Monthly Archives: March 2007

San Diego Water Treatment Plant Goes Solar

It makes a lot of sense here in San Diego to go solar, so I was delighted to read that the Alvarado water treatment plant has gone solar. Better yet, it was at no cost to the city. That’s very important given the money troubles the city of San Diego has been having of late.

Sun Edison put up the panels and will sell the electricity back to the city at a rate that will save the city about $40,000 per year. Sounds like quite a good deal to me.

The deal only takes care of about 20% of the treatment plant’s need, so call it a good start. They’re hoping to add more panels in the future to take care of the rest of it.

I’m glad to live in an area that is recognizing the advantages of solar power. In the climate we live in, it’s ridiculous to not think about using solar power. I look forward to solar panels becoming more affordable so that more people here can generate power too.

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Do You Have Enough Ceiling Fans in Your Home?

As you probably know, air conditioners are real energy hogs when it comes to cooling your home. And with summer coming up fast, now is a good time to get some ceiling fans installed if you don’t have enough of them yet.

Farreys.com asked me to come over and take a look at their ceiling fan offers. That’s an easy thing to do, because I love ceiling fans. Farreys has a nice selection of ceiling fan specials for those who want a nice looking ceiling fan, something better than the base model from Home Depot, yet not break the bank.

I find my ceiling fan effective enough that even where I live, in a part of San Diego county that regularly gets over 100 degrees during the summer, I hardly ever need to turn on the air conditioner. And it’s only in one room. I’d love to have more, but we rent and so the one is it. Keeping the blinds closed and as many lights off as possible during the day, combined with just allowing myself to adapt to warmer temperatures, does the rest. Continue reading →

Interesting Discussion on the Freakonomics Blog

According to the Freakonomics blog, Al Gore has blamed the media for global warming inaction. It points to an article explaining that journalists tend to work too hard on providing both points of view in the name of balance, while not explaining the degree of scientific consensus on this matter. A study found that 53% of news articles disagreed with the global warming premise.

Frankly, this explains a lot of why so many people don’t believe in global warming. Plenty of people rely on the sound bites in television news and the short articles in newspapers to get their opinions. They are the most convenient sources, after all.

But in a case like this, you also get problems such as with Fox News, where they claim to be keeping things balanced, which really means that they slant it primarily toward their conservative bases opinions, and give occasional, very small nods to the other side, generally while making it clear they don’t really believe it. Continue reading →