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.

I’ve been off TV for five or six months, working diligently day and night at my new educational center in east-central Missouri, The Evergreen Institute, where I teach classes on solar electricity, wind energy, green building, natural building and more. 

So, when I moved back to Colorado for the winter and had a few minutes of free time at night, I started to watch a little TV.

One of the first things I noticed was that the bulk of the car ads are extolling the virtues of big gas guzzlers, SUVs and big trucks. I’m hoping it is Detroit simply trying to dump their unsold gas guzzlers, but I fear it is their effort to persuade us — once again — that bigger is better.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that those ads featuring high mileage vehicles often “brag” about cars that get a whopping 24 to 30 miles per gallon.

I have two things to say about this situation. First, have we no memory at all? Have we all forgotten the economic kick in the pants that $4 per gallon gas delivered?

Let’s remember: As the global economy recovers, chances are gas consumption will rise, dramatically, backsliding us into the ugly, painful days of $4 a gallon gas. This, in turn, could stimulate another economic downturn.

Let’s use our brains for once. Don’t let anyone tell you that a car that gets 30 miles per gallon is fuel efficient.  Fuel efficient cars get 40 and 50 miles per gallon, even more. That’s the target we should be shooting for, and fast!  Let’s insist on it.

I’ve had an inbox full of suggestions for inexpensive streamlining of MAX, our 100-mpg, DIY car. Some of them are good, some are not so good, and a fair number of them are (to quote the Magic 8 Ball of my youth) “Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later.” I won’t call automotive aerodynamics a black art, but when you get to a specific car, you won’t find all the answers in the textbooks. 

The problem is every part of the body influences every other part of the body. Like the parable of a butterfly flapping in Barcelona causing a hurricane in Costa Rica, a small difference here can make a large difference there. A small change in the radiator intake might generate a mild change in how air flows over the hood, which could make a moderate change in airflow over the windshield, leading to a significant change of airflow over the roof, causing complete flow separation at the rear window and a huge turbulent wake behind the car. The textbooks can guide you, but the only way you’ll really know what you’re getting is to test. 

As you regular MAX Update readers know, we got an involuntary do-over on body design about a month ago and we don’t have much time to fool around. We’re doing rapid prototyping and rapid testing and going back to the basics, back to how aerodynamic testing was done in ye goode olde days.

Now I hate to oversimplify, but as a general rule of aerodynamic drag, turbulence = bad; smooth flow = good. One way to observe the flow of air close to the body is to tape tufts of yarn on the car and watch which way they blow. It sounds a bit like the old “weather string” joke (if it’s wet it’s raining, if it’s moving around it’s windy, if you can’t see it it’s dark) but tuft testing has a long and legitimate history. In the nautical world, a tuft of yarn has been called a “telltale” since about the time yarn was invented. In our case, the problem is with tufts on a car body, how do you watch them? 

In a wind tunnel, you just stand there and look, but with a moving car it's not that easy. You can’t drive alongside in another car because the wake of your observation car voids the test. So I asked myself, what would Wonder Woman do? She had an clear airplane. Why not a clear car? 

I've taken out the passenger’s seat and paneled MAX’s right side in $10 worth of one-eighth-inch Vivak, which is transparent, thermoplastic sheeting and is clear, tough, and easy to work with. You can saw it, drill it, rivet it, bend it … and tape tufts of orange yarn to it. I’ll watch the tufts from the driver’s seat and see how changes in the front of the car (different fenders in particular) influence airflow in the middle of the car, and maybe I'll learn something.

Photo by Jack McCornack

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I’ve been looking for a house recently, and learning all kinds of new things in the process. Lately, I’ve been learning about the home inspection process, and discovering that beyond the basic local requirements, there are some optional tests you can do, including testing for radon. The more I learn, the more I think that testing your home for radon is a good idea for just about everyone.

Radon is a colorless, odorless radioactive gas. It’s found in low levels in many homes, but some homes have higher concentrations, which are linked to an increased risk of lung cancer. You can test for radon with a DIY kit, or have your home professionally tested.

If your home does have elevated levels of radon, it’s relatively easy to find and fix the problem. And since that’s the case, why not go ahead and find out if your home has high radon levels? For anyone trying to create a greener, healthier home, improving your indoor air quality is a great place to start, and testing for radon is a simple step toward that goal.

For more information, check out the EPA’s very helpful website on indoor air quality, which includes a Citizen’s Guide to Radon. The EPA also had a video contest last year to educate people about radon testing. Here’s the full list of radon video entries. (See below for my personal favorite. These are dogs with a message.)