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This newsletter is published to keep you informed of
events and activities at the Solar Living Institute. Let
your friends enjoy our e-newsletter too by using
the "Forward E-Mail" link in the bottom left corner of
this message. Help us spread the word about
sustainable energy and living! And, I hope we see
you at SolFest on August 23 and 24.
Bob Gragson, Executive Director
Workshop at Cal Poly Pomona
The Solar Living Institute, in partnership with the
Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona, is
offering classes in sustainable building, permaculture
and renewable energy Aug. 2-10, 2003. Cost for the
Sustainable Living 9-Day Intensive is $1,095, or $135
per day.
Day 1 focuses on Alternative Building Materials &
Methods; Day 2 on Straw Bale Construction; Days 3 &
4 on Fundamentals of Permaculture & Aquaculture; Day
5 on Wastewater/Greywater Systems; Day 6 on
Biodiesel; Day 7 on Hydrogen Energy; and Days 8 & 9
on Intro to Photovoltaics.
The John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies is an
interdisciplinary university-based setting for
demonstration and research in regenerative and
sustainable systems. Students and the general public
participate in courses and a community of up to 20
residents lives on the site working with regenerative
systems as part of their daily lives.
The term "regenerative" was chosen for the Lyle Center
to emphasize the intention of the design to restore
natural systems, not merely sustain them, while
integrating the needs of the human community.
For more information and to register....
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SolFest Schedule Announced |
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You can now see the schedule of main stage events
and over 55 workshops for SolFest 2003 on our Web
site! Be sure to check out all of the happenings by
following the link at the end of this article.
This year's featured speaker on Saturday, August 23 is
nationally acclaimed columnist and radio commentator
JIM HIGHTOWER. Other speakers during SolFest 2003
include DAVID ORR, GRANNY D (aka Doris Haddock),
STARHAWK, JULIA BUTTERFLY HILL, ED BEGLEY, MOLLIE
KATZEN, and NEIL ROSSMEISSL.
Musical entertainment this year includes the famed,
multi-talented East Texas musician and songwriter
MICHELLE SHOCKED, local folk legend HOLLY NEAR with
pianist Adrienne Torf; balladeer extraordinaire JIM
PAGE; Tai ko drumming by DANCE BRIGADE; danceable
northern California festival favorites !AKIMBO; the
original flamenco jazz reggae music of ALMA
MELODIOSO; and more.
To buy tickets for SolFest 2003, use the quick link at
the end of this newsletter, or become a member at the
$50 level to receive FREE tickets and other valuable
resources (see "Make a Donation" in the Quick Links
section below).
SolFest 2003 schedule of events + 55 workshops.... »
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Upcoming Workshops |
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July 18 (How to Get into the Solar Business and
Succeed, San Jose, CA, $125); July 19 (Solar for
Electricians, Sacramento, CA, $150); July 19 (Biodiesel -
Fuel from Vegetables, $125); July 19-20 (PV Design &
Installation for On-Grid Systems, Hopland, CA, $250);
July 20 (Hydrogen Energy - the Emerging Fuel Source,
Hopland, CA, $125); July 26-27 (Straw Bale
Construction, Hopland, CA, $250); August 2 (Will Solar
Save You Money? How Much? How Fast?, San Jose,
CA, $65); August 2-10 (Sustainable Living 9-Day
Intensive, Cal Poly Pomona, $1,095); August 8 (Solar
for Electricians, Santa Monica, $150); and August 9
(Solar for Electricians, Hopland, CA, $150).
Our fall workshop catalog will ship this week into 60,000
households. Our workshops are also listed on our Web
site. We have many new offerings along with our core
classes. Reserve your place today! Register online
through our Web site or call 707.744.2017.
See Our Workshop Schedule... »
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Tour the Solar Living Center |
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In addition to the families and individuals who enjoy
visiting and learning at the Solar Living Center, there is
increasing interest in guided tours of our ever-evolving
project in sustainability. All tours of the Solar Living
Center offer the potential to learn about a wide range
of fascinating topics, such as the renewable energy of
solar and wind power, environmentally friendly building
materials, passive and active solar design in
architecture, solar calendars, and sustainability in the
design of organic gardens and permaculture landscape.
In addition to guided tours for a fee, we also offer FREE
site tours by one of our 17 interns on Fridays,
Saturdays and Sundays at 11 AM and 3 PM. No
reservation is required. Just show up at our kiosk at the
designated time.
For information on guided tours... »
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Solar Saves School $47,000 |
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A third of the electricity used by the Sonoma
County, California, Office of Education is now being
supplied by a sprawling rooftop solar array, the
centerpiece of an $800,000 energy-saving project
conceived two years ago when blackouts were rolling
through the state.
The array of 432 photovoltaic panels covers 5,000
sq. ft., mounted on a unique rack system that locks
together, distributes the weight and doesn't penetrate
the roof membrane, lessening the chance of the roof's
leaking. The photovoltaic project, engineered by RWE
Schott Solar Inc. of Rocklin and installed by Cal-Air of
Santa Rosa, cost $600,000, according to Cal-Air
officials. At its peak, it can produce 60 kilowatts, a
third of what is used in the 50,000-square-foot county
education office building.
Johnson said the annual energy cost savings is
projected to be $47,000 a year. Pacific Gas & Electric
Co. also gave the county office a $300,000 rebate
under a California Energy Commission program, and
PG&E is obliged by new state law to pay current rates
for any extra power generated by the county array
that flows back onto the PG&E power grid.
For more information... »
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Largest Solar Array in World |
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Construction has commenced on what will be the
largest solar PV installation in the world on the roof
area of the warehouses of TTS Global Logistics GmbH in
Bürstadt, Germany.
The solar installation will cost over 20 million euros and
cover around 45,000 square meters of the TTS Global
Logistics warehouse roof. When completed it is planned
to have a rated output of 5 Megawatts. This will
exceed the largest existing solar power installations in
Germany (the Hemau installation of 4MW supplied by
BP Solar and the Munich Trade Center roof of 2.1 MW
supplied by Shell Solar).
The project will utilize some 35,000 high efficiency
Saturn crystalline silicon modules.
For more information... »
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Coffee Co. Turns to Biodiesel |
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Premium Ft. Bragg, California, coffee company
Thanksgiving Coffee has converted its delivery fleet to
run on biodiesel, a vegetable-based fuel its proponents
say is cleaner than gas and diesel engines and lessens
dependency on oil.
Thanksgiving Coffee's switch is part of a broader
acceptance by businesses and individuals of the
alternative fuel, which provides performance similar to
that of normal diesel engines, but with environmental
benefits. Last week, Berkeley, California, city officials
said they were starting to convert city vehicles to
biodiesel.
"We get calls from new customers all the time," said
Sunny Beaver, co-founder of Yokayo Biofuel in Ukiah,
one of two North Bay biodiesel stations. "We have
doubled sales in the last year." Beaver said she's selling
13,000 gallons of biodiesel a month, twice what the
company sold a year ago.
Yokayo Biofuel will be installing a 500-gallon biodiesel
fueling station at the Solar Living Center for the Solar
Living Institute in Hopland, California, in two weeks.
The station will be on display during SolFest 2003.
For more information... »
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Extreme Weather Alert |
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In an astonishing announcement on global warming and
extreme weather, the World Meteorological
Organization signalled July 2 that the world's weather is
going haywire.
In a startling report, the WMO, which normally
produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics
at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in
weather and climate occurring all over the world in
recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to
a record month for tornadoes in the United States --
and linked them to climate change.
The unprecedented warning takes its force and
significance from the fact that it is not coming from
Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from a United
Nations organization.
New analyses of proxy data for the Northern
Hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in
the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in
any century during the past 1000 years. It is also likely
that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s were the
warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year. While the
trend towards warmer globally averaged surface
temperatures has been uneven over the course of the
last century, the trend for the period since 1976 is
roughly three times that for the past 100 years as a
whole. Global average land and sea surface
temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest
since records began in 1880. Considering land
temperatures only, last May was the warmest on
record.
For more information... »
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LA: $20 Million for Solar |
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The Los Angeles Department Board of Water and Power
has boosted the 2003/2004 Solar Energy budget to US
$20 million.
This budget rise in the solar photovoltaic incentive plan
builds on a 10-year budget of US $150 million. Since
1998 every year US $8-16 million are provided by the
City of LA to encourage residents and businesses to
use Renewable Energy by subsidizing the cost of
installing solar electric systems.
"This month's approval clearly shows that renewable
energy promotion is a realizable and necessary strategy
for sustainable city development. This program is a
concrete step to reach California's goal of 20%
Renewable Energy electricity supply by 2017," said
Herman Scheer, the General Chairman of the World
Council for Renewable Energy. "It also underlines that
cities are not only powerful potential markets for the
introduction of Renewable Energy Technologies but also
the national and regional seats of political power."
In 1980 the Energy and Defense Project of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (USA), showed in its
Final Report that in 2050 a total substitution of fossil
and nuclear energy by Renewable Energy is possible.
For more information... »
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