The Evergreen Institute's Center for Renewable Energy and Green Building just announced the 2010 workshop schedule. The Evergreen Institute (TEI) offers training for educators, energy professionals, homeowners and individuals interested in pursuing a career in residential renewable energy or green building. 

The schedule includes numerous hands-on workshops at the TEI's educational center in Gerald, Mo. TEI also has off-campus locations in Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis, Mo., Boulder, Colo., and in Clarendon, N.Y. TEI teaches workshops in solar electricity, solar hot water, wind energy, passive solar heating and cooling, green building, natural building, and home energy efficiency.

To help those wishing to learn about these vital topics in the difficult economic times we're facing, TEI has reduced prices on many workshops and offers substantial discounts for early registration. TEI is also offering numerous free-workshops. The schedule can be accessed online at The Evergreen Institute.

Earlier this month I visited Greensburg, Kan., and toured a few of its many green buildings. It was a great trip, and you can see more photos from my visit in this Greensburg photo gallery.

Background. Greensburg is the rural Midwestern town that was struck by an EF5 tornado on May 4, 2007. The storm was 1.7 miles wide — it killed 11 people and destroyed most of the town.

After the storm, the people of Greensburg made a commitment to rebuilding the town as a model green community. That effort is already well underway, and you can even watch its progress on TV. A Greensburg TV series on the Planet Green network is following the progress of rebuilding. The third season begins filming soon.

My visit.  Mother Earth News is based in Topeka, Kan., so Greensburg is relatively close to where we’re located — about a 4 hour drive — but this was my first visit to the town. I took a walking tour guided by volunteers from Greensburg Greentown, a community-based nonprofit devoted to helping Greensburg build green.

So what does Greensburg look like these days? Well, there’s still a lot of evidence of the storm, even more than two years out. As our tour guides explained, Greensburg used to be locally known for its trees, but now most of the trees are gone. You can see from one end of town to the other — the view is wide open. Most of the storm debris is gone, too, but there are still remnants of many buildings — a wall here, some steps there. But already many homes and buildings have been rebuilt, and many more are under construction.

There are nine different buildings on the walking tour of Greensburg (some you can go into, and others are just visible from the street). While there are many green features to see, I was struck by one recurring theme: concrete. Many of the buildings are being built with insulated concrete form walls (ICFs). In fact, ICF construction makes a lot of sense for Greensburg. Not only does it provide excellent insulation, the buildings are also structurally strong, and therefore very resistant to storm damage. From a green standpoint, one of the disadvantages of concrete is that it takes a lot of energy to produce. But in Greensburg, there are always more opportunities to go green — in this case by recycling concrete debris from the storm. The Silo Eco-Home in Greensburg is made of precast concrete, and 35 percent of that concrete is recycled from local storm debris.

Another noticeable fact about Greensburg: There are renewable energy systems everywhere, especially on the new city buildings. The arts center has wind turbines, city hall has building-integrated solar panels, and many buildings have renewable energy systems that are not readily visible from the street, including rooftop solar panels and underground geothermal heating and cooling systems.

If you want to visit.  For anyone who’s interested in renewable energy or green building, Greensburg is a great place to visit. You can simply walk up and down Main Street and see numerous examples of eco-friendly building in action, and even more green buildings are planned for the future. One exciting project is the Chain of EcoHomes being planned by Greensburg Greentown. This project is designed to help visitors understand the green options available to homeowners.

If you’re in the area, don’t miss the chance to stop by and check out what’s happening, and be sure to check in with Greensburg Greentown for more information about tours. You can also download their self-guided tour booklet for much more information about the green features of individual buildings.

A few years ago, we had a “most beautiful chicken coop” contest. The winner? A cordwood chicken coop.

Cordwood construction is sometimes also called “stackwood construction.” A cordwood building consists of short, round pieces of wood (think firewood) held together with mortar.

While the look of cordwood construction can take some getting used to, personally, I find it very appealing. These buildings are especially attractive when multicolored glass is incorporated into the structure by placing glass bottles in the walls.

But there are plenty of other reasons to consider cordwood for all types of building projects, large and small. The method of construction is reasonably simple, and the materials are readily available — two good reasons cordwood has been popular with DIY builders for many years. And there are ecological reasons to consider cordwood construction, too. You can probably get the wood locally, so it doesn’t need to be shipped long distances, and the thick wooden walls of a cordwood building provide great insulation.

Here’s a fun video tour of a cordwood cabin. Take a look, and also check out the additional resources below.

Cordwood Articles from the Mother Earth News Archive:

• The Charm of Cordwood Construction

• The Return of the Cordwood House

• A Century (or More) of Stackwood Homes

• The Cordwood Sauna

• A Child-built Cordwood Clubhouse

Other Cordwood Resources:

• Cordwoodmasonry.com is the online home of Rob and Jaki Roy and the Earthwood Building School.

• There’s a whole cordwood chapter from the digital book Building Green on the Nauhaus Idea Repository.

• Greenhomebuilding.com has a nice cordwood page.

• The All Things Cordwood section at Daycreek.com, includes a great photo album.

Having a “green home” can mean all sorts of things. To some people, it means living in a home that’s free of chemicals or materials that produce any sort of toxic fumes (formaldehyde from furniture or volatile organic compounds from paint, for example).

To others, a green home must be extremely energy-efficient: superinsulated, energy-efficient appliances, and with minimal space. It may even include living off the electrical grid.

If a home isn’t built of natural, local materials (such as stone, logs, cordwood or adobe), some people will say it’s not green.

So, with all these variables in mind, what would be your fantasy green home? Tell us what it would be made of, what types of energy-conserving features it would have or about the design. You can write all about it in the comments section below.

Are you trying to learn more about renewable energy and green building? If you are looking for related conferences or workshops, and especially if you are looking for professional training as a solar installer or dealer, be sure to check out the schedule for the Solar 2009 conference, an annual event held by the American Solar Energy Society. Here’s a description of the conference which will be held May 11-16, 2009 in Buffalo, N.Y.  Be sure to check out the opportunities for professional training provided by the Solar Success Training Event.

The Department of Energy released its net-zero energy initiative in commercial buildings this August. Not even three months later, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Commercial Buildings team, under the direction of DOE’s Buildings Technology Program, released a study outlining ways for some commercial buildings and grocery stores to reduce their energy by 50 percent.

The study is split into two PDF files, each containing around 200 pages of design elements to achieve at least 50 percent reduction of energy for medium-sized (requiring 1.76 watts per square foot) business buildings and any grocery store.

The study supports the Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative – which calls for the production of market-ready, net-zero energy buildings by 2025. The building initiative is just one aspect of the department’s umbrella initiative, which is to attain net-zero energy sometime in the foreseeable future.

A new mayors’ alliance hopes to help K-12 students read Green Eggs and Ham in green buildings and classrooms.

Two mayors from opposite ends of the country announced Thursday the formation of the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools — an initiative to support the construction and modification of K-12 schools to reduce carbon emissions and increase their commitment to conservation.

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is supporting the initiative by providing 79 local USGBC chapters to help the Alliance’s cause.

Click here to read more the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Building.