send a check and we've left on our journey already then they'll be able to deposit the check in the bank for us.

Believe me, I've been really worried all along that the financial part of this project would keep us from moving forward. Jen and I talked about a number of different possibilities, like doing half the trip one year, then the other half the next, etc. In the end we decided that what we're doing is too timely to delay - this kind of thing needs to happen sooner rather than later. So we are going on faith that it will all work out. Faith and the support of many, many generous people. Any donation, big or small, will help us.

Many thanks to you for your continued support,

Colin, Jen, Carrick, and Gareth McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Working Eco-Video Destination List

2009-04-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We leave in 6 days for our cross-country journey and I wanted to send the most updated destination list for our eco-video project. Before I get to that, just a quick note to say thanks to all our friends and supporters who came out for our big dinner-concert fundraiser on Saturday night! We had a wonderful time enjoying great food and music - many thanks to our great musicians Katrin, Greg Hare, and Jubilee Gardens. This was our last big fundraiser before we begin our cross-country journey next Monday morning, and we came close to our goal of $2,000 raised at the dinner-concert. Many thanks to everyone who came and made it such a magical evening!

Now, here's our list of stops along the way. It is a working list, subject to change!

Red Sox – Fenway Park sustainability measures
Cape Wind project – Cape Cod, MA
Hull, MA municipal wind turbines
Poulson Hybrid, CT
Greenfeet/More Hip Than Hippie podcast – Chico, CA
Tesla Motors, CA
Nevada Solar One, solar thermal array
Verdant Power, tidal power, East River, NYC
William McDonough, author, Washington DC
EcoLawn grass seed, Toronto
Stephen Lacey, Inside Renewable Energy Podcast, NH
Zenn Motors, Toronto
Hoover Dam
Francis Moore Lappe, author, MA
Green City Spotlights:
Boston, MA
San Francisco, CA
Portland, OR
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
Chicago, IL
Bracken Hendricks, author, Washington DC
Aptera Motors, CA
Biomimicry Institute, Montana
Nanosolar, printable solar panels, CA
Rainbow Material Recovery Facility, CA
Rev. Sally Bingham, Interfaith Power & Light, CA
Fosters Farm, methane digestors, VT
Ocean Power Technologies, wave power buoys, NJ
Enviro Energies, vertical axis wind turbines, CA
Timberland, NH
Recycline, MA
Verenium, cellulosic ethanol, Louisiana
Roscoe Wind Farm, TX
Solar Living Institute, CA
Altarock Energy, geothermal electricity, CA
San Antonio sewer methane digestor, TX
San Diego water purification, CA
Owl Power, veg oil for power, MA
Geothermal heat, residential example, MA
Terracycle, sustainable packaging, NJ
Klean Kanteen, stainless steel water bottles
Chico Bag, reusable shopping bags
Maine Solar House, net-zero solar heat and electricity
Connecticut small-scale hydropower
Xeko, eco-trading cards for kids, WA
New Orleans, green rebuilding efforts
Earthships, sustainable building designs, NM

That makes a very full list, covering many aspects of renewable energy and sustainable living. We're excited to get started....now it's time to get packing!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Massachusetts State House Visit, Dinner-Concert Saturday!

2009-04-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

Hi again,

Today we had the honor of receiving the Secretary's Award for Excellence in Environmental Education at a ceremony in the Massachusetts State House! It's a great honor, indeed. The awards have been given for 15 years now and Carrick is the first homeschooler in all this time to receive this award, which is a great milestone! Our state representative Jennifer Callahan was on hand to help present the award, and after the ceremony we got a personal tour of the State House from Rep. Callahan which was a lot of fun. During our tour we had a chance to meet Governor Duval Patrick and talk for a few minutes:

Tomorrow (Saturday) is our big fundraiser dinner-concert so please come if you are available! We're holding it at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Grafton Common - spaghetti dinner is from 5:00-7:00pm, and the acoustic concert is from 7:00-9:00pm. This is going to be one incredible concert! We have 3 wonderful performers: singer-songwriter Katrin, another great singer-songwriter Greg Hare coming from New York, and Jubilee Gardens. Greg will be giving his public debut of his new song 'Tin Can' that he wrote about our cross-country eco-video project. Greg sent me along the MP3 of the song and it is just awesome - it's been in heavy play on my IPod for a few weeks now. The suggested donation for the event is $10 for the dinner or $10 for the concert, or $15 for both. A fun night out for food and a great concert to support your favorite cause, for only $15 you say? Yes, come and enjoy!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Post Bonnie Hunt, Earth Day

2009-04-24T21:29:00.001-07:00

Hi friends,

What a week! I'm going to have to do 2 separate posts here because there is so much to cover and it keeps going! 9 days left until we depart for our cross-country eco-video project and it's moving very fast now.

Carrick and I flew out to Los Angeles on Monday morning from Boston for the Bonnie Hunt Show, which taped on Tuesday afternoon. We got in at 6:00pm Monday night, sunny and beautiful at 90 degrees of course. We stayed closeby the studio where the show taped and went over for the taping at 2:00pm, and Carrick's segment was about halfway through the show. Several friends recorded it and I am working on getting a copy to upload to YouTube so everyone can see it. We haven't seen it ourselves, actually! Here is a pic from the segment:
Carrick did a great interview with Bonnie and had a wonderful time! She gave him a digital video camera and invited him to send in some video from our cross-country journey, so we'll make sure to do that! We flew out soon after the show was over, taking off at 6:00pm, because we had Earth Day events back home we didn't want to miss!

So, we landed in Boston on Wednesday morning at 5:00am, then drove to Southboro for a quick nap and then did a presentation at Fay School for 400 kids at 8:00am. From there we drove over to UMass Medical School for their Earth Day Fair, giving a presentation at lunchtime and handing out fliers for the afternoon. We were so very fortunate to have two great media stories done! Worcester News Tonight did an interview with Carrick and me, which broadcast on Channel 3 then was rebroadcast on New England Cable News that night, all over New England! Here is the link for the video, and I'll try to embed it here as well:
http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/2009/04/22/Father-son-to-cross-country/1240442649.html

The Worcester Telegram and Gazette also did an interview with us:
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090423/NEWS/904230630/

We left the fair in the mid-afternoon and came back home, 3 days gone and needing sleep! Speaking of sleep, it's almost that time...

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Carrick on the Bonnie Hunt Show

2009-04-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

We just got a call today from the Bonnie Hunt Show and they want to have Carrick on their Earth Day show to talk about everyday eco-tips people can do, and talk about our cross-country eco-video project! The Bonnie Hunt Show (www.BonnieHunt.com) is a national daily talk show, on here in Massachusetts on ABC at 10:00am. Carrick and I are flying to Los Angeles on Monday morning then returning Tuesday night, with the show taped at 2:00pm on Tuesday. On Wednesday (Earth Day) we are booked to give a presentation for 400 kids at the Fay School in Southborough, then off to the UMass Sustainability Fair in Worcester for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. The show will air Wednesday - you can go to the Bonnie Hunt website and find out where and when her show airs in your area.

Flying all the way out to Los Angeles to give eco-tips? I did ask if it was possible to tape our segment in Boston and edit that into the show, but no dice. Can't drive there in the veggie Beetle. Trains would take too long (remember I'm still working hard to get ready to leave in less than 3 weeks). At least the plane will be full - we got the last tickets on our flights. In the spirit of trying to walk the talk, we'll at least be using TerraPass to offset our flights. TerraPass is a carbon-offset program that takes donations for clean energy projects to offset the environmental impact of traveling and home energy use.

Big thanks to our friend Don at HydroCarbonAholics Anonymous for the donation of a GPS for our project! Don writes a great blog at www.HydroCarbsAnon.blogspot.com that we're subscribed to, with his take on our oil addiction and some possible ways out. Our new Magellan GPS will be a huge help on our cross-country journey. Besides all the directions it also shows where the libraries and playgrounds are - important places to know about on any long trip!

We have something special planned for Earth Day next week, so stay tuned for that!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

In The Media, New Video Subjects

2009-04-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

I wanted to share a few great media appearances for our project this week!

Carrick and I did an interview this morning for Sea Change Radio, which is a a nationally syndicated weekly radio show and podcast on corporate sustainability and accountability. Here's the link to the show: http://www.cchange.net/2009/04/08/closing-the-climate-

feedback-loop-with-everyday-citizen-opinions/. Carrick and I are planning to check in with Sea Change Radio during our cross-country journey, sharing some stories of people we meet along the way who are working for sustainability.

Our project is also featured in this month's Bay State Parent Magazine, which goes out to 84,000 people each month in central Massachusetts. There's a mention on the front cover and then a great story inside. You can see our story at www.BayStateParent.com, click on the current issue, then scroll down to the article 'One Family, a VW Bug, and a lot of Vegetable Oil'. I tried to post the direct link but it wouldn't work.

We've also added two more video subjects for our project! I spoke with our contact down in New Orleans yesterday and we talked about making a video about the sustainable rebuilding projects going on in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I'm contacting several people there who are involved in these projects and it looks like we can put together a great video while we're there. Also, I've run into scheduling issues with Howard Lyman for our interview about the environmental impacts of how we eat in the U.S. (Howard is a well-known vegan advocate). We have been lucky enough to instead schedule an interview with John Robbins while in California. John Robbins wrote the books 'Diet for a New America' and 'Food Revolution' and is also a well-recognized advocate for eating vegan and sustainable agriculture.

We are very excited to announce that we have added Jubilee Gardens as a third performer for our fundraising concert on Saturday, April 25. Jubilee Gardens is one of our favorite groups in the region and we're so lucky to have them play for our concert! You can check them out at their website, www.JubileeGardens.com. Details again for the event are spaghetti supper 5:00-7:00pm, concert begins at 7:00pm at the UU Church on Grafton Common. Musicians Katrin and Greg Hare are also performing. This is going to be a fantastic concert so please come if you are able. The suggested donation is $10 for the dinner or $10 for the concert, or $15 for both. C'mon, $15 for a yummy dinner and an amazing concert following is a great deal, and to support a great cause....

A friend of ours had an idea to help us and is organizing a home party with her friends to raise money for our project. The idea is to have her friends over for some food and Carrick and I will show some of our videos and talk about our cross-country eco-video project. Of course, we are leaving in a month, but if this idea appeals to you at all and you're willing to put the word out to your friends, please let me know.

Less than one month to go before we begin our cross-country journey!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Upcoming Events & Presentations

2009-04-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Before we leave for our journey on May 4, we are participating in a series of events and presentations. Here's the info on where we'll be:

April 18, Hull Sustainable Living Expo

6th Annual Sustainable Living Festival

an Earth Day event

Sat., April 18. 10 am to 2 pm

DCR Mary Jeanette Murray Bathhouse

204 Nantasket Avenue, Hull, MA

http://www.sustainablesouthshore.org/sustainable-living-festival

April 19, Unitarian Universalist Church of Haverhill Earth Day Fair
11:30am-12:30, UU Church in Haverhill, MA
http://www.uuhaverhill.org/

April 22, UMass Worcester Earth Day Conference
9:00am-4:00pm, Medical School Lobby
http://umassmed.edu/about/directions/index.aspx

April 22, Whole Foods in Bellingham, MA
11:00am-3:00pm, while Carrick and I are at UMass, my wife Jen will be tabling at Whole Foods for their Earth Day celebration (at least that's the plan)

April 24, EcoTarium in Worcester
10:00am-4:00pm, Earth Day celebration
www.Ecotarium.org

April 25, Our Big Fundraising Dinner-Concert!
5:00-7:00pm spaghetti supper, 7:00-9:00pm acoustic concert
see our earlier blog post for all the info:
http://ourrenewablenation.blogspot.com/2009/03/our-fundraising-dinnerconcert-on-aprili.html

May 2, Sustainable Energy Summit at UMass Amherst
8:00-4:30pm, www.cooppower.coop

Then we hit the road on May 4! If you know of any conferences or fairs/festivals I'm missing in Massachusetts before we leave, please let me know!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Need a GPS, Our New Roof Rack!

2009-04-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

Happy April Fools Day! One month left to departure time, and what a busy month it is going to be! Still many preparations to make before we leave, but the time is almost here.

A GPS unit will be an essential piece of gear for us to navigate the U.S. - if you have a GPS unit that you'd be willing to loan us for May and June, please let me know. I know they're not that expensive, but I wouldn't have any need for one outside our cross-country trip so I really don't want to buy one. It doesn't have to be a fancy one, but something made within the last few years would be great. Please send me an email if you have something we can use, at OurRenewableNation@gmail.com.

Speaking of essential gear, I just visited Evergreen Motors out in Greenfield, MA for a check-over of the veggie system for the Beetle to make sure we're all set for a 2-month trip. Daryl fitted us with a cargo carrier for the roof that answers the question 'where are you going to put all your stuff?' It's great - lots of room for storage and it looks like it was made for a Beetle! If I had more time I'd paint it to match the car, but with a month left to go we're a little pressed for time.

I do have a few contest updates: the $200,000 grant competition on JustMeans that I've been talking about is in the final round and our friends at Sea Change Radio did not make the cut. Thanks so much to all of you who went on JustMeans and gave a vote - the top competitors made last-minute appeals to their huge networks and got a ton of votes. Onward to another contest, I made a short video for the JustDoOne video contest with a suggestion for an eco-action: make a short video about an eco-action that you do and put it online for family and friends! That's how we got our start and it's been an amazing journey. The contest winner gets $5,000 which would go a long way to covering our project budget - they'll be judging the contest over the next month so we'll keep our fingers crossed. This was the first video where I was in front of the camera instead of Carrick, and I got a new appreciation for how hard it can be to get the lines right! Carrick makes it look so easy

Remember to save the date for our upcoming dinner / acoustic concert fundraiser on Saturday, April 25 at the UU Church in Grafton. The spaghetti supper will be from 5:00pm-7:00pm, and the concert will begin at 7:00pm, and will feature singer-songwriters Katrin and Greg Hare. I talked to Greg the other day and he played his new song for our project over the phone - it sounds fantastic! We're very excited to have Katrin and Greg play at the concert. We hope you can make it - we're asking for $10 for the spaghetti supper, or $10 for the concert, or $15 for both.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Fundraising Dinner/Concert on April 25

2009-03-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

One of our friends was pleasantly surprised to find out that we were actually going through with our cross-country eco-video project in the beginning of May. 'You mean you're actually going to do it?', and he meant it. For anyone else who thinks it's a great idea but isn't sure if we're actually going to do it, please let me assure you that it's very much going to happen, for real.

We are excited to announce an exciting dinner/concert fundraiser on Saturday, April 25. We'll be hosting a spaghetti supper at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Grafton Common from 5:00-7:00pm, with an acoustic concert to follow at 7:00pm. This dinner/concert will be a fundraiser to help cover the costs of our cross-country eco-video project - we're asking for $10 for the dinner, or $10 for the concert, or $15 for the dinner and the concert together. Directions are at the church website, www.UUSociety.net.

We are very fortunate to have two very talented musicians playing acoustic sets beginning at 7:00pm:

Katrin is a great singer-songwriter here in Massachusetts who plays shows regularly and has several albums released. Her website is www.Katrinrocks.com - she's got songs on ITunes you can hear and some videos on YouTube here and here. Katrin is a great musician and we're lucky to have her as part of our concert.

Greg Hare is a long-time friend from New York who deserves to be famous! He's a wonderfully-talented singer-songwriter. Hear one of his songs, 'The Present' here. It's a link to an MP3 that you can listen to or right-click to download. Greg has been inspired to write a song about our project for us to use, so come to the concert and hear the premiere of his new song!

OK, you've been so generous in spreading the word about our project when we've needed your help. We'd love to have you come to the dinner/concert on April 25 and we need your help to spread the word about the concert to your friends and family. This is our big fundraiser before we leave on our cross-country journey in the beginning of May, and to date we have raised $5,000 (thank you thank you thank you!) but we still need to raise an additional $7,000 and this dinner/concert will go a long way to helping us meet our goal! With your support we can do it! Please spread the word!

Speaking of support, thanks so much for your vote a few weeks ago for us as part of the Sea Change Radio grant proposal through JustMeans/Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Several other organizations pulled ahead of us in voting, but the decision is also based on the content of the proposal and the comments that people left in addition to the voting, so we'll have to see what happens. The finalists are being announced on March 28, and I'll let everyone know if Sea Change Radio gets into the final round.

Carrick and I are off to Maine tomorrow for the Maine Environmental Educators Association Annual Conference up at the Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset. We're one of the presenters for the conference and also we'll have a table to hand out flyers and let the all the teachers know about our exciting project. Then on Saturday and Sunday I'll have a table close to home in central Massachusetts at the Grafton Fine Arts Festival. We're doing what we can to be at the fairs and festivals - much more efficient to go where the people are at, rather then have them come to us!

You can read our latest interview at www.VegDining.com, which is featured on their homepage. VegDining is our official guide to vegetarian restaurants all over the U.S. as we travel, and as a reminder we are giving out free VegDining cards to anyone who donates $50 or more to support our project. The VegDining cards get you discounts at vegetarian restaurants - a must-have for travelers looking for healthy food on the road.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Ed Begley Interview, Voting Still On!

2009-03-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

It was a long shot, but I thought it would be great to do an interview with Ed Begley while in California, talking about what people can do to live more sustainably. Ed Begley, of course, is one of the leading environmentalists in Hollywood and is a well-known actor, currently starring in his TV reality show 'Living With Ed' on Planet Green. I contacted him to let him know about our cross-country eco-video project and asked for an interview, which he was kind enough to agree to! We're meeting at his home at the end of May for the interview and possibly for a tour of his famous green house! This is wonderful news and will surely be a highlight of our cross-country eco-video series.

The voting for the Green Mountain Coffee Roaster's Climate Change $200,000 grant is still open until this Saturday, so if you haven't voted yet please do. The grant project is for our friends at Sea Change Radio who we are collaborating with for our cross-country video project - if they win the grant they will use some of the grant to support our project. Just click on this link:
http://www.justmeans.com/showideadetails?ideaid=8382&isread=y
and make sure you click the 'SUPPORT IT!' button on the right to vote, and please leave a comment as well. Your vote really helps, so please vote if you haven't already!

This week we also added another interview while in San Francisco, Rev. Sally Bingham, who began the Interfaith Power & Light movement. The Interfaith Power and Light campaign is mobilizing a national religious response to global warming while promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation. There are Interfaith Power & Light chapters all over the country and their impact has been tremendous. We'll be talking with Rev. Bingham about what role religion has to play in promoting sustainable living.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

30 Seconds to Support our Cross-Country Eco-Video Series

2009-03-12T20:43:00.001-07:00

Hi friends,

We've been given a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with a national radio program and podcast, Sea Change Radio. They are applying for a $200,000 grant for a program that they plan to cover solutions to climate change all over the country, and they are going to be using our content, both video and audio, from our cross-country eco-video series. If they win the grant they will be supporting our project financially. To date we have raised $4,500 out of a project budget of $20,000.

You can help us and Sea Change Radio win the grant with 30 seconds of your time! Please follow this link, http://www.justmeans.com/showideadetails?ideaid=8382&isread=y
and vote for the project. The project with the most votes will win the grant - another project in the lead for votes only has 85 votes, so we can do this! The voting is finished this Saturday, so please visit the link ASAP and cast your vote!

I've been optimistic that somehow things would work out for us, without quite knowing how or when. This could be our opportunity. Thanks for your help!

Be well,
Colin McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Places to Stay, Facebook, Changents

2009-03-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

As the economy continues to be a big challenge, I remember back several months ago when I was having second thoughts about our cross-country eco-video project. I wondered if it was appropriate in this economy to go spend 2 months traveling across America (missing 2 months of work), and knew that fundraising would be especially challenging. I decided that what we are doing is too important and that we needed to move forward regardless. Our eco-video series is truly a unique project and it's more important now in this time to make this happen. This will be the only eco-video series made for kids, by a kid - kids relate to someone their own age in a totally different way than grownups. It's critical for kids today to see how exciting and full of opportunity a renewable, sustainable future can be. So we will go ahead and go on faith that things will work out financially, one way or another.

One way we are trying to keep our travel expenses down is to connect with families across the U.S. who are willing to host our family for the night as we're coming through. We've been getting emails from so many generous people throughout the country offering a place to stay - people who I've never met but who support our eco-video project and what we're trying to do. There are still some cities for which we are looking for hosts, so please look over the list here and if you know of anyone in these places who might be willing to host our family for the night, please let us know!

Jackson Mississippi, May 12
New Orleans, May 13 & 14
Baton Rouge, May 15
Lubbock Texas, May 18
Santa Fe New Mexico, May 19
Flagstaff Arizona, May 21
Grand Canyon Arizona, May 24
St. George Nevada, May 25
Las Vegas, May 26
Grant's Pass Oregon, June 6 & 7
Roseburg Oregon, June 8
Portland Oregon, June 9 & 10
Lincoln Nebraska, June 17
Des Moines Iowa, June 18
Niagara Falls. June 25

One last thing - two websites that I'd like to encourage you to visit that we're a part of. You can join us on Facebook on our group, Our Renewable Nation, and send me a friend invite. It's a great way to connect with our project. Also, visit www.Changents.com, which is a great website for change makers throughout the world - lots of great stories and projects that people are working on! You can join Changents and become one of our backers - just search for Our Renewable Nation.

Be well,
Colin McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Presentations Aplenty

2009-03-04T19:00:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,

We've been keeping our presentation schedule full for the spring, with a goal of 2-3 talks each week to spread the word about our cross-country eco-video project. 2 months to go! Yikes, so much left to do!

Last weekend we set up a presentation for homeschoolers at our friend's yoga studio in Worcester, Flowforms Yoga. We emailed all the local homeschool groups but were unlucky that day - nobody showed. On Sunday we gave a presentation at the Worcester library and had great help promoting it from the Regional Environmental Council in Worcester, but only a handful of people showed up. That was disappointing, because we're needing to spread the word in a BIG way right now. These library talks have been spotty in attendance at best, so I think we'll pass on that strategy.

Today I exhibited at the Massachusetts Environmental Educator Society's annual conference at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. There were several hundred people there, both science teachers and educators who run different environmental programs. It was a great place to be to spread the word about our project and network with other environmental groups in Massachusetts. Having the support of environmental educator associations will be key to promoting our video project and distributing our video series on a national level once it is completed. I got a lot of enthusiastic feedback from teachers who are excited about what we're doing and who are anxious to follow our cross-country journey in their classrooms. Our Postcard Program fundraiser was also a big hit as well.

For fairs and conferences, we're planning to give a workshop and exhibit at the Maynard Energy Fair this Saturday in Maynard, Massachusetts and also give a workshop and exhibit at the Maine Environmental Educator Association annual conference on March 27.

Carrick and I were invited to be part of the Celebrity Reader series for Millbury public TV, and tonight we went into the studio to film our part. Local notable people are invited for a weekly program for kids to read kid stories, but instead of reading stories Carrick and I talked about our trip and showed how to read maps. We had a fun time on the show, and they are planning to include some of our videos we brought on DVD. The program doesn't appear online, so only residents of Millbury and Sutton will see it on TV.

I posted a short new video about the solar-powered wind turbine toy that I mounted to the dashboard of our car. People ask about it and I had the footage already, so I just put it together and posted it on various video websites. Already 1,200 hits in a few days - go figure. Here's the URL for it if you want to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a067XLOooEI

So that's the update for this week. Another foot of snow on Monday, and California is still 2 months away...

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

in the Sierra Club campaign, GoGreenTube

2009-02-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,

Here's the latest news for our cross-country eco-video project, Our Renewable Nation:

It's official - we were recently contacted by the Sierra Club asking if they can use a video we made for their upcoming national campaign to promote home energy conservation. The website www.sierraclubgreenhome.com will post our video 'Our Energy-Efficient Home' that we entered into the Home Depot Video Contest last fall. They have also asked to give our video to Sierra Club's affiliates to distribute on the internet as well. Since several videos from our upcoming eco-video series will be a great fit for their website, we'll be sharing those with the Sierra Club as well. This is a great collaboration because we are interviewing several people from the Sierra Club's Cool Cities campaign in our video series, as we focus on several of the Top 10 Green Cities in the U.S. and interview representatives from each city to tell us what their city has done to earn their place in the top 10. Publicity from the Sierra Club will be so helpful for us in promoting our cross-country eco-video series!

We have also signed up to partner with www.GoGreenTube.com, which is a video-sharing website similar in format to YouTube but is focused on green living videos. It's a great site for all aspects of green living. We'll be embedding our video series on our website through GoGreenTube, which also helps us to stream videos to schools which block video sites like YouTube. We will also be posting our video series to the other video sites like YouTube, but GoGreenTube has agreed to feature our new videos on their homepage as we finish and upload them through the fall. It should be a great collaboration!

We also have an exciting new fundraising project to tell you about, but it deserves it's own special message, and I also need to get the website updated to include it. Look for more details later this week!

Be well,
Colin & family
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Interview on GreenMuze

2009-02-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

Hi friends-

I thought you'd be interested in reading an interview we did with GreenMuze, an online green magazine. We were contacted by GreenMuze after they saw the post on Treehugger.com that featured our video project. I've been interviewed a number of times about the veggie Beetle and sometimes the resulting articles can be... a little off. I was glad to see how well this one came out: http://www.greenmuze.com/community/people/784-the-eco-family-activists.html
Please feel free to add a comment at the end of the article!

We are adding several new desinations to our project. We'll be stopping by TerraCycle while traveling through Princeton, NJ - TerraCycle makes product packaging from recycled materials. Go to their website, www.terracycle.net and check out all the different products they package; you will see brands you know and use! I'm also working on getting an interview with Enviro Energies, which produces the Mag-Wind vertical-axis wind turbines for homes.

We just got accepted as a speaker for the Maine Environmental Educators Association 2009 Annual Conference at the end of March, and we are exhibiting at the Massachusetts Environmental Educators Society Annual Conference in a few weeks. These will be great opportunities to spread the word about our cross-country video project and network with people in the teaching community.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

PEYA Award and Yale Film Festival

2009-02-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

We got two great pieces of news this last week about our project!

Carrick is going to be nominated for a Presidential Environmental Youth Award for 2009. All nominees are sent certificates signed by the President of the United States, and the 10 regional award winners receive a presidential plaque at an EPA-sponsored award ceremony in Washington, D.C. The deadline for nominations is in October, so we'll see what happens!

Carrick and I have been invited to participate in the Environmental Film Festival at Yale University in April. The festival will include screenings of narratives and documentary films, features and shorts, and student projects, coupled with conversations with filmmakers,
panel discussions, and workshops for students interested in producing environmental films. Admission to screenings and special events will be free and open to the public. The festival will run from Thursday, April 16th, 2009 - Sunday, April 19th, 2009. I'll update the specific date and time we'll be in the schedule once I find out.

Today I visited one of the local high schools as part of the Focus the Nation program, which is a national teach-in program involving millions of students, faculty, staff and visitors at a thousand or more educational institutions around the country in a discussion of Global Warming solutions. Last year I participated in Worcester, showing our veg-oil powered Beetle and talking to one of the environmental science classes about climate change and sustainability. In the class I visited today, I helped speak about renewable energy and sustainability, and showed a few of our videos. It was a fun experience. I did notice, however, that the Environmental Science textbooks they had were 20 years old...

I've been getting a number of suggestions lately to sell our finished eco-video series to make some profit. The idea of providing our eco-video series free to schools nationally is at the heart of what we're doing. The important thing is for this kind of information to get to as many people as possible. When Carrick and I conceived of this video project, we never intended to produce something that we could profit from. Our profit will be the experience of the journey, traveling the U.S. and meeting many wonderful, generous people!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

ORN Featured on Treehugger.com!

2009-01-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

On Sunday night, we were fortunate enough to get a great write-up on Treehugger.com, one of the most widely-read environmental blogs on the net. It was a terrific article, and it generated a lot of traffic to our website and videos. They say about our project "It's a fine idea, a great cause, and packs a ton of potential--who better to relate sustainable ideas to kids then someone like Carrick?" You can read the full article on Treehugger by following the link:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/most-adorable-renewable-energy-project-ever-video.php

I got to spend some time today talking with Mark Dixon, one of the filmmakers of YERT.com, Your Environmental Road Trip. Mark and crew traveled the U.S. a few years ago making eco-videos on sustainable topics, spending about a year on the road visiting all 50 states. Mark offered some great suggestions and advice, coming from much experience on the road! Check out their website, www.yert.com and see their great work!

One of the ways we're trying to save money while on the road, while meeting some new friends, is to stay with people while we're traveling. I sent a message to the Green Sanctuary email list, which goes out nationally to Unitarian Universalist congregations who are part of the Green Sanctuary program, which works to make congregations more sustainable. I asked members of the email list if they would consider hosting our family as we travel across the U.S. to support our project, and if we could visit their UU congregations and give presentations about our eco-video project. I've been so grateful to receive many generous offers all across the country to help us on our journey! Many people have responded enthusiastically to support us as we travel, offering places for us to stay. It will certainly be a highlight of our trip to meet so many generous people!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Special Recognition, Special Offer

2009-01-21T20:12:00.000-08:00

Hello friends on this exciting week!

Carrick and I were honored to speak before the Board of Selectmen in our town of Sutton, Massachusetts last night, where we were publicly recognized for our upcoming cross-country eco-video project We are also grateful for our introduction to the Board by House Representative Jennifer Callahan. Carrick and I spoke about our upcoming journey and showed our most recent video, "Wind Over Worcester". It was wonderful to receive such great support from our town!

All this snow has caused us to have to cancel several of our recently scheduled presentations, which is frustrating! We only have several months left before we begin our cross-country journey, and we're trying to give as many presentations as we can. I'm thinking of California a lot lately!

We are excited to announce a new sponsor and supporter of our cross-country video project: VegDining.com. VegDining is a great website that lists vegan, vegetarian, and veg-friendly restaurants across the U.S., and it will be invaluable to us as we cross the U.S. visiting cities and towns, looking for healthy places to eat along the way. Many of the restaurants listed on VegDining.com have signed on to offer discounts to VegDining members - the restaurants we've looked up offered 10% off to VegDining members - that will help save us a bundle on our journey. Our friends at VegDining have generously offered, that for the next 100 people who donate $50.00 to our cross-country eco-video project, they will receive a FREE membership to VegDining.com. Check out their website and see what healthy restaurants are near you, and keep it in mind for when you're traveling! You can make a donation to support our cross-country eco-video project at our website, www.OurRenewableNation.org, or you can send us a check in the snail mail; just send me an email at OurRenewableNation@gmail.com and I'll send you our address.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

New Pilot Video and New Website Design

2009-01-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

I've been quiet in posting over the last several weeks but we have two great announcements:

First, we finished our pilot video for our cross-country eco-video project, titled "Wind Over Worcester". The video serves as an example of what our video series will look like - we're planning a series of 35 five-minute episodes that cover many aspects of renewable energy and sustainable living. 'Wind Over Worcester' is about the new wind turbine at Holy Name High School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Our other big announcement is our new website design. Our friend Tracy Axelson, a professional web designer, has been helping us to redesign our website for a more professional look. I made the original site the best I could with what limited website knowledge I have, but our new site design is a whole different appearance, much improved. Visit us at www.OurRenewableNation.org to see our new look!

As I am shoveling us out from one snowstorm to the next, it's hard to imagine that in 4 months we'll be driving through the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. It seems so far away right now! With our departure time on May 1 counting down, we're excited to get started and are working double-time to get all the preparations and research done in time.

Be well,
Colin

Boston Climate Change Rally

2008-12-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

Carrick and I went to the climate change rally this last Saturday in Boston, and we were invited to speak to the crowd about our cross-country eco-video project as an example of one family's action for change. Representatives from many nations are meeting in Poznan, Poland to lay the foundation for the next climate change treaty after the Kyoto Protocol. Greenpeace organized rallies in cities across the U.S. to show support for the new treaty - in Boston we all met at Faneuil Hall in front of the Sam Adams statue, where there were a number of speakers, then we walked over to Boston Common for a group picture. Here's a picture of Carrick and me waiting to speak: http://www.flickr.com/photos/darenfiske/3089149702/

I spoke first for a minute about our cross-country video project and our plans to distribute it to science teachers nationally to use as a resource to teach about renewable energy and sustainable living. Carrick spoke briefly with this message:

"I have a message for the leaders meeting in Poland: the choices you make now will affect my future. Don't pass the issue of climate change onto us kids. Be bold. The young people of the world are counting on you."

Carrick and I visited several places last week to promote our cross-country eco-video project: We spoke in the auditorium at Bancroft School in Worcester to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, then again for the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. They were a great audience and we had a great time showing some of our videos and answering questions from the kids. I dropped by Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston with our veg-oil powered Beetle to show to the Energy and Conservation class. Carrick and I also gave a brief presentation of our project for the Mass. Climate Action Network steering committee, working to gain support from MCAN for our project and hopefully some more speaking opportunities with chapters in Massachusetts.

Be well,

Colin

New Interview: Chelsea Sexton

2008-11-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

I have a few additions and subtractions to make this week on our destination list.

I'm excited to announce our most recent addition, Chelsea Sexton, who starred in the 2006 documentary, 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' Chelsea is a major industry advocate for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles and will speak with us about the future of auto industry and the role that plug-in cars will play. Until recently she has served as the Executive Director of Plug In America, a coalition of individuals and organizations that advocates for the preservation and manufacture of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and electric vehicles.

We've also removed several destinations from the list, including our stops in Canada. We had planned on spending a week in Toronto on our return leg before going home, but $400 in passport fees is much more than I anticipated. The two stops we had set up were Zenn Motors, which currently makes low-speed electric vehicles, and Wildflower Farms, which makes Eco-Lawn grass seed. This will allow us to spend more time in a few cities in the U.S., including Austin, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. I also decided to take General Motors off the list - we were going to visit Detroit and make a video profile of the Chevy Volt. I tried many avenues of communication without success - I guess they're busy trying to stay out of bankruptcy. It works out much better to interview Chelsea Sexton, who can provide a great industry perspective on electric vehicles, plus if you've seen 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' then you can appreciate the irony of my replacing the GM interview with Chelsea.

Carrick and I are speaking on Monday at Bancroft School, a private school in Worcester, where we'll be speaking in the auditorium to grades 3-8. It will be our biggest crowd yet! I'm still working on being comfortable speaking to a room of a few hundred kids, but fortunately Carrick's got my back.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Be well,

Colin

Contacts!

2008-11-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

This has been a week of good news and good networking!

I got a preview of our updated web design and it's great - such an improvement! It's a great design which makes all the important content easy to get to. I'll be making the big announcement when that goes online soon.

I met this week with Rep. Jennifer Callahan, representative to the Massachusetts State House for our town, Sutton. Rep. Callahan has been a strong supporter of the recent environmental legislation at the State House, including the Green Communities Act and the Global Warming Solutions Act. She's offered to help us network with schools and we talked about visiting the State House on Earth Day before we begin our cross-country journey. Carrick and I were also invited to give a presentation about our video project to the Sutton Board of Selectmen on January 20 at 7:00pm. It's great to have the support of our local government and their enthusiasm for our project.

I attended the Mass Climate Action Network (MCAN) annual conference at MIT on Sunday which affirmed for me the need to draw from many different groups for support of renewable energy and sustainability. As an environmentalist, I think we focus too narrowly on a single motivator like climate change and I think it's important to remember that issue is only one reason of many why people "come to the table" to work for a sustainable future. We won't succeed by trying to convince everyone about climate change - we don't have time and the work is too important. Van Jones of Green for All is a strong advocate of that broad-based appeal. Carrick and I are finding support from people of many different viewpoints - if we can do it then surely it can work on a much larger scale.

Be well,
Colin McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Vegan on the Road

2008-11-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

We've had a full week to report on!

Carrick and I did two presentations in the last week; one at Grafton High School and also to the Boston Vegetarian Society. At Grafton High we spoke in the auditorium and showed the kids some of our videos and talked about our cross-country video project. We also talked about how much of a hot topic sustainability/ renewable energy is on college campuses, and how attractive it would look on those college applications to have done that kind of work at Grafton High. At Boston Vegetarian Society we talked to an enthusiastic crowd, met some great people, and enjoyed a yummy vegan buffet at Grasshopper Chinese Restaurant in Allston.

Speaking of eating vegan, one of the challenges of our cross-country journey will be finding vegan and veg-friendly places to eat on the road. Fortunately, there are great online resources for veg travelers at http://www.vegdining.com/ and http://www.happycow.net/. They list vegan, vegetarian, and veg-friendly restaurants state-by-state, with user reviews. There isn't going to be room to pack much food in the Beetle, so we'll be eating out much of the time. There are great veg restaurants all over the U.S. that we've heard about, and now we'll have our chance to visit them!

We have a new video up about what we've done to make our house more energy efficient. Carrick talks about insulation, sealing air leaks, programmable thermostats, etc. The link to the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLAdv7h3AzE

This Sunday (November 16) I'll be attending the Massachusetts Climate Action Network conference at MIT in Cambridge. I'm looking forward to meeting folks there and continuing to make connections in the environmental community!

Be well,
Colin

The Future of Our Renewable Nation

2008-11-04T12:42:00.000-08:00

It's worth taking a look ahead to our future plans once we're finished our cross-country journey and have finished our video. Here are some thoughts about the possibilities:

1. Once the video is finished, then the marketing and distribution really begins! Right now we can show some examples and talk about our plans, but the game changes when we can show the finished product.

2. We'll continue to give presentations in schools and to groups, focusing on our cross-country video project. Speaking fees and further donations will go towards DVD duplication and distribution.

3. We'll be developing an in-depth resource for actions kids can take to make their communities more sustainable. Most resources on the web focus on adults, missing a critical segment of the population - the most important for our future! We'll develop the site and actively collaborate with the other adult-focused resources online.

4. Writing a Book - Developing a resource guide on the web for kids focused on renewables and sustainability will give us the opportunity to go more in-depth, writing a book for kids. We can get more into the success stories of kids making sustainable changes in their communities.

5. 'Do-Gooder' is the project I was working out when I had the idea for Our Renewable Nation, and I'd like to get back to it and make it happen. The idea is for a monthly potluck community group that makes no-interest loans to people in the community to help people afford energy efficiency improvements in their homes and renewable energy for their homes. It's all about investing in communities to be more sustainable.

So that's a glimpse of the future possibilities - who knows what will happen! There will be many doors that open up once the video is completed, I'm certain. We have several big events coming up in the next week, so I'll report on those next week!

Be well,
Colin

Our Public Speaking Tour Begins

2008-10-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

This past week, we began giving presentations to spread the word about our cross-country eco-video project, making connections in the community, and gaining support for our work. My son Carrick and I are showing selections of our eco-videos, talking about our upcoming cross-country video project, and talking about everyday ways to live more sustainably.

A week ago we spoke at Sudbury Earth Decade, a chapter of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, and again on Saturday at Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary, a Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary. At both talks we met some great people and made important connections.
We have five more speaking events coming up before the end of 2008, but I'm scheduling a heavy list for after the holidays are over. It's hard enough to get people to come to speaking events; I don't want to compete with the holidays and shopping! We're networking and setting up talks in a whole variety of places, including churches, schools, libraries, senior centers and civic groups. My goal is 2-3 per week until we leave in May for our journey.

This week I also began a weekly email update for people who want regular updates on our cross-country project. We'll talk about new destinations added, new sponsorships and partnerships, appearances in the media, etc. Once we begin our journey in May we'll start sending out daily email updates as we travel across the U.S. and back.

I'm hoping to have a new and improved design for our website, www.OurRenewableNation.org, within a month. What's there right now is the best I could do on my own, but we could do with a more professional appearance. Our friend Tracy Axelson, a professional web designer, has generously agreed to help us look sharper on the web. Look for the updated website soon!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Added Destiinations: Chico Bag, Klean Kanteen, Xeko

2008-10-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

San Francisco may be the California city to grab all the green headlines, but the city of Chico, about 3 hours northeast, is home to some great green businesses. We've decided to stick around Chico for a few days to get some interviews with our latest additions - Chico Bag and Klean Kanteen.

Chico Bag makes reusable shopping bags that smoosh down to a small pouch, making them easy to carry and store. They're made of washable, durable polyester, and can hold up to 25 lbs. of groceries. Over 1 TRILLION single-use plastic bags are used and thrown away every year, and the average American uses 300-700 bags each year. Chico Bags are a handy way of breaking the plastic bag habit!

Klean Kanteen is a Chico company that makes stainless steel water bottles which are reusable, lightweight, and a healthy alternative to plastic water bottles. Our family has a handful of Klean Kanteens and we use them all the time! 38 billion plastic water bottles go into U.S. landfills each year, with only 23% being recycled. We'll visit Klean Kanteen to learn more about the smarter alternative to buying bottled water!

We've also added another stop in Seattle at Xeko, the collectible cardgame revolving around endangered species. "Xeko is dedicated to a bright green future and preserving some of our planet's greatest riches" Xeko is a game of trading and collecting cards somewhat like Pokemon, but where kids learn about habitats and animals while they play. We'll visit Xeko headquarters to see the people behind the game!

Be well,
Colin

Our Renewable Nation DVD

2008-10-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

The ultimate purpose of our cross-country eco-video project is to make a series of video profiles about renewable energy sites and interview people who have made impacts in sustainability, and put together these profiles on DVD to distribute to schools nationally. The idea is for school teachers to be able to pick and choose which 5-minute profiles they want to use on a particular day. One day they might be teaching about solar and other renewables, and they'll be able to choose just those videos that best cover that topic. Other topics might be electric vehicles, sustainable design, zero-waste/recycling, etc. Our mission is to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future, and it's important and timely that kids see what that future can look like.

Why create a DVD of 5-minute profiles instead of compiling all the footage into a documentary? I think it's more useful to teachers in this format rather than a 2-hour linear, beginning-to-end documentary. Watching a 2-hour video is not realistic in many school schedules. Another reason is that each profile deserves 5 minutes of it's own time, and this way I won't have to cut any of our destinations out of our final video just because it doesn't fit into the flow.

We're hoping to distribute our video through the National Science Teachers Association, which would give our video national distribution. I'm working on that connection now.

Another avenue for distribution is to post all of our videos on our YouTube page, www.YouTube.com/OurRenewableNation. We'll upload each video profile as it is completed.

That's all for now - Be well,

Colin

WeCanSolveIt.org, Verenium support

2008-10-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

This post marks 8 months left until our cross-country journey begins, and we celebrate with some great news of support!

Verenium, a company that is developing cellulosic ethanol production, is the most recent addition to our list of sponsors! The Cambridge-based company has a research and pilot facility in Louisiana, which we'll be visiting next June. Verenium uses switchgrass, sugarcane, and "energycane" as sources to produce ethanol, with much higher yields per-acre using crops that are far less energy-intensive to grow than corn. We welcome Verenium as a sponsor and thank them for their support! You can learn more about their work at www.Verenium.com

Our latest endorsement comes from the Alliance for Climate Protection, which runs the action campaign at www.WeCanSolveIt.org:
"The McCullough family is proof of the power of living by your values. They raised their energetic sons to be champions for the climate, and now the whole family is successfully spreading the word that youth benefit when fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy."
The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis.

Be well,
Colin

Kid Power: the Ultimate Renewable Energy Pt. 2

2008-09-26T11:14:00.001-07:00

In order for our cross-country video project to be successful, we need to give kids a good set of tools they can use to make change happen in their communities.

Our mission is to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future. Kids across the U.S. will see our videos - then what? Hopefully we'll help kids to feel like they have the power to create meaningful change in their lives and communities, and it's our job to empower kids with ways they can get started. It's easy for kids and adults to feel intimidated by the choices out there, so we'll break it down into 3 categories: individual, community, and political.

1. Individual
Do small choices/changes really make any difference? Nobody wants to feel like they are sacrificing, especially when nobody else is making an effort. We'll give a Top 10 list of things people can do to have a real impact - no symbolic changes that don't make any real difference.

2. Community
Creating meaningful change in the community is where kids can really shine. Bringing sustainability to communities is an investment in time and energy - people want to make sure the results of their efforts are worthwhile. We'll provide a set of action "toolkits" for kids to use as resources to start project to make their communities more sustainable. These will not be a simple list of suggestions, but a detailed, how-to with videos and success stories of others whose projects made their communities more sustainable.

3. Political
The solutions to create a renewable and sustainable future have to be non-partisan. Kids can demand that their politicians tart being part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. Why would politicians care about the opinions of kids that can't vote? Because their parents can, and because politicians want to avoid looking bad at all costs.

The Internet has many great resources for helping people make more sustainable choices, but these are geared mostly for adults. We can add tremendous value to resources online by addressing what actions kids can make individually, in their community, and politically. Green living and sustainability may be new to many adults, but these will be concepts that kids will be living with for their whole lives. Following our videos across the U.S. may be the first part of that journey, but the road stretches much farther still.

Be well,
Colin

Speaking to Auditoriums Full of Kids

2008-09-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Oh, the interesting twists our journey is taking us!

If you told me a year ago that Carrick and I would be speaking in school auditoriums to hundreds of kids at a time, I'd know you were crazy.

We got an invitation to come speak in the auditorium of a school; they asked us to bring some of our videos to show, and Carrick and I could talk about our work and our cross-country project, maybe inspire some of the kids by showing them an example of what a kid can do. The press came for the feel-good story - a 9-year-old kid who speaks to auditoriums full of kids about kid power - the ultimate renewable energy. Next thing you know we're in demand!

Carrick and his dad Colin - motivational speakers.

For his part, Carrick is unfazed in front of a crowd of 20 or 200. I don't think he knows to be self-conscious about speaking to a group of kids - score another for homeschooling! I, on the other hand, would have been completely terrified to do that when I was 9 years old. This project has given me opportunities to challenge myself, to get outside of my comfort zone. I believe strongly in the importance of our work, and that feeling of purpose is enough to get me out there.

Be well,
Colin

Kid Power - the Ultimate Renewable Energy!

2008-09-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

If I had to bet on any form of renewable energy, it would be kid power.

We've all heard people say about kids "Gee, I wish I could bottle some of that energy for myself." If kids learned to harness their energy to create meaningful change, imagine what kinds of real, significant changes they could make in their own communities!

It's no secret that kids are one of the 3 pillars of advertising - people are interested in hearing stories of kids who are doing extraordinary things. We love to root for the little guy, the underdog. Seeing kids successes inspires us, perhaps in part because we adults feel that "hey, if a kid can do it..." That's just the thing though - kids enjoy some unique benefits:

1. They get less criticism - Really, who wants to publicly be seen criticizing a child who is trying to make a difference? The saying "using kid gloves" comes to mind.

2. They're better at getting what they ask for - Similarly, who wants to be seen publicly refusing to help a child who is trying to make a difference? Girl Scout cookies would never so successful if they weren't sold door-to-door by little girls.

3. Kids have the art of surprise - Kids are generally seen as being somewhat lazy, so adults never expect kids to do amazing things. Word spreads quickly when they do - parents tell their kids in an attempt to use some competitiveness to motivate them.

For the most part, kids are unaware that they have this ability to get people's attention and create meaningful change. It's not a message that is generally heard in school. The stories about kids we see in the media are usually examples of extremes: exceptional athletes, musicians, artists, actors and actresses. These often reinforce the idea that unless you have extraordinary talent, you're incapable of accomplishing extraordinary things.

That's it for now, check out Kid Power, the Ultimate Renewable Energy Part II next week.

Be well,
Colin

Our Video Contest Entries - HELP!

2008-09-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a thought: fossil fuels are polluting...duh.

I heard an interesting take on that on the radio lately. Our major sources of electricity: coal, nuclear, oil, and gas, require government regulatory agencies to do regular site visits to make sure the power plants aren't polluting more than they are allowed to. Gotta keep an eye on those sneaky devils and make sure they're not trying to get away with anything, at least while someones watching, right? Well, that's a whole groups of agencies that no longer need to exist with renewable energy. Factor that into the cost-benefit analysis for renewables!

OK, as part of our effort to spread the word about our video project, and win some money to help fund it, we've entered a few video contests. If you could take a minute to watch and vote, it would support our project!

Climate Matters video contest:
Here are our two entries - I've embedded them here, but if that doesn't work I've provided the URLs. The video with the most views wins $3,000, so please watch and forward!

1. An Inconvenient Youth - http://vimeo.com/1611792
As the youth of today become more aware of climate change and how it affects their future, their voices will be impossible to ignore. This video features 8-year-old Carrick, who sends a message to politicians from the future generation.

An Inconvenient Youth from Colin McCullough on Vimeo.

2. 456% Renewable! - http://vimeo.com/1623929
In the U.S., we have an abundance of natural resources that we can use to reach 100% renewable energy, although many still insist we will continue to need coal, nuclear, oil, and gas. Why? Our renewable energy resources could produce 4 1/2 times as much electricity as this country uses, if we wanted to make it happen. Our politicians need to embrace the future of renewable energy!

456% Renewable! from Colin McCullough on Vimeo.

EarthKeepers Video Contest
Our entry, 'Our Renewable Nation', is our 3-minute video about the travel project. If you go to www.youtube.com/earthkeepers, you can vote for our video from the top 3. you have to be logged into YouTube, and next to our video is a thumbs-up to click to vote for our video. The contest winner gets $5,000!

Of course, any money we might win from either contest would all go towards funding our travel project!

Be well,
Colin

456% Renewable!

2008-08-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

Last week, I talked about the three issues our video project revolves around: renewable energy, sustainability, and individuals making a difference. I want to dive a little further into the renewable energy focus here.

One of the questions we'll be asking in our video project is: what is the potential for each renewable energy technology we visit around the country? If we as a nation really drove to make it happen, Apollo-style, what percentage of the country's electricity could each renewable energy technology provide? Many Americans don't believe it's possible to have 100% renewable energy. After all, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, right?

I'm fascinated by renewable energy technologies, and if I had to be a dork about something it would be that. I read enough to know that, if we wanted to, we could supply 100% of our nation's power from commercial land-based and offshore wind. Of course, that comes with a lot of "if's", like a whole lot of wind turbines in a whole lot of places, upgraded transmission lines, unprecedented capital investment, political support, etc., but fundamentally it is possible if we wanted it to happen. And that's just commercial wind. Solar thermal technologies like those at Nevada Solar One (it's on the list of destinations) could produce 100% of our electricity, IF we wanted it to. So I took each renewable energy technology that we are visiting on our travel project and contacted the industry advocate organizations, like AWEA - American Wind Energy Association, etc., and asked them what the potential of their technologies were. Here's what I found:
Solar photovoltaic - 100%
Solar thermal - 100%
Tidal power - 3.5%
Wave power - 6.5%
Land-based and offshore commercial wind - 100%
Residential, backyard turbines - 20%
Geothermal electricity - 100%
Biogas from waste sources - 10%
Hydroelectric - 16%

Added up, we're able to produce 456%, or four and a half times the amount of electricity we need in the U.S. with renewable sources. And yet, the politicians and pundits continue to insist that we will continue to rely on coal, nuclear, oil, and gas to provide electricity no matter how much we invest in renewable energy. WHY? We need to be asking them why! Our country has an amazing abundance of natural resources for renewable energy. We'll show each technology in action and explain how they work. We want people to see what's real and available, then when they hear people insisting it can't be done, to question those assertions! Who and why do people insist it can't be done?

We put this message into video for the Climate Matters video contest on Vimeo.com:

456% Renewable! from Colin McCullough on Vimeo.
The more views our video gets, the better chance it has to win! Please visit http://www.vimeo.com/climatematters to see our two videos in the contest, '456% Renewable!' and 'An Inconvenient Youth'.

Be well,
Colin

Focusing on Mission and Vision

2008-08-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

First, great news! I got the email congrats today for coming in 2nd place in the US PIRG video contest on sustainable transportation in the future! Our prize is $250, which we'll put right into the travel project account. We are currently finalists in the Earthkeepers/Timberland video contest, and we'll be entering the Climate Matters video contest very soon as well.

Carrick and I were interviewed on the EVCast podcast on Monday, talking about our green videos and our travel project. The EVCast is a daily podcast focusing on electric vehicles, which we've talked about in some of our videos. Our travel project will include video profiles of several electric vehicle companies, including Aptera, Tesla Motors, GM (Chevy Volt), Zenn Motors, and Poulsen Hybrid. You can hear our interview at www.EVCast.com, and we're in Episode #58.

From the very beginning of creating our cross-country eco-video adventure, our mission has been to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future. I've been focusing more on our vision lately, which is more of the 'how', and speaks more specifically about what we're trying to accomplish. I've broken our vision for the project down to 3 parts:

1. Focus on renewable energy: We'll be visiting examples of different types of renewable energy in the U.S., including wind, solar, hydroelectric, wave power, tidal power, geothermal, and biogas. By showing examples of existing and proven renewable technologies, we want to show people how abundant our natural resources are in this country, and how very possible it is to achieve 100% renewable energy.

2. Focus on sustainable design/living: We'll be showing examples of many aspects of sustainability including: zero waste, pollution-free transportation, sustainable design, green cities in the U.S., and sustainable companies and products. For most Americans, sustainable living means sacrifice and compromise - put on that extra sweater and suffer! We'll show that with a whole-systems approach including smart design, manufacturing, transportation, and zero waste, our country can make a tremendous leap forward in sustainability, with an exciting future of possibilities!

3. Individuals making a difference: Our time is not only unique in history because of our access to information, but also our ability as individuals to make our voices heard and create real change. We'll be interviewing inspiring people who used their passion on issue to make a positive difference. Our travel project itself is a testament to that: after almost 2 years of making green videos with our old camcorder, our videos have been seen by over 200,000 people, and our cross-country eco-video project will bring our message of sustainability to a much wider audience.

So now we're focusing on speaking with companies that support our mission and will sponsor our project. I'm also busy lining up speaking events for the fall and winter, where Carrick and I will show some of our videos, talk about our work, and tell people about our upcoming travel project. Plenty of work yet to be done!

Be well,
Colin

Thank Goodness for Libraries

2008-08-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a truth: without the use of public computers at libraries, this project would not be happening. Much of the research and emailing involved is being done in between work appointments, so the public library system of central Massachusetts will have to get a big thanks in our video credits!

More good video contest news! Our video 'Our Renewable Nation' is now one of the finalists in the Timberland/Earthkeepers video contest. There were some great submissions to the contest so all best are off. The grand prize is $5,000, which would go a long way in getting us across the country next May/June.

We picked up a great endorsement for our project from Bill McKibben, eco-author and activist:
"Never doubt that one family with a lot of sweat and inspiration, and a high-speed internet connection, can save the world. These guys are doing it!"

I also added a new feature to our website called 'Your Renewable Nation', where everyone is encouraged to let us know what green things people are doing in their won communities. We'll post the submissions on the 'Your Renewable Nation' Google map so people can see what individuals are doing across the nation to be green.

Be well,
Colin

My Endorsement Wishlist

2008-08-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

Now that we're wrapping up the confirmations for places and people to visit, the next step in project planning is to get some endorsements for our project! Having some well-respected and recognized names in the field of sustainability to publicly endorse our eco-video travel project would go far in gaining much-needed publicity and would help in trying to get sponsorships. One thing I've been trying to get across when I've been emailing with people to interview is that this project is very real and we're quite serious. This is no 3rd grade science fair project. It's worth their time and participation.

So while I'm free to dream big, I came up with a Top 10 list of people that I would love to get endorsements from:

1. Paul Hawken, author
2. Bill McKibben, author
3. Fred Krupp/Miriam Horn, authors of Earth, The Sequel
4. Steve Curwood, host of Living On Earth
5. Daryl Hannah, actress and activist
6. Al Gore, hmmm....
7. Ed Begley, host of Living With Ed
8. Bill Nye, arch-nemesis of Ed Begley
9. Orli Cotel, host of Sierra Club Radio
10. Jack Johnson, musician extraordinaire

These people must have many layers of people in between me and them, but it's worth a shot. We've been invited to be interviewed about our travel project on two podcasts coming up, and I haven't even really begun the publicity push yet. Enthusiastic responses and support all around, so why not shoot for the top? Wish us luck...

Be well,
Colin

Some Early Encouragement

2008-07-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

Right now we're focusing on getting commitments from the list of people we'd like to interview in our video tour and the responses have been beyond what I expected! I figured that at least some of the people on our list would be tough to get through to - you know, I send an inquiry through their websites that has to go through several layers before reaching the intended party, IF it ever reaches that far. I tried for the hardest first, figuring I'd have to email and call persistently to get noticed. We've gotten quick, enthusiastic responses from everyone we emailed, and people are excited to be included in our video project. The fact that we've gotten so many enthusiastic responses is very encouraging to me, that other people support our project and are willing to take some time from their busy schedules to meet with us. We'll be continuing to focus this week on getting commitments from people on our list.

If you haven't yet seen, heard, or read Al Gore's speech last week challenging America to use 100% renewable energy in 10 years, I highly recommend it. I think it is one of the most important speeches in my lifetime.

When I saw 'An Inconvenient Truth' several years ago, I didn't feel overwhelmingly depressed because I was doing something, albeit small. I was (and still am) driving on alternative fuel, so I knew it was possible to personally walk away from an addiction to oil. Gore's recent speech sent a a clarion call, and with our video project we are answering back loudly! What difference can individuals make? Our videos will give an overview of our nation's renewable energy solutions, and once people see how many resources we have available, they CANNOT insist that a renewable future is impossilbe. We will help show what's possible!

Getting off the ground

2008-07-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

This is the first blog post for our cross-country eco-video project!

We'd like to welcome our first sponsor, Greenfeet.com, a green retailer online that was voted by Co-Op America as one of the top 10 green businesses in America. Owner Valerie Reddeman is one of our interviewees in our travel project. Check out www.Greenfeet.com, which sells all kinds of green products for everyday living.

Our video 'Transportation of the Future' was just chosen as one of the top 3 entries in the US PIRG video contest for sustainable transportation! The top 3 videos have been sent to US PIRG's 200,000 members online to vote on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Voting doesn't wrap up for another month, so we'll let you know the results when they come in. In the meantime, here's our video:

For the next two weeks, we'll be focusing on getting confirmations from our list of interviewees across the country. Hopefully nobody will want to play hard-to-get!

Be well,
Colin