I know that David Wright published Natural Solar Architecture: A Passive Primer in 1978. So I was confused when I read in a New York Times article, No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in ‘Passive Houses,’ that the first passive home was built in 1991. But the article wasn't just discussing passive solar design in general, it was discussing the Passive House concept — passive solar principles plus a super-insulated structure so that even heat produced by appliances (and residents) contribute to heating the home.

Some of the critical elements of the designs are a heat exchanger, to allow adequate fresh air into the home without cooling it, and efficient windows. The heat exchangers are readily available in Germany, where the passive house concept was developed and refined, and a passive house costs only slightly more than a conventional house. It's time for those of us across the big pond to take advantage of this design concept, too.

BY BOJAN FATOR/ISTOCKPHOTO

I’d love to be able to say that my electricity comes from solar panels or a backyard wind turbine, but nope, I must admit, it comes from the grid. (My household does purchase green tags to offset our electricity use, but that’s another story.)

But here’s an interesting question: If your electricity comes from the grid, how can you find out what fuels it comes from? Different energy options have different costs and benefits. For example, is it possible that your utility gets some of its power from a wind farm? How about a nuclear power plant? How much of it comes from coal?

You can find out by using this nifty feature on the EPA web site. If you live in the United States, all you have to do is type in your ZIP code and identify your utility, and it gives you a couple of handy graphs and links that tell you which fuels the electricity comes from in your region, how that relates to pollution and how it compares to national averages.

When I typed in my ZIP Code, it showed that here in northeast Kansas our electricity comes predominantly from coal — which unfortunately is associated with a lot of greenhouse gas pollution. And you can see from the graph that our fuel mix does in fact produce more carbon dioxide pollution than the national average.

So if you’d like to find out where your electricity comes from, just try the link and find out. And if you haven’t already, now is a great time to learn more about green power options from your utility, or other renewable energy options for your home.

The EG was a hoot and I'm so glad I went. 

EG stands for Entertainment Gathering, as far as I can tell — I was in way over my head. It featured the most eclectic group of presenters I've ever seen in one bunch. My personal favorite speaker was Teller, of Penn & Teller, who spoke of how knowing how something is done does not lessen one's appreciation of the act, even if the act is magic on stage.

Many other presentations were inspiring: One laptop per child? Good idea. Digital motion control in the arts? I'll use those lessons to make MAX's next body. Peter Diamondis of the X Prize Foundation? Heck yeah, but he'd already inspired me. International goofy dancing? The world's not such a bad place, is it? But Teller renewed my dedication to open sourcing the MAX project. If there's anything about MAX I'm not telling you, it's not because it's a trade secret, it's because I haven't figured it out yet.

Photo by Jack McCornack

MAX was well-received, partly because (as a commenter predicted in MAX Update No. 19: A Roof Over Our Heads) it was the only Auto X Prizer that got there on its own steam. The Physics Lab of Lake Havasu folks brought their “Green Giant” SUV, but they brought it on a trailer. ZAP brought a scale model of their much-anticipated Alias trike, which they maybe brought in a hatbox. Both companies have loftier goals than Kinetic Vehicles, and if the cars were being judged by projected performance, MAX would have been the loser. Instead, I was giving rides during the breaks and MAX was getting bonus points for being real.

During my talk, I described my design philosophy as minimalist, and got a good laugh with my definition: A pessimist says the glass is half empty. An optimist says the glass is half full.  A minimalist says “We're using about twice as much glass as we need here.”

The trip down to California was good fun. I used about 8 gallons from MAX's 9 gallon diesel tank and a gallon from its veggie oil tank to go the 600 miles from Grants Pass, Ore., to Monterey, Calif., via Los Banos, Calif. The conference was fabulous fun. The trip home, not so fun. I'll bet you can guess why ...?

Thanks to constant 2008 election coverage, many Americans missed important news stories this fall. ForeignPolicy.com came up with a list of 10 articles people may have missed, one of which found that one type of solar panels might actually be harmful to the environment.

A research study by Scripps Institute of Oceanography based out of the University of California, San Diego was the first to measure the amount of nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) in the Earth’s atmosphere. NF3 is used for cleaning microcircuits in flat-screen televisions, iPhones and thin-film solar panels.

NF3 is a gas 17,000 times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide (CO2) in causing global warming, and it stays in the atmosphere about five times longer. But NF3 was thought to be a better alternative to CO2 because, according to industry estimates, only 2 percent of NF3 ever makes it to the atmosphere. This encouraged companies to use NF3, as did the fact that it wasn’t considered dangerous enough to be covered by the Kyoto Protocol — the 1997 agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions signed by more than 150 countries.

The study, funded by NASA, was the first to test the amount of NF3 in the atmosphere, and it found that it is more prominent than previously thought. It had been estimated that less than 1,200 metric tons of NF3 was in the atmosphere in 2006. The new research by Scripps shows the actual amount was 4,200 metric tons. In 2008, about 5,400 metric tons of the gas was in the atmosphere, a quantity that has increased at a rate of 11 percent a year.

“This is a significantly higher percentage than has been estimated by industry, and thus strengthens the case for inventorying NF3 production and for regulating its emissions,” the published research said.

But not all solar panels are made with NF3; the problem only applies to thin-film solar panels. According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2006 thin-film solar panel represented 30 percent of photovoltaic cells made by the U.S. solar industry.

However, thin-film solar panels have recently gained popularity though because they are generally cheaper to produce.

It looks like we need to take another look at the manufacturing process for thin-film solar since it isn’t quite perfect, darn it.

The recent announcements of President-elect Barack Obama’s new energy policy team provides opportunities for citizens to voice their support for renewable energy before the team even enters the White House in January.

The Apollo Alliance wasted little time after Obama announced who would fill his energy cabinet positions.

Phil Angelides, chairman of the Apollo Alliance, urged people to show their support for the Apollo Economic Recovery Act by contacting Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, Carol Browner.

“We’ve got to make sure Browner knows thousands of people are counting on her to prevail over Big Oil’s powerful lobby,” Angelides said in an e-mail. “So in the coming days, we’ll flood her office with a chorus of supportive voices pushing for clean energy and good jobs.”

The Apollo Alliance proposed The Apollo Economic Recovery Act earlier this month. It is an economic recovery plan that encourages government to invest in green technology to create 650,000 green-collar jobs across the country. The stimulus plan costs $50 billion and aims to end the nation’s reliance on foreign oil by improving energy efficiency of building, increasing clean energy tax credits, expanding home weatherization programs, modernizing the transmission grid, increasing investments in rapid transit and repairing roads and bridges.

The Act has similarities to proposals made by Obama and the new members of his energy team.

For more information on the appointment of Carol Browner read The New York Times article about her and her new position created by Obama.

We interrupt this science project for something practical. We'll get back to the subject of drag soon enough.

I have a speaking engagement next week, at The EG, down in Monterey, Calif. They're paying my expenses to get there from my home here in Oregon, which, since I'm taking MAX, should be about $18 of fuel. That, and lots of cough syrup.

It is, after all, the middle of December, and I whimsically refer to MAX as “an all-weather car,” meaning when you go anywhere in MAX, all the weather gets right in the car with you. That's fine for Berkeley-to-Vegas in October, but not so great for Cave-Junction-to-Monterey next Wednesday.

Still, this is a great gig — they put out a call for Progressive Automotive X Prize registered competitors to show our cars and talk about our progress — and I sure wasn't going to turn it down over a mere question of comfort. “I'm tough,” I said to myself, going to my laptop for a long range weather forecast. “Good thing I'm tough,” I muttered when I saw the forecast.

Yes, roadster season is over. The trip down will be cold; the trip back will be damp, or at least, that's the way to bet. It's time for MAX to become a convertible. Besides, the final competition rules are predicted to require a top, and I don't think we can achieve 100 mpg with an open car. So I might as well get some experience.

So here's the plan. I've made some fiberglass braces to bridge between the windshield and the roll bar, and I'm covering the gap between them with awning material. The process involves (among other things) learning how to sew.

Here's my progress so far, I think it will keep the raindrops from getting a straight shot at me. And though it's going to look a bit crude close up, it should match the excellence of the paint job at 50 mph from 50 feet away.

Weber Thompson's design for Eco-Laboratory won the Natural Design Competition at the annual Greenbuild International Conference. The concept high-rise includes rainwater collection, black water to graywater conversion features and is net-zero energy. The high-rise is virtually a self-contained sustainable community.

Perhaps the most unusual feature of the design is the energy-generation system. It starts with methane (produced from waste), which runs the hydrogen fuel cell. The fuel cell and other systems provide electricity and heat water.

If you’re interested in learning more about green-collar jobs, here is a list of people that are already working in the renewable energy sector. The Union of Concerned Scientists recently started its new Web feature, “Faces of Renewable Energy,” to provide profiles of Americans across the country that are already heavily involved in the clean energy industry. It just proves that green-collar jobs are already here and really can help boost our economy. If you’re looking for a job in the renewable energy sector, here’s an article from E Magazine that gives you a great place to start. Or read Announcing the Launch of Green Jobs Now for more information.

Comment below and let us know of any green-collar job opportunities that you’re aware of.

Combined Heat and Power: Effective Energy Solutions for a Sustainable Future — a new report released by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) — could offer solutions to our energy problems. The report shows how Combined Heat and Power (CHP) could enhance national energy efficiency and create economic growth. According to EERE, CHP uses a variety of fuels to create electricity at the point of use, allowing normally lost heat to be saved and used for heating and cooling. Because of CHP, the United States already annually avoids 1.9 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of fuel consumption and 248 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions — the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road. The report shows that if just 20% of generating capacity came from CHP by 2030, these benefits could occur:

• A 60% reduction of the projected increase in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 — the equivalent of taking 154 million cars off the road
• Fuel savings of 5.3 quadrillion Btu — the equivalent of almost half the current energy consumption by U.S. households
• The creation of 1 million new green-collar jobs through 2030 and $234 billion towards new investments throughout the United States

Both the Department of Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program and Oak Ridge National Laboratory worked on the report, which was also reviewed by a range of non-governmental stakeholders.