Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Suzanne on CHIBAS Board of Directors in Haiti — They Are Ok

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Last year I joined the Board of Direc­tors of CHIBAS, a non-profit research cen­ter on bio-energy and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture based in Haiti.  I was enor­mously relieved to find out that the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Research Direc­tor, Gael Pres­sior and his fam­ily and col­leagues are all fine after the earth­quake. We are work­ing with col­leagues at a vari­ety of orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing LAC-CORE, to facil­i­tate the rapid deploy­ment of renew­able energy tech­nolo­gies for light­ing, heat, elec­tric­ity, water purifi­ca­tion, and other crit­i­cal needs.

CHIBAS is work­ing to develop and pro­mote the use of mul­ti­pur­pose crops that could con­tribute to job cre­ation while improv­ing both the food and energy secu­rity in Haiti. CHIBAS has strong research capa­bil­i­ties and highly qual­i­fied per­son­nel in both agron­omy and genetics.

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Happy New Year!!

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

Deutsche Bank’s Carbon Counter Available as Widget!

Monday, December 14th, 2009

www.know-the-number.com

Our Cli­mate is Changing!

Deutsche Bank has designed a Car­bon Counter wid­get to be down­loaded to your desk­top in order to allow you to have an accu­rate, real-time dis­play of the esti­mated amount of green house gases in our atmos­phere.  The num­ber is the same fig­ure which is dis­played on the 70 foot tall Car­bon Counter near Penn Sta­tion in New York City. It’s a bit like a tick­ing time bomb, but if we’re suc­cess­ful in our efforts to com­bat cli­mate change, the num­ber will sta­bi­lize and even­tu­ally start to decline…

Please down­load Flash Player.

Carbon Nation — An Upcoming Documentary About Solutions

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Carbon Nation PicLast week I had a fan­tas­tic sur­prise.  A friend and col­league invited me to see a film in the mid­dle of the after­noon. I was just return­ing from Berlin and was jet-lagged and fig­ured, why not?  But won­dered, why is this movie show­ing dur­ing the work day?  It turned out be a pre-screening of the upcom­ing doc­u­men­tary “Car­bon Nation” for some of the amaz­ing peo­ple inter­viewed in the film so that they could give input on how they were por­trayed, check the facts, and give gen­eral input. Accord­ing to the film’s Direc­tor, Peter Byck, “Car­bon Nation” is an opti­mistic (and witty) dis­cov­ery of what peo­ple are already doing, what we as a nation could be doing and what the world needs to do to pre­vent (or at least slow down) the impend­ing cli­mate cri­sis.  The good news is we already have the tech­nol­ogy to com­bat most of the worst case sce­nar­ios of cli­mate change, and it’s also very good busi­ness. Other good films have been about the prob­lems, “Car­bon Nation” is a film that focuses on the solutions.”

Byck gives us a humor­ous, and some­times intensely per­sonal, peak into the extra­or­di­nary lives and work of peo­ple who are pio­neer­ing vital solu­tions.  I won’t give away to much about the film but one of the main char­ac­ters is Dan Nolan who is help­ing to save fuel, money and lives in Iraq and Afghanistan by help­ing the mil­i­tary reduce and sub­sti­tute their fuel needs. Other stars include Jim Woolsey, Van Jones, Amory Lovins, and Janine Benyus.

Keep an eye out for this must-see film!

“Aquatic Biomass: Sustainable Bioenergy from Algae?”

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

I will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the inter­na­tional work­shop enti­tled “Aquatic Bio­mass: Sus­tain­able Bioen­ergy from Algae?” in Berlin, Ger­many Novem­ber 2nd. The work­shop will bring together key rep­re­sen­ta­tives from coun­tries active in research and devel­op­ment of algae-based bioen­ergy. They will present and dis­cuss the cur­rent sta­tus and future options for algae use, intro­duce rel­e­vant tech­nol­ogy prospects and dis­cuss envi­ron­men­tal and devel­op­ment issues. To see the full descrip­tion and agenda click here.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements — Dave Muyres

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Dave Muyres will be speak­ing about the role of design in craft­ing a new vision for trans­porta­tion in the United States at the fol­low­ing events:

Mov­ing Minds: The Next Trans­porta­tion Infra­struc­ture
Novem­ber 9–12, 2009 at the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan in Ann Arbor
http://um-smart.org/resources/conference09/overview.html

Oppor­tu­nity Green Busi­ness Con­fer­ence at UCLA
Los Ange­les, CA   Novem­ber 7–8, 2009
http://www.opportunitygreen.com/

Pod­car City Con­fer­ence
Decem­ber 9–10 in Malmo, Swe­den
http://www.podcar.org/cop15/index.htm

Speaking Engagements in Syracuse and Geneva, NY

Monday, October 5th, 2009

I will be speak­ing at the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Biore­fin­ery in Syra­cuse NY on Octo­ber 6th, and at Hobart and William Smith Col­lege (HWS) in Geneva, NY on Octo­ber 7th. The Fin­ger Lakes Insti­tute, based at HWS and the col­lege itself have a wide array of ‘green­ing effort. For more infor­ma­tion on their envi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives, click here.

New Windmill at Hunt Country Vineyards!

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Windspire at HCV small

Our new Wind­spire ver­ti­cal axis wind tur­bine is up and spin­ning on the hill at Hunt Coun­try Vine­yards! I will be at the win­ery on Octo­ber 9th for the ded­i­ca­tion of the Wind­spire. We will also be intro­duc­ing the newest win­ery addi­tion, which fea­tures heavy insu­la­tion, in-floor heat­ing capa­bil­ity, auto­mated tank cool­ing, and energy effi­cient light­ing, and has already resulted in a sub­stan­tial drop in energy usage.
Our 30 foot tall Wind­spire pro­duces 1.2 kW of power. Mariah Power man­u­fac­tures Wind­spires in Michi­gan, in a refur­bished auto parts plant employ­ing for­mer autowork­ers using Amer­i­can mate­ri­als. The tur­bine pro­duces 110 volt 60 cycle cur­rent, which feeds directly into the res­i­den­tial grid.  It has an auto­matic safety fea­ture whereby it can­not pro­duce power unless the grid is oper­at­ing. As one of the first Wind­spire mod­els in oper­a­tion in New York State, it will be used to demon­strate not only its unique advanced design, but also that small wind tur­bines can be a grace­ful part of the farm land­scape and can con­tribute to local self-reliance and regional sustainability.

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