Our first eco-video is ready!

Hi friends,

At long last, our first video from our cross-country eco-video series is ready and uploaded to Youtube for your enjoyment:



This first video is an interview with Jeff Cresswell at Klean Kanteen, a company in Chico, CA that makes stainless steel water bottles. Jeff talked to Carrick about the benefits of using stainless steel water bottles over the disposable plastic ones. This is a really interesting topic with lots of angles, but we are focusing on the question of sustainability.

We have a handful of Klean Kanteen bottles at home and use them constantly, so I can attest first-hand that they are very durable and convenient. We also have several SIGG bottles, which are aluminum and haven’t held up quite as well. We got a recall notice lately from SIGG, saying that their bottles have an inside lining that contains BPA (Bisphenol A), a controversial ingredient in some plastic that is thought to be potentially hazardous, so we sent the old ones back and we are getting new ones without the BPA lining (gee, I feel so much safer). Klean Kanteen, on the other hand, is made from stainless steel and has no lining – it’s an inert material that doesn’t need a lining. I’m seeing metal water bottles pop up all over the place in catalogs and stores now, so you may want to look closely before you buy to see what kind of metal the bottle is made from. If you see a big metal water bottle for $1.99, be aware of what you’re buying.

I recently read Daniel Goleman’s book, ‘Ecological Intelligence’ which talks about life cycle analysis of different products, and what products are really “green” and what is “green-washing”. He talks about stainless steel water bottles and isn’t so enthusiastic – he claims that because of the energy needed to produce a stainless steel water bottle and transport it to the store, it would need to be used 70 times before having a lower eco-impact as disposable plastic water bottles. There are lots of variables that go into that analysis so I take it with a grain of salt. We’ve used our Klean Kanteens hundreds of times and they keep right on going. One of the major benefits of the stainless steel water bottles is that they are 100% TRULY recyclable, meaning they can be melted down and reused again and again to make new stainless steel water bottles, not downcycled like plastic bottles. If the bottles were made from recycled steel and made in the U.S., that statistic of using the bottle 70 times would be very different.

One thing I really wanted to make sure we covered in this video is drinking water from the tap and public drinking fountains. I’ve seen many times people advocate tap water instead of buying plastic water bottles, but nobody seems to acknowledge that in so many parts of the country the water tastes awful! I know – we drove it! One of the first things I did when we got home to Sutton was drink several glasses of water – I take for granted that our wonderful home well-water just comes in endless supply for us to drink. Fortunately, different kinds of water filters for the whole house, sink, or a water filter pitcher are easy ways to make tap water taste much better in places where it’s not good.

Another issue is convenience – buying a bottle of cold water on a hot day is a relief! The bottled water companies don’t hesitate to point that out, and they’re right. If bone-chilling cold water is what you want then it’s a lot less convenient to bring your own bottle. It’s also interesting to consider that most of what convenience stores sell for drinks, like soda, juice, iced tea, etc is really bottled or canned water, with flavoring and sugar added.

As a side note, many companies that sell disposable plastic water bottles officially recommend NOT reusing their bottles. That’s not just because they would rather keep selling you new bottles; disposable plastic bottles are not designed to be reused. They were never meant to be refilled and used again. There’s a lot of media online about plastic from bottles leaching into the water. Personally, I find that water in plastic bottles usually tastes like….plastic water. I don’t need studies to tell me it’s leaching, I can taste it.

In the interview at Klean Kanteen, Jeff also talked about how the company got started – it was interesting but I ended up leaving it out of the video. It began as a response to reusable plastic water bottles, such as Nalgene bottles, that were a big trend 5-10 years ago but became a big controversy with…our old friend, Bisphenol A again. You may remember hearing about BPA found in plastic baby bottles and that caused a big stir in the media. Klean Kanteen was started to offer stainless steel as an alternative and was marketed more to the sports enthusiasts at stores like REI. As disposable plastic water bottles became more of an environmental concern, Klean Kanteen has been getting more recognition from the green movement.

So, I hope you enjoy our first video from the trip. Now that I have the basics of using the video editing program, Final Cut, things should move much more quickly and we should be putting the videos out regularly. The Klean Kanteen video is also on the OurRenewableNation.org website, embedded from www.GoGreenTube.com instead of YouTube so that all you teachers can access it in schools (schools generally block websites like YouTube).

Thanks again for all your support in making this eco-video series happen! Please send this email to friends and family who you think would enjoy our video, and encourage them to sign up for our email list so they can get the videos as soon as they go online, just like you!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Latest Video News in October

Hi friends,

It’s been some time since my last message so I wanted to give an update on where we’re at with our eco-video series.

We got a great computer as a result of the grant from EFI that I mentioned before – it’s a Mac tower that is ridiculously fast and has plenty of hard drive space, which you need if you’re going to be doing a lot of video work! I’ve been spending hours transferring all the video footage onto the computer to begin editing – it’s a long process.

In the meantime, we’ve been continuing to film more interviews over the last month!

Several weeks ago we visited Silvermine Farm, a family-owned farm in our hometown of Sutton. Carrick interviewed farmer Martha Cole about the sustainability of local farms vs. large agribusiness, and what CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) are all about. Our family joined the CSA that Silvermine is part of in Sutton and we got a tasty supply of fresh veggies throughout the summer - we know where it came from and who grew it. Carrick also talked to Martha about the debate over buying local food that may not be organic vs. organic food that is grown and shipped thousands of miles.

We recently spent the long weekend in Washington DC to visit the Solar Decathlon 2009, a competition of 20 universities from around the world to design and build the best solar house. They set up each house on the National Mall and open them up for 2 weeks for the public to come tour. Carrick and I visited in 2007 (it happens every 2 years) and filmed a video compilation that turned out to be the only video overview of the competition on the internet. We toured again this year and shot plenty of video footage to include in our eco-video series. It’s such an inspiring sight to be there, seeing these homes that get all their electricity, heat, hot water, etc. from the sun. You can learn all about the Solar Decathlon at their website, www.SolarDecathlon.org.

While in Washington DC, Carrick also interviewed Bracken Hendricks about the government’s role in supporting renewable energy and sustainability. Mr. Hendricks works at the Center for American Progress and co-wrote the book ‘Apollo’s Fire’ with Congressman Jay Inslee, which proposes to move forward with clean, renewable energy with the same speed and urgency that we Americans were challenged with putting a man on the moon in 10 years.

This last weekend Carrick and I drove out to Great Barrington in western Massachusetts to interview Bill McKibben, who is one of the leading authors on climate change and organizes international actions to support climate change legislation. We’ve found along our travels that people support clean, renewable energy for a variety of reasons, whether environmental, national security, the strength of the economy, religion, etc. I thought it was important to have someone to speak to each of these reasons, and for climate change it would be hard to find anyone more qualified to speak to the issue! What I found after our cross-country journey was that we had filmed many great examples of the solutions that are happening all over the U.S., but we needed more context, the ‘why’ we should care about these issues, not just the ‘how’.

So that’s the latest – we’re still filming and transferring all the video footage. Breaking my ankle really threw a wrench in the works but now that I’m walking without crutches or cast and can drive again we’re moving forward. I’m excited to get editing now that we have so much footage ready on the computer – you’ll be the first to know when we have videos ready to show!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Broken Ankle, New Computer

Hi friends,

It's been some time since I last sent anything out, and you'll remember that I had broken my ankle several days after we came home from our cross-country trip. Broken ankles sure take a long time to heal! I'm in a removable cast now and I should be able to put weight on my foot in a few weeks. Needless to say, the broken ankle has put a serious wrench in the plans to continue filming for the project in New England, at least until I'm all healed.

At least I could get a good start on editing all the video footage from the trip, right? Ah, technical difficulties. I wasn't able to transfer the footage on my Macbook, but we were lucky enough to get a grant from Energy Federation Incorporated here in Massachusetts (www.efi.org) and we were able to use it to buy a Mac tower that has enough power and storage to transfer the video and do all the editing I need. I just got the grant check last week and bought the Mac tower online, so it's on the way! I applied for the grant before we left for the trip, so it was great timing. EFI is a company in central Massachusetts that sells energy conservation products and teaches the public ways to use energy more efficiently.

The other piece of news to share is that we got a sponsorship donation from Sustainable South Shore, a chapter of Massachusetts Climate Action Network. They have been a big supporter of our project by having us at the Hull Sustainable Living Expo back in April (which was fantastic!) and promoting our cross-country journey on their website, www.sustainablesouthshore.org. Many thanks to Sustainable South Shore for their support for our work!

That's all for now, I just wanted to check in and let you know where things are at for us. We should have something ready for you soon!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

We're Home! How Many Miles Was That?

Hi friends,

We’re home! Actually, we’ve been home for days now but we needed some time to get unpacked and get settled, so I’ve been a bit behind in the updates.

The official grand total number of miles for the trip: 12, 624 in two months!

So now what? There is a lot to get working on now that we’re back in Massachusetts; I have to transfer many hours of video onto the Mac for editing and get working on that, plus we have more video to shoot here in New England that we weren’t able to get to before we left in May. Here is a list of the upcoming New England topics yet to film:

Red Sox – Fenway Park sustainability measures
Cape Wind project – Cape Cod, MA
Hull, MA - municipal wind turbines
Poulson Hybrid, CT
Verdant Power, tidal power, East River, NYC
Stephen Lacey, Inside Renewable Energy Podcast, NH
Francis Moore Lappe, author, MA
Deep-Energy Retrofits, VT
Green City Spotlights: Boston, MA
Fosters Farm, methane digestors, VT
Timberland, NH
Recycline, MA
Owl Power, veg oil for power, MA
Geothermal heat, residential example, MA
Maine Solar House, net-zero solar heat and electricity
Connecticut small-scale hydropower

Just a few more topics…we also are planning a visit to Washington DC in the beginning of October to see and film the Solar Decathlon 2009, and visit the Green Festival put on by Green America. I’m also working on getting interviews while we’re there with William McDonough (author of the book ‘Cradle-to-Cradle’) and Bracken Hendricks (author and fellow at the Apollo Alliance, a non-partisan advocacy group for renewable energy in Washington DC).

I managed to break my ankle soon after we got home so that affects things, but I’m using whatever downtime I have to get cracking on the videos. I’m able to continue working until I have surgery a week from Monday, then I’m supposed to stay parked with my foot up and let it mend.

On the advice of friends of mine who work on video production professionally, I began using Final Cut Express for the Mac to edit videos, which is a program that is a big leap from what I’ve always used, which is the free editing software that comes with PC (Windows Movie Maker) and Mac (IMovie). I’m putting myself through a crash-course in how to use the new program, plus there are many features that I can use to make our videos even better than what we’ve done before. I’m also upgrading the computer memory to handle the strain and am picking up an external hard drive (video footage takes an incredible amount of hard drive space!)

I have plenty of thoughts to share about all we’ve seen and done over the last two months, and to speak of the things I feel the most hopeful about, but I’ll make that a separate post so I don’t go on forever here. I’m overdue in getting this message out, so I’ll leave it at that.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Visit to Farm Sanctuary

Hi friends,

In the final stop of our cross-country journey, we stopped for a few days in upstate New York to stay at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen.

We are looking at several angles of sustainability when it comes to what we eat, since food accounts for a large piece of our environmental footprint. Vegetarian vs. meat? Organic vs. conventional? Local vs. global? There are many issues to look at here and when it comes to food it can be controversial. At the very least I'm hoping our videos spark some conversations on sustainable eating.

Farm Sanctuary is a home to downed and sick farm animals that come from the industrial factory farm system that brings us most of the meat we buy at the supermarket. We visited with the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits and others that are living out the rest of their lives at Farm Sanctuary, being cared for by the folks who work there. Carrick interviewed Matt Rice, the campaign coordinator at Farm Sanctuary, about the factory farming system and how that model is unsustainable to the environment.

I saw a statistic last year that eating vegan (no meat or dairy) has more of a positive environmental impact than buying a Prius. Of course, there are a lot of factors there to consider, but in general the idea makes sense. The majority of food grown in this country is grown for farm animals, not people – in turn, farm animals consume a massive amount of food and water. While human sewage is treated and regulated in the U.S., farm animal waste has much less regulation for disposal, and it produces a great deal of methane, which is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Factory farms are unsustainable because they aren’t responsible for the waste they create and they rely on cheap fossil fuels in fertilizing and harvesting the crops to feed the billions of animals.

When it comes to factory farms there is a lot of shocking material out there, with images that are hard to look at. Our videos are focusing on sustainability, so we’ll be looking at the environmental impacts of factory farms and not the animal cruelty and confinement issues with the graphic images.

People have a lot of choices when it comes to the food we buy and consume, and food can be a very touchy subject. I understand that leaving out meat and dairy can be a radical shift in how people eat. Many of the places we’ve visited on this cross-country journey have been good examples of how living sustainably will mean new ways of doing and thinking. It’s worth looking at different ways in which how we eat affects our environmental footprint, and to consider the benefits of eating lower on the food chain.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our Big Day in Detroit

Hi friends,

What an exciting day we had in Detroit – a real treat!

I was hoping to make a video about GM’s efforts in developing alternative fuel vehicles, specifically the Chevy Volt, which is their next-generation electric hybrid. GM is a massive company and I never had any luck reaching anyone there about coming in for some interview time. When we interviewed Chelsea Sexton in Los Angeles I mentioned that we wanted to make a video about the Volt but never got anywhere with contacts, and she offered to put in a call to her contacts at GM for us! I was just hoping for a chance to see a Volt (slated for release in November 2010) and any interview we could get would be a bonus.

I heard back last night from Chelsea’s GM contacts and we got quite a welcome! First we went downtown to GM’s Renaissance Center (GM Headquarters) and interviewed Beth Lowery, Vice President of Environment & Energy. She told Carrick about GM’s efforts on a number of green fronts, including ethanol (that’s what those ‘Flex-Fuel’ badges are on the back of some GM cars and trucks you may see), hybrids, hydrogen fuel-cells, and electric vehicles. Cars of the future may be a mix of these technologies so they are developing a variety of technologies.

We then drove to GM’s battery development lab for a personal tour, which is a rare thing and we were very fortunate to get this time! There we saw the battery packs for the Volt being tested in all kinds of simulated temperatures and humidity. They are being continuously charged and discharged to make certain that the lithium ion battery packs will last for 150,000 miles of driving conditions, at least. They showed us the battery pack that they used in the EV1, GM’s electric car from the 90’s and feature of the documentary ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ and put that battery pack next to the Volt pack, which is 1/3 the size and weight with more storage capacity. We also saw the first EV1 GM produced, which was on display (there are only a handful left in existence, see the documentary to find out why). All in all, the folks at GM really gave us a lot of time for video and interviewing and answered all of our questions.

Here’s a quick description of the Chevy Volt if you don’t already know: the Volt is a 4-door electric hybrid, but fundamentally different than a Prius. The Volt plugs into any electric outlet to charge and the first 40 miles of driving is electric-only; after that a small gas (or ethanol) powered onboard generator makes electricity to keep the car going. There is no gasoline engine, and the small generator runs at a continuous speed to produce electricity, so it’s much more efficient than a traditional engine. Since the batteries are expensive, GM’s strategy is to build in enough electric-only range to get people to work and back every day, plugging in at home or work, and for most people they could commute each day without using any fuel. For any driving over the 40-mile electric-only range, the generator is there so people can drive as much as they need to. There is a lot of controversy surrounding their previous EV1 program but during our tour they insisted that they used much of the technology from that program in the Volt, and many of the Volt team is from the EV1 program. They look at the Volt as the next generation of technology from the EV1. The Volt is projected to be priced somewhere under $40,000 and they are committed to the program no matter what state the company may be in financially.

In our tour at GM they also told us about the upcoming sequel to ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ which is going to be called ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’. The sequel is going to focus primarily on GM and Tesla’s electric car developments. Tesla has shown how exciting an electric car can be with the Roadster (let me say from first-hand experience, it’s very exciting!) but they are a startup company and building cars in large numbers will be a challenge. GM is focusing on technology like the Volt that will give a limited electric-only range (40 miles) but they have the ability to produce cars in huge numbers, and a dealership network to sell them in. They are different visions of what an electric car should be, and it will be exciting to see which one the public embraces.

We traveled over to visit Enviro-Energies, which makes vertical-axis wind turbines. The big wind turbines we’re used to seeing are horizontal-axis machines but Enviro-Energies makes wind turbines that mount to rooftops and capture wind energy in a different ‘twist’. Instead of the usual propeller-type these look more like soft-serve ice cream cones turning on the rooftop on a vertical axis, able to capture wind from any direction. They don’t have the same issues with height that traditional wind turbines have for residential use – for many towns the laws make it difficult for the majority of homeowners to put up a wind turbine on a pole 60 feet in the air, unless people have many acres of land. Also, vertical axis wind turbines (called VAWTs) need less wind to produce electricity, they’re very quiet, of course no problem with birds or bats, and they would stick out less than a pole-mounted wind turbine. We saw several sizes of their turbines including a 6-foot wide model going on Ed Begley Jr.’s house, and a 20-foot wide model that will be installed on Jay Leno’s huge garage of collected cars. They have designed and are planning to install some much larger-scale turbines on the tops of skyscrapers, which would be impossible with traditional propeller-type wind turbines (or very difficult anyway). It was a great opportunity for us to see a kind of renewable energy technology that hasn’t really become widely known yet but has a lot of potential.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Oh Canada! Our Visit to Toronto

Hi friends,

We just spent the weekend in Toronto, Ontario for a brief trip over the U.S. border with a few videos planned there.

Toronto is a great example of a green city, by the standards of those we saw on the Top 10 lists we’ve been using for our Green City Spotlights. They have great public transportation, many parks throughout the city, and a great recycling program. Right outside the city hall building was a huge wind turbine, clearly visible when entering the city. There were throngs of people walking everywhere we went throughout Toronto, surely a healthy sign of an active city.

We were planning to do an interview at Zenn Motors in Toronto, which produces neighborhood electric cars. Unfortunately our contact there had to change plans and go to Chicago, so that didn’t work out. That’s OK, because with our videos at Tesla Motors and GM we got two different perspectives on electric cars from the two companies that will most likely be playing key roles in the future of the auto industry.

We did travel north of Toronto to Wildflower Farm for an interview with Miriam Goldberger, who runs the farm. They produce Ecolawn, which is a grass seed blend that provides a much more sustainable alternative to the traditional grass we’re all used to. Ecolawn looks like normal grass but doesn’t need to be watered, uses no fertilizers or pesticides, and it grows slowly to need less mowing. The secret is the long roots that grow down into the soil almost a foot, which aerates the soil, pulls water and nutrients from further down, and the roots grow close together to crowd out grubs and shallow-root weeds like crabgrass. It grows well in either shade or sun in a variety of climates, and is non-invasive so it won’t spread into anyone else’s yard. Check them out at www.Wildflowerfarm.com.

Wildflower Farm also produces seeds for hundreds of wildflower varieties, and they have many demonstration beds to show that wildflower gardens can be a very easy, low-maintenance and beautiful alternative to big lawns. Miriam talked about the history of lawns and why we in the U.S. came to be so obsessed with surrounding our homes with “green carpets”, and the bizarre turn in the last 60 years of using however many gallons of water and chemicals necessary to “conquer” the lawn. It was an eye-opener, believe me. Many of us have lawns so Carrick interviewed Miriam about rethinking lawns and open space to be more sustainable, beyond switching to a reel mower!

We also visited Niagara Falls since we were driving through – we didn’t do any filming there but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. The Canadian side of the falls is shaped like a big horseshoe and we went aboard the ‘Maid of the Mist’, a boat that brought us to the bottom of the falls. Standing on the deck of this boat (getting soaked) and seeing the giant falls up close, was an amazing sight. The height and power of the water sure made me feel very small! I could feel the shaking of the engines working hard just to keep the boat in place.

That’s all for now – onto upstate New York!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Chicago, the Windy Green City

Hi friends,

Greetings from Kalamazoo, Michigan! We just spent the last few days in Chicago for our Green City Spotlights and saw some great things in the Windy City.

We came into Chicago on Saturday night and stayed with hosts in the city, then visited the 2nd UU Church in Chicago on Sunday morning and gave a presentation there afterwards. We spent the afternoon in the city then drove up north to Deerfield and gave another presentation at the North Shore UU Church there. Both were great crowds, and now the only presentation we have left on our cross-country journey is in Toronto next Sunday. If anyone is wondering why I am mentioning Unitarian Universalism in these posts it’s because most of our hosts are UU’s and most of the presentations we’ve been giving along the way have been at UU churches. Staying with the many generous folks who have hosted us on our travels has been a tremendous help in making our two months more affordable and we are very grateful. It’s also made traveling much more interesting, meeting folks everywhere we go instead of staying in one boring hotel after the next!

We had a chance to see Chicago’s green offerings yesterday and today – there has been a strong push recently to make Chicago the #1 green city in the U.S. and they’ve made great strides. Having been to the #1 green city, Portland, Oregon, I have to say they’ve got a ways to go but a big tip of the hat to Chicago for their efforts. We were pleasantly surprised to see just how much green space there is in Chicago, especially along the lakefront. There are miles of bike paths and walking paths, beaches along the coast, etc. They are putting in many new bikes paths throughout the city, which seems a great place for riding since the city is pretty flat. The elevated train (or just the ‘L’) runs all over the city and makes public transportation easy, plus a number of commuter trains coming into the city from the suburbs. Chicago has one of the strictest green building requirements in the country for all new construction, and City Hall proudly boasts a green roof with gardens on top. We found Chicago to be a fun place to visit!

Here’s a random thing we’ve learned while driving around the country: oil refineries smell really, really badly. We’ve seen the iconic oil pumps moving up and down as we drove through Texas and in different spots since then, and it was a foul smell coming just from those, but the big refineries just smell terrible and look like huge industrial behemoths – a real eyesore. We just passed one on the drive out of Chicago in Gary, Indiana and couldn’t imagine how people who live there put up with the awful smell, with the refinery on one side of the highway and the houses on the other.

We are heading to Detroit tomorrow for more filming that we almost didn’t get. I’ve been trying to line up these interviews for some time now and didn’t know if they were going to happen for certain until, oh, 7:00pm tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Be well,
Colin McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

On the Way East

Hi friends,

Since we left Montana we’ve been driving for several days on the way back east, and until we reach Chicago we won’t be doing any filming. Actually we only have a handful of interviews left before we get back home in 2 weeks, then another 15 videos/interviews to film back in New England. We’ve been to some interesting places since Missoula so even if we didn’t film much I thought they’re worth mentioning.

Saturday night we stayed outside of Missoula and got to meet Priscilla the blogging goat (http://www.pricillaspeaks.blogspot.com/) I knew kids were computer savvy but this was something else…(pun intentional)

Sunday and Monday we stayed in Burlington, Wyoming, which is about 2 hours outside of Yellowstone National Park. We stayed at the Wayfaring Traveler Llama Ranch which has a vegetarian bed and breakfast, enjoying the hospitality of our hosts Mike and BJ Carlson and the 35 llamas they have. One llama, Pudley, wrote their last Christmas letter. First a blogging goat then a letter-writing llama, go figure. We visited what we could of Yellowstone, but the park is so big as to need several days to see everything! We saw Old Faithful, the most popular geyser in the world (not the biggest but the most popular because of it’s regularity, about every hour give or take). I did film the spouting of Old Faithful to use in a video about geothermal energy, since we weren’t able to get an interview with a company in California that is developing deep-geothermal energy production for electricity. We saw bison, a moose, and outside the park we saw a few hundred (yes, we counted) pronghorn antelope.



Tuesday we drove to Cheyenne and stopped in Thermopolis to visit the Wyoming Dinosaur Museum, which has 60 active dig-sites in within the 500-mile area. On the way out of Thermopolis we drove down into a canyon aside the Wind River, and saw the most amazing natural optical illusion ever! The river was flowing in the wrong direction! We drove down….and the river was flowing….up? We checked the GPS and we were actually ASCENDING even though it looked like we were driving DOWN into the canyon. It was totally bizarre. I kept checking with Jen reading the GPS but our elevation kept going up, and the river was indeed flowing down even though it looked like it was flowing up. Very strange.

We got into Cheyenne, Wyoming after dark and suffered the consequences – the entire front end of the Beetle and the cargo carrier on the roof was COATED in bug splatter. The next morning we saw the carnage and it was really disgusting. There were actually flies buzzing around the front of the car. I didn’t even want to touch the roof rack to get the luggage out.



We drove most of the day yesterday to get to Lincoln, Nebraska for a presentation at the UU Church in the evening, and enjoyed talking with the folks there. One of our hosts works for the Nebraska Forestry Service and is working with the University of Nebraska to develop a new crop to grow in the state for biodiesel: hazel nuts (also called filberts). Hazel nuts have double the yield of vegetable oil as one of the most popular crops here, soybeans. They have many environmental benefits including no irrigation or pesticides required, they sequester carbon, they are perennial so they don’t need to be replanted every year, and they are harvested using current equipment. They’ve been working on developing a hybrid variety that will grow well in the Nebraska climate. Yesterday afternoon we heard tornado warnings on the radio for southern Nebraska – the kids looked worried and I was excited – great video! Fortunately for us, no tornados.

So that brings us up to speed on our way east – we’re in Des Moines, Iowa then to Chicago where we’ll spend several days and get some video for our Green City Spotlight series.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Biomimicry in Montana

Hi friends,

We continue our return trip back east, stopping in Missoula, Montana to visit the Biomimicry Institute.

Biomimicry is "the process of learning from and then emulating Nature's genius to create more sustainable designs. It's studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell or an electric eel to make a better battery." The Biomimicry Institute works to educate designers and inventors to ask nature first - before trying to reinvent the wheel, look to nature first for solutions for design ideas, because whatever the design challenge nature has already done it somewhere!

You may remember back before we left for our cross-country journey in May we interviewed Janine Benyus, who founded the Biomimicry Institute, has written several books, and travels for conferences, training, etc. Janine wasn't going to be in Missoula while we came through so we were able to get some time with her while she was stopping in Boston. Unfortunately for us, five minutes into the interview our video camera completely 'spazzed out' and we had to cut the interview short. I felt that biomimicry was such an important topic for our video series that I asked to interview someone at the Institute in Missoula to complete the video. They were gracious enough to give us some more time and this time the camera cooperated!

Carrick interviewed Bryony Schwan, the Executive Director of the Biomimicry Institute, and it was a great visit. Bryony showed us several examples of biomimicry, really fascinating stuff. One fabric company wanted to make a waterproof and self-cleaning fabric without chemicals, and they found a great solution in biomimicry. When water falls on a lotus leaf it beads up and runs off, and any dirt that collects on the leaf washes right off. The secret is in the surface structure of the leaf itself, with many small bumps we can't see. Bryony showed us two swatches of cloth identical in appearance. The first she held under the tap and it absorbed water as you would expect. The second cloth was using the same material but when it was sewn it was given the same surface structure as the leaf and when held under the tap the water just rolled right off. From our eyes and touch both cloths were the same. Imagine the applications for something like that - building surfaces, car paint, etc.

She also showed us a few other examples that were fascinating: Carrick's watch is coated with a film that makes it glow in the sunlight, without using any power. The film was developed by Qualcomm for cell phones and was created with biomimicry. Both abalone shells and butterfly wings have that same iridescent glow and they were both analyzed to find out what compound makes them reflect light that way. They used the same coating on cell phone displays, since backlighting the displays uses a lot of battery power. From there other companies have used the coating and it turned out that the watch Carrick got has that same coating. We also saw a new design for fans and water mixers - think of the spiral shape of a conch shell and other seashells, or that of fiddlehead ferns. The new design reduces energy consumption by 35-70% and noise up to 75%.

There are many amazing examples of biomimicry at www.biomimicryinstitute.org.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Fun & Games in Seattle

Hi friends,

We recently spent a few days in Seattle, with some unexpected surprises (good ones).

Our first stop was to Xeko, a company that makes trading cards for kids (think Pokemon) but Xeko features hotspots of endangered animals around the globe instead. Carrick interviewed Amy Tucker, inventor and president of Xeko, about why she started the company and the line of trading cards. She also played a few games of Xeko with Carrick and Gareth, and they got some hints from the master herself. Here is the official description of Xeko from the website: "Xeko is the eco-adventure game for kids, by kids, making a difference in the world. Join the Xeko online adventure, play the
Xeko trading card game or collect Xeko Pals earth-friendly toys, and help save endangered animals. Be a force of nature!"
You can check out Xeko at www.xeko.com.

Once our interview was over, Amy brought us over to meet her friends at Theo Chocolates, the only organic, 100% fair-trade bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the U.S. Theo imports the cacao beans directly from farmers who are paid a fair wage and have good labor practices (much of the chocolate we're used to seeing at the store is made using slave-labor conditions, often by children). We got a tour of the chocolate-making at Theo and sampled...and sampled...a number of their dark chocolate bars they had out to try. Unfortunately I didn't have the video camera with me for the tour so we didn't get that on film. Their website is www.theochocolate.com - they started 3 years ago and have been doing very well, selling at Whole Foods and other natural food stores.

We were going to make a video about Seattle for our green city spotlights, but I changed my mind at the last minute and did something different instead. In researching the green city attributes for Seattle (Seattle is one of the Top 10 Greenest Cities in the U.S.) I found that most of the green things are similar to Portland, OR including great public transportation, parks and open space, high percentage of renewable electricity in the grid, etc. I decided it would be somewhat redundant to make a similar video about Seattle, so I took a different approach.

We stayed several days with our hosts right outside of Seattle in Issaquah in a newly-built model green community. The development is called a Rural Cluster Development (RCD) and it's a controversial development model that I thought would be interesting to explore, as one example of a green community. The houses are built close together, rating high in green building practices, and schools, shops, and public transportation are all nearby, with 70% of the land left as public open space and forest. Many environmentalists are up in arms because some of the homes are large (4,000-5,000 square feet) and it can be hard to consider such houses green. Also, in order to construct the thousands of homes many acres of land were completely torn apart and built upon. While the houses are more energy-efficient than a standard house, they don't incorporate any renewables and they are far away from a self-sustaining design like the earthships we visited in New Mexico. We toured the development to make a video and it should turn out to be a great debate issue for classrooms, about what a green, sustainable community should look like.

At this point in our cross-country journey, we headed east for the first time, beginning the way home. We still have some more interviews and videos to shoot and presentations to give, but the bulk of the filming is behind us at this point until we get home.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Green City Portland, OR

Hi friends,

We just spent a few days visiting Portland, Oregon, which is ranked #1 in several lists of Top 10 Green Cities in America.
Here is what SustainLane wrote about why Portland gets top honors:

"Portland's support of local farmers and farmers' markets; its explosion of green buildings and commitment to renewable energy, and its emphasis on mass transportation, including light rail and bicycles, shows that a city can not only be kind to the earth, but also flourish economically and grow by being green.

America’s top green city has it all: Half its power comes from renewable sources, a quarter of the workforce commutes by bike, carpool or public transportation, and it has 35 buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council."

One of the things that was most evident in driving through Portland is the bike lanes everywhere and the separate bus and train lanes throughout the streets. According to the city's sustainable development director, Portland aims to be a "20 Minute City" -- where residents spend 20 or less minutes traveling from home to work, shop or play. Portland also ranks as the #1 best biking and #1 best walking city in the U.S.



Portland also has many, many parks throughout the city. Our host in Portland told us an apt quote "New York is a city with a park in the middle, and Portland is a park with a city in the middle". We visited Forest Park on the west side of Portland, with 5,156 acres, one of the largest urban forests in the U.S. On the other end of the size spectrum we visited Mill Ends Park, which is the smallest park in the world measuring just 24 inches in diameter. It was created as a park for leprechauns and snail races!

It was great to see such a vibrant, green city!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Beauty on the Road

Hi friends,

Since we left Chico, CA several days ago we've been traveling northward into Oregon. We haven't had any interviews since then but I wanted to check in and describe some of the beautiful scenes we've been through on our travels.



On Saturday we left Chico and traveled west on Highway 299 out to the coast, and incredible drive through the mountains. Jen and I agree it was the most beautiful drive of the trip so far, plus it was fun driving such a twisting road through the mountains. We wanted to see the coast and drive through the Redwood National Forest before going into Oregon, but it was getting dark as we went into the forest. We first came upon a herd of elk crossing the highway, with a little baby in the mix! It was eerie driving through the redwood forest at night because it's completely dark and we were driving past these MASSIVE tree trunks. We arrived late in Grants Pass, Oregon to stay at the Motel Del Rogue on the bank of the Rogue River.

Sunday morning we visited the UU Church in Grants Pass where I gave the sermon about sustainability and had a great time visiting with the folks there. The owners of the motel are UUs and generously offered to host us for two nights while we were in Grants Pass! In the afternoon we drove back to the redwood forest so we could see them in the daylight and actually stand among them. So amazing to stand next to these trees that have been alive for 800 years, and of course they are quite humbling in size... We enjoyed dinner that night with the two ministers from Grants Pass UU.




Monday we traveled from Grants Pass to Crater Lake to take in another natural wonder. Formed thousands of years ago by a volcanic explosion, the crater that was left filled with water and is now the deepest lake in the U.S. One big surprise was how much snow there was - it snows so much there that it takes until late summer to melt. Carrick and Gareth were running over fields of snow ten feet high with shorts and T-shirts having a great time throwing snowballs at each other. From Crater Lake we drove past a 275-foot waterfall and stopped to stretch our legs and take some pictures. We stayed the night in Roseburg.

I've included some pictures here for you to enjoy!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Flat Tires & Video Perspectives

Hi friends,

We got another chance to talk with our good friends at AAA today! We were driving through Salem, Oregon on the highway to Portland when small pieces of tire came flying off and our left rear tire was smoking. The two rear tires were getting warn but the mechanic at home thought they'd be fine for the trip. I've had flat tires but have never disintegrated and destroyed a tire before! AAA was fast and got us to Firestone for two new tires, and we got back on the road.




I've been thinking about how much to include our own personal story in our video series. There's a series on Planet Green about a road trip to visit different eco-places (hey, great idea!) but their shows are as much about the three travelers and their misadventures than the topics themselves. Personally I find that really annoying and distracting. I don't think we need to go that way to make the videos entertaining. Still, one of our recent hosts suggested having some "extras" of a few additional videos about our family's experience on the road. We are very fortunate to have this opportunity to spend two months traveling the country and we're getting many questions about how it's working out. Just how do four people fit into a VW Beetle for two months without killing each other, and the trials of driving a car coast to coast on vegetable oil.

I'll plan on putting a few things together to add our own personal perspectives in this project. First, I'll be putting together a bunch of funny video clips of us plus video of our favorite destinations, both project people and places and all the other places we loved. Plus the tow truck and flat tire pics, of course! We'll make a video collection of all these for the song 'Tin Can' which our friend Greg Hare wrote and recorded about our family, our Beetle, and our cross-county adventure.

I'm also planning for Carrick to interview Jennifer, Gareth and me when we get back home. I'll interview Carrick and we can all have a chance to talk about our favorite places, things we've learned, experiences on the road, and how we look at things differently now that we've seen so much in person.

Safe and sound in Portland Oregon,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

A Busy Day in Chico

Hi friends,

Our day in Chico, CA was one packed day! We filmed four interviews and were interviewed as well, plus our hosts threw a great party with friends from the green community in Chico.

Our first stop for the day was at Chico Bag, a company that makes reusable shopping bags. Their unique twist is to make durable bags that stuff down into a tiny pouch that is easy to carry, making them very convenient. Carrick interviewed Andy Keller, president and inventor of Chico Bag - Andy was inspired to create the Chico Bag after a visit to the landfill, where he saw disposable plastic bags everywhere. Part of the Chico Bag fun is the Plastic Bag Monster, a crazy costume of 500 plastic bags, which is the amount of plastic bags an American uses each year on average. The Plastic Bag Monster made an appearance in our video, in a face-off with the world debut of the Paper Bag Monster! We got the exclusive!

Carrick and I then went over to visit Dori and Val of the podcast 'More Hip Than Hippie', which is a great weekly eco-funny show. I've been listening to their podcast for the last 3 years and have always had fun listening to their interviews and green discussions - they have a great time and are two funny ladies! They always encourage listeners to do what they can, making baby steps to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. They invited us to be on their fourth anniversary show, which was a big honor! Once our interview was done we turned the tables and interviewed them for our project. You can visit their website at www.MoreHipThanHippie.com, or look for them on ITunes.

Val is also the founder and president of Greenfeet, an online green retailer that was recently voted in the Top 10 green businesses in the U.S. Val and her husband Rob started Greenfeet 10 years ago and they've built a model green business from the products they sell to all the info on their website, and their packaging and shipping. We interviewed Val about running a green business and about some of the products they sell. Greenfeet is one of the sponsors for our eco-video series, and we appreciate their support for our work! Check out Greenfeet's website at www.Greenfeet.com.

From Greenfeet we went over to visit Klean Kanteen, a company in Chico that makes stainless steel water bottles. Billions of plastic water bottles are thrown out every year and only a small number of those are recycled. We've been using Klean Kanteens for the last 2 years, filling them up at home and taking them with us wherever we go (including cross-country). Klean Kanteens were originally created as an alternative to reusable plastic water bottles on the market, many of which were found to have dangerous chemicals in the plastic. Stainless steel bottles like Klean Kanteens are safe and durable, a great alternative! We visited Klean Kanteen HQ, to find out about how the company got started and get some stats on disposable plastic water bottles. Check them out at www.KleanKanteen.com.

After all-day interviews, we had a great time at a party put on by our hosts, who invited some of Chico's green notables. Dori and Val were there, plus other friends! It was a fun way to end a busy day!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

San Francisco!

Hi friends,

We escaped...er....finished our sightseeing adventures in Bakersfield to move onto San Francisco with the newly-improved Beetle ready for action. Many thanks to the donations that were sent to us by our friends and supporters to help us with that unexpected hit to the project budget!!! Your generosity was just amazing and lifted our spirits while feeling down in Bakersfield! I was trying to stay positive as you could see in my last post but it was frustrating nonetheless.

The drive north to San Francisco took several hours was an interesting drive through the central valley of California, where much of our produce comes from. As we drove through the reservoir we saw a large windfarm on the ridge line. We actually stayed overnight in Redwood City which is just south of San Francisco. The most frustrating part of our down time in Bakersfield was that we had to compact our planned stay in San Francisco over several days down to an overnight and then an afternoon in the city the next day. We had so many video interviews planned for the rest of the week that I just couldn't push everything forward a few days.

The next morning started with a visit to Google in Mountain View, where we had a personal tour of their solar array. GooglePlex, as the Google campus is called, has one of the largest solar panel installations by a company in the U.S. (it was the largest when it was built). Google is one cool place! They made a great website that has lots of info about their solar installation - check it out:
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home

We drove up into San Francisco for the afternoon and saw all that we could see in that small amount of time, filming for our Green City Spotlights. San Francisco pretty much tops every list of Top 10 Greenest Cities in the U.S., and for good reason. The city has an extensive public transportation system with light-rail, buses, streetcars, etc. Parking is VERY expensive (I put 45 cents in the parking meter and got 10 minutes, I'm not kidding). Recycling is big - one big blue bin for recycling, a big green bin for compost, and a little black bin for trash. The city is also a big proponent on solar, with the largest solar array by a city in the U.S., and they also offer big incentives for residents to go solar.

We took an excursion to drive the Beetle down Lombard Street, which is the steep, curvy street that is iconic in San Francisco. We also stopped in the Haight-Ashbury district, famous for being hippie central in the 60's. That was fun trying to explain THAT one to the kids.

We drove after dinner several hours up to Chico for a full schedule of interviews the next day, but at the risk of writing an endless post I'll stop it here.

Many thanks again to everyone who has supported us on this cross-country adventure - we've seen so many amazing things through the camera lens and met many inspiring people along the way. While we've met a few famous people, most of them are everyday folks who found a passion and made great things happen, with the support of many around them. For Carrick to meet these people, interview them and get their stories to share, is such an experience. Thank you all for helping make that possible.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Down and Out in Bakersfield

Hi friends,



We've had to make an unplanned visit to see the great sights of...Bakersfield, CA. We left yesterday from Los Angeles to drive up to San Francisco and stopped in a rest area along the way, when the clutch gave out on the Beetle. It was feeling a little weak for the last several days (I was hoping it was just my imagination) but it was done. We had it towed to Bakersfield, as we weren't too far away from there, to the VW dealership. The dealership was closed already so we left the car there and got a hotel room for the night (at least they have a pool!). I called the VW dealership this morning for the bad news and it was bad indeed - new clutch and flywheel have to be overnighted and they will have the car done by the end of tomorrow. We're looking at a repair bill of $2,100, making a grand total of $3,000 we've spent on car repair bills in the last 2 weeks. Needless to say we are frustrated and disappointed.

Still, there are things to be grateful for. When the clutch went we weren't far from Bakersfield, the VW dealership, and a decent hotel. We could have been in the desert, and we have certainly seen plenty of desert. I took the kids to a family fun place this afternoon that had minigolf and arcade games, all you can play for $10, so they had a blast there. I was able to reschedule most of our San Francisco video appointments for Thursday so our video schedule shouldn't be too badly affected. Jen and I are just disappointed because we had 3 full days planned in San Francisco and we were really looking forward to spending time in what so many people have described as a truly amazing city. To extend the stay there would be to completely torpedo everything for the next week and we have too many hard-earned appointments to move everything.



Here's a pic of the Beetle getting great mileage - 30 miles and we didn't burn a drop of fuel! he he he at least I can laugh about it...

Tomorrow's my birthday and hey, I get a new clutch for my birthday!!! Well, hopefully the car will be ready to roll tomorrow afternoon and we can be on our way to San Francisco.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Carrick's Interview with Ed Begley, Jr.

Hi friends,

Today Carrick and I headed for Hollywood, for an interview and personal tour of Ed Begley Jr.'s green home. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start when we were about to head out for the interview and found our left front tire flat as a pancake! No spare tire, that's where the vegetable oil tank goes. Luckily I planned ahead and brought a little air compressor that plugs into the car. I couldn't find what the problem was but I've been having to add air to the tire for the last several days. We got to Ed's house with about 5 minutes to spare, even though we left with plenty of extra time, but that Los Angeles traffic is awful, even on a Saturday!



If you don't know, Ed Begley Jr. is an actor who has been in many TV shows and movies over the last few decades, and currently has a reality TV show called 'Living With Ed' about all the things he does in life and at home to be green, at times to the dismay of his wife! Ed has been widely recognized as one of, if not the most long-time, visible proponent in Hollywood of living an eco-friendly lifestyle.

Ed was very kind and generous, and Carrick got a great interview with him in his living room for 30 minutes, asking him all about what sustainability means and what we can all do as individuals. If you're going to talk sustainability, why not go right to the green guru himself? Unlike some famous people who promote going green, Ed actually walks the talk, big time. I emailed around as a long shot back in the fall to see if we could meet him and to my surprise he emailed back promptly and invited us over! After the interview Ed gave a tour of his house to a visiting group, with Carrick in the lead! Ed's home is a modest ranch house in a neighborhood of Hollywood, and he did all the retrofits he could to make it eco-friendly. It was great to spend some time with him this afternoon!

When we returned to the car the tire was, again, flat as a pancake. I was so embarrassed but took out my little air compressor and inflated the tire again, making lots of noise in this quiet little neighborhood. Ed probably was looking out the window wondering what the heck all that noise was! I took a picture so that I could laugh at myself later...



Once again thanks to the GPS, I quickly located a tire shop a few blocks away from Ed's house and drove over for a quick tire replacement! At least I don't have to worry about that any more...

Two more reader questions today:
Question: How do you keep the school truant officers/CPS, who are notorious for insisting via force that their way of life is the best way of life for every child (i.e. full days indoors at government schools, sleeping in a non-moveable house every night, etc), from interfering?
Answer: So far nobody along the journey has given us any trouble about our kids being out of school. We homeschool our kids, and our cross-country journey has been one big schooling adventure! Forget geography books, they're experiencing it! I can't imagine we will encounter any trouble with truancy officers but I'll let you know if we do!

Question: OMG, you guys are having such an adventure! So many experiences! How do you process it all?
Answer: Hmm...well, for starters we have lots of time sitting in the car to contemplate our adventures! We've been taking lots of pictures along the way, and writing these email updates have been a great record of our project. Once we've done our interviews we put the video tape in the bag and get ready for the next one, and the tape will stay in the bag until we get home and ready to edit. It's all going by so quickly but we're continuing to have so much success with our interviews and destinations.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our visit at Tesla Motors in Los Angeles

Hi friends,

Greetings from Los Angeles! Here's our latest update:

Yesterday we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo, with passes given to us from some generous UU folks there. The zoo was fantastic and the kids were wide-eyed the whole time! Last night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the First UU Church in San Diego to a fun crowd and enjoyed visiting and some yummy vegan food before and after.

Today we did a lot of video work, starting at the Rainbow Material Recovery Facility in Huntington Beach outside of Los Angeles. We got the grand tour of the facility where they take all residential and commercial trash from the area and sort everything with machines and manually to pull out all the recycling and food waste. The state of California passed a law that waste haulers had to reduce the amount of trash going to the landfill by 50% and the sorting facilities were the way to do it. Now they are considering upping it to 75% and eventually 100%! Also interesting was that in Massachusetts our waste disposal is about 4 times more expensive than here, so switching to this system would be very profitable.



Next stop was at the Tesla showroom in Los Angeles, to interview Chelsea Sexton, who some of you might know as the star of the movie 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'. That documentary came out several years ago and profiled the rise and fall of GM's electric car from the 1990s, and Chelsea was a salesperson for that car who moved on to become a big advocate for electric cars in government and industry. Carrick talked to Chelsea about electric cars and their benefits, and their role in the future of the auto industry.

It turns out that Chelsea's husband Bob is the service manager at Tesla Motors, which makes the all-electric Tesla Roadster and upcoming all-electric sedan. Bob took Carrick and me out for a ride in a roadster and we were both absolutely blown away. That is one incredible ride - the acceleration is just unbelievable! It's like a high-speed roller coaster!

We have two reader questions today:
Question: This trips focus is to help educate the youth of America about Green living and Technology. How does that change your filming style, your eye for content, knowing your goal audience will be children?
Answer: Sometimes I have to remind the people we are interviewing to keep the answers general and not get too technical. Some of the people we've filmed so far are on the engineering end and it's easy for them to get too technical. What I'm trying to do is make 5-minute videos that provide a general overview that would be interesting for kids, but also for adults too. Our Holy Name wind turbine video is a good example of that.

Question: A humorous road anecdote?
Answer: One funny thing that comes to mind is when we were driving through Mississippi. We pulled off the highway to get something out of the cargo carrier on the roof, which has two little padlocks to keep it secure. I pulled out what we needed and left the set of keys on the roof and drove off down the highway, which to our horror and amazement we found somehow wedged into the roof frame! What are the chances, really?

More filming tomorrow in Los Angeles, with more stories to tell I'm sure.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Big Solar and Big Hydro!

Hi friends,

We just hit our half-way mark tonight as we arrived at Chula Vista, California, which is just south of San Diego. We've officially gone coast to coast and just passed 5,000 miles on the trip odometer. We also experienced the lovely 108 degree heat in the Mojave Desert this afternoon as we stopped to stretch our legs!

On Monday we stopped to gawk at the Grand Canyon, because of course you can't go through Arizona without seeing the Grand Canyon! We parked and walked along the south rim trail at the top for a while, then returned to the car to find people taking pictures of the Beetle and getting some video. Everywhere we go people love to ask about the car!

Yesterday we drove to visit the Hoover Dam in Nevada, which is one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the U.S. I figured if you're going to make a video about hydroelectric dams in the U.S., it's hard to beat the Hoover Dam for sheer size and magnificence! We got some interview time with one of the tour guides at the dam, then we all took the official tour and got lots of great video. The dam generates 2,080 megawatts (the big wind turbine at Holy Name High School in Worcester, Massachusetts that we made a video about generates 2/3 of a megawatt, just for a comparison) We had to get special permission to film at Hoover Dam and we were grateful to have some one-on-one time with the tour guide for an interview - a unique opportunity that will make a great video!

Last night we drove the Beetle down Las Vegas Boulevard to check out "the strip" all lit up and teeming with people. I can see where all that power from Hoover Dam goes to... It was great to cruise the strip, veggie-style, and we got many waves and thumbs-up as we drove along taking in the sights.

Today we got a very special tour of Nevada Solar One, which is a concentrated solar power facility in Boulder City. It's rows and rows of long mirrored troughs with a pipe suspended overhead, and the sun reflects off the mirrored troughs, concentrated on the overhead pipe. The liquid in the pipe is heated to 750 degrees from the intense sunlight and is piped to a steam generator to run a turbine. Nevada Solar One generates about 70 megawatts, and they estimate that 10 square miles of concentrated solar power would generate enough electricity to power the entire U.S.! It's a sight to behold, being among the rows and rows of giant mirrored troughs. Nevada Solar One is not open to public tours, but we managed to get a personal tour with the plant manager, who took us out to the field and talked with Carrick about concentrated solar power. This video will be a great example of highlighting a proven renewable technology that can be scaled up on a massive level, but yet few people have heard of it.

We were forewarned by someone last night that California is a little nutty about people driving their cars on vegetable oil, and because of our stickers on the car we might get pulled over and fined. The state is especially concerned that veggie car drivers are not paying their road fuel taxes and they will charge a fine based on how much un-taxed fuel they estimated you've used. How on earth can they figure that out? How could they even prove that I am running veg oil anyway? The stickers are staying put and I'll take my chances thanks!

One of our interviews have made it into a podcast! I passed along the audio from our interview with Cliff Etheridge from the wind farm in Roscoe, Texas to Stephen Lacey at the Inside Renewable Energy podcast, and he was able to use it in this week's show! You can listen to the show by clicking this link (or visit www.renewableenergyworld.com and follow the podcast links) It will probably be a few months before our video is ready so here is a sneak preview, plus it's Carrick's first interview on a podcast!

We've had a few interview requests denied after many emails and phone calls. We were hoping to visit Aptera Motors while in San Diego but the official word is no. With plans to distribute our eco-video series to schools nationally, it's kind of hard to believe it's not worth just*a*little of their time for that kind of audience. I may be able to use some stock footage but that's not very interesting. While I will still probably mention the companies, I won't be able to profile them in their own videos as planned.


Reader question: What keeps your younger son (Gareth) going on this trip, being probably too young to be stimulated by all the environmental technology questions you and Carrick are pursuing?
Answer: Gareth (age 6) has joined us for some of the tours where there are interesting things to see, but otherwise Jen takes him out to walk around or visit a playground, or sometimes they hang out with the Macbook inside where it's nice and cool, and poke around online.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Video Stops in Arizona

Hi friends,

Our latest videos were a bit of a surprise!

We drove to Flagstaff, Arizona on Thursday and discovered once we arrived that one of our hosts for the night works at Southwest Windpower (www.WindEnergy.com), and he invited us to come to the factory for a tour. Couldn't turn that down! Southwest Windpower makes residential wind turbines, a much smaller scale than those we saw at the Roscoe wind farm! Their best-known wind turbine is the Skystream model, which is an all-in-one unit that includes the mounting pole, turbine, and inverter, which makes it easier to get up and running. Carrick got the guided tour of the factory and saw how they make small wind turbines, a real unexpected treat!

From Flagstaff we drove down to the Scottsdale Water Campus for a last-minute video about water recycling. The crude but descriptive term would be 'toilet-to-tap'...the city of Scottsdale takes the city wastewater (yes, including what we flush down the toilet) and filters it many times over then injects it back into the ground, which eventually ends up back into the water table, which eventually ends up in the municipal water supply....recycling at it's best! The southwest region has limited water resources so water conservation here is especially important! It was last-minute because until the day before we didn't know for sure whether we'd be able to come and get a tour! We got to see the different stages of filtering and talk about why water conservation is so important.

For the next few days we are doing some traveling and visiting, with our next two videos in the Las Vegas area.

READER QUESTION: Are you finding it easy for the whole family to eat
healthy on the road? I mean, it's easy at home when you have access
to good food, but while traveling through McDonald-land it must be
tough.
We're using the website www.VegDining.com to help us find healthy places to eat along the way - not too many vegan options at Waffle House! VegDining has listings of veggie restaurants all over the country. When internet access has been scarce we've used the GPS to help us find a veggie restaurant, which has a much more limited list but it's worked. Taco Bell works in a pinch with some bean burritos, but at best it's just utility food.

There probably won't be much to report for the next few days, but I'll write again once we've made it through Las Vegas.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Wind Farms and Earthships

Hi friends,

Greetings from Albuquerque, New Mexico! We got here this afternoon and gave a presentation tonight at the UU church here in the city. It's beautiful landscape here, so much different from back home - the surroundings didn't really look TOO different until we got down to Louisiana, and since then we've crossed through long plains with less and less vegetation through Texas, then into New Mexico through beautiful mountains and deserts, driving alongside the Rio Grande. The houses have also changed a lot, with a lot more ranch houses, and in New Mexico a lot of adobe buildings (we even passed an adobe-front Wal-Mart).

So since we left Austin we've stopped at two more project locations that were just amazing and inspiring.

We left Austin Monday morning and traveled up to Roscoe, Texas, a small town west of Abilene that is hard to find on the map! Carrick interviewed Cliff Etheridge, who rallied the small town to bring in investors for a large wind farm, and when the project is finished over the next two years it will be the largest wind farm in the world. Just to stand in the field of turbines and turn 360 degrees surrounded by them everywhere was an amazing sight. Mr. Etheridge's story is so inspiring - he is a hero, one individual who has accomplished something amazing, though he is humble as it gets. I can't wait to get to work on the Roscoe video when we return. Just a quick tidbit, standing in a field of several hundred wind turbines, they barely make a whisper, and I didn't see any dead birds on the ground!

We went on from there to Lubbock, Texas where we gave a presentation at the UU church after a great vegan potluck!

Tuesday we arrived in Taos, a small city in northern New Mexico, where we stayed overnight in an earthship. A what? Earthships are self-sustaining houses made from different renewable and waste materials: most prominently 3 of the 4 walls are made from used tires filled and rammed with dirt, and the walls are covered with adobe and cement. These are truly amazing and beautiful houses, and it makes our house in Massachusetts seem so unnatural and designed against nature instead of with it. I'll have to upload some pics we took of the earthships we visited so you can see what I mean. They rent them out for overnight stays so we got to experience living in an earthship and this morning we got a tour of an earthship that was recently built, all on video. There are so many unique elements it will be hard to edit the video down to 5 minutes - I may have to stretch that one out a bit... Carrick and I have toured zero-energy homes at the Solar Decathlon that rely heavily on technology to be off-grid and self-sustaining, but earthships are a different, more natural approach.

Car trouble strikes! Well, not that dramatic really, but I noticed for the last two days the Beetle had hesitation starting and I wanted to get it fixed before we ended up stranded somewhere (out here you can REALLY get stranded, no joke) plus we needed an oil change, so we stopped by the VW dealer here in Albuquerque who of course found other problems too. $800 later we got the car back, a lot more than I was expecting, but left unchecked we could have found ourselves in big trouble. Ugh. I'm grateful at least that they were able to fit us in on same-day notice so we can be on our way tomorrow.

READER QUESTION:
As you ride around and visit all these facilities, does it seem more likely or less likely to you that we could get all our energy from renewables?
Well, we still have the majority of renewable energy sites yet to visit, and I've been a big proponent of being able to produce all the electricity we need from renewables. I do wish people could have stood where I was in Roscoe to experience the wind farm first-hand, and I think if people saw how they looked (graceful and majestic) and heard how quiet they were (right in the middle of hundreds of turbines), there would be far fewer people who are opposed to them. There are just so few chances for people to personally experience that in this country. Although we didn't get to see the wave power buoy off the New Jersey coast, the stats from the Ocean Power Technolgies website show that harnessing wave power in select areas around the world could provide twice as much electricity as the world consumes. I hope that our eco-video series will show people the solutions that exist, and get more people asking 'why can't we do that more?' because the answer is usually that we can if people learn more about it and start making it happen.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Batty in Austin, TX

Hi friends,

It's been several days since the last update so I wanted to let you know our latest news. We've been in Austin, TX for a few days and are heading out tomorrow morning for our interview in Roscoe, TX at a wind farm then on to Lubbock to stay the night with hosts. Here's a review of the last several days:

On Thursday, we did visit the BuildSmart Center in New Orleans, which is a training center for contractors and homeowners about rebuilding with green, sustainable materials and renewable energy. We met with Larry Haines of Road Home Builders, a company that is building new green homes in the city; Larry did a walk-through with Carrick of the different green building materials and energy conservation measures that are on display at the BuildSmart Center. We also got the address of a few zero-energy homes that were built in the hardest-hit area of the city from the hurricane, so we went down to see the exterior and got some more video there. Zero-energy homes are designed to produce as much energy as they use, in this case using solar electric panels and solar hot water panels on the roofs. On Thursday night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the UU Community Church to a fun group - their church had to be torn down due to the hurricane damage but they like others in New Orleans have strong spirit and will rebuild.

We traveled on Friday to tour the Verenium plant in Jennings, Louisiana, which is the test and demonstration site for their method of producing cellulosic ethanol. They use different feedstocks, such as sugarcane waste, to create ethanol fuel in a process very similar to brewing beer, working to produce cellulosic ethanol in quantities much greater and much more efficiently than corn. Carrick got a guided tour of the demonstration plant and we got some great video of the process. It's very much a working demonstration site and we had to wear the hardhats, and eye and ear protection, and I don't think it's a place that the public and especially kids get to visit, so it was a big deal to get the whole guided tour! We traveled on in the afternoon through Houston then out to Austin, where we've been over the weekend.

Saturday we were planning to head south to visit San Antonio and get some shots for our video about the upcoming biogas facility, which will be the first municipal sewage treatment plant in the U.S. to capture methane gas from the solids (or, eh, poop) and turn it into natural gas to run in city vehicles. Unfortunately for us there was a torrential downpour in the afternoon and most of what we were going to visit there (including the Alamo) is outside, so we stayed in Austin for a rainy afternoon. The company that is developing the biogas plant in San Antonio, Ameresco, is a Massachusetts-based company so we can still get an interview when we come home and put together a video profile with that.

Today we gave a presentation at the UU church here in Austin then got some video in the city for our Green City Spotlight of Austin. We are traveling through 6 of the Top 10 Greenest Cities in America on our journey, so we are making a Green City Spotlight video for each city we visit, showing what they are doing to be more sustainable cities and earn their spot in the Top 10! Austin has some great examples that we visited today, including their city hall that has a green roof, solar panels, was made from local materials, etc. The city owns the municipal power company, Austin Energy, which is perhaps the most progressive electric utility company in the nation with the highest mix of renewable energy. They have many programs to encourage homeowners to conserve energy and promote renewables. One very unique and fun green aspect of Austin is the Congress Avenue Bridge, underneath which is host to the largest urban bat population in the U.S., over 1.5 million bats! At dusk every night they come FLOODING out from under the bridge to get some dinner, and to stand on the bridge and see them all come out is just amazing. What a sight! The smell was not so amazing....but there were just clouds of bats for about 10 minutes coming out from under the bridge.

TRIP STATS: 2,769 miles driven so far, we've already lost track of how many hours on the road total.

READER QUESTION: we have two this time!
Are you getting any press? It seems like such a good story. It should be turning up in people's newspapers when you are in town. ANSWER: we haven't been getting press, but I haven't been going after that either. We just don't have enough time and reliable internet access to coordinate that. It's been all I can do to keep on top of our video schedule and return emails, I really can't.
Reader Question: What's the downside to the fuel getting too hot? What is heating it up? ANSWER: This is in response to my post about how using the A/C while using veg oil gets the oil too hot, on hot days. The short answer is that the engine isn't designed to deal with fuel that gets too hot and could cause damage - diesel never gets too hot but veg oil can. I have a temperature sensor as part of the veggie system that tells me the temps of the veg oil and I get worried when it gets over 190 degrees F, so we shut off the A/C and roll down the windows, to let the oil cool down some. The veg oil system heats the oil with radiator fluid from the engine, and when the engine gets hot from running A/C in a car with a big, non-aerodynamic roof rack on top, the coolant gets hot and then the oil gets real hot. If the temps get too hot it can literally cook the injection pump, and at $1000 just for a rebuilt pump I don't want to have that problem.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

From The Big Easy

friends,

Greetings from New Orleans!

Our internet access has continued to be spotty so I haven't sent an update in several days, but we've been traveling a lot and we haven't had any video stops until now anyway. We arrived in New Orleans yesterday afternoon - what a beautiful city and an amazing spirit! There were many people back home who just thought people here were crazy for coming back to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, since it's so vulnerable. It's such a wonderful place with so much history; I get a better appreciation for why people are rebuilding.

We are stopping by the Build Smart Center this afternoon to interview one of the green builders in the city. There is a big effort to rebuild using green, sustainable building products and techniques, and the Build Smart Center holds seminars and training for teaching contractors who are rebuilding the homes here. Although Katrina was devastating to the area it gave a chance for introducing green home materials and renewable energy, and there are some zero-energy homes being built now. We'll meet up with the builder this afternoon to learn more and get some video. The most dramatically hit area in the city is the Lower 9th Ward and the word we got was that many of the residents there are tired of people with cameras coming through to gawk at their misfortune, so I don't think we'll drive through with cameras rolling, to respect the folks there.

We found out that while we're driving through the heat with the vegetable oil system on, using the air conditioner in the car really heats up the engine, a little too hot for my comfort. We turn it on for a while then when I see the fuel temps get too hot (in my opinion anyway) then I turn it off for a while. Not very convenient. When we get to Arizona and it's over 100 degrees then it will REALLY get interesting. Usually the problem in New England is getting the veg oil HOT enough in the cold climate, so this is a new challenge. We planned this trip to go through the south in May so it wouldn't be too hot, but so much for those plans!

READER QUESTION: Where do you get your vegetable oil on the road?
There are conversion shops in most major cities that do conversions for diesel cars and trucks, and usually they sell filtered veg oil. We stopped at a place in Memphis that gave us 28 gallons - 13 gallons in the tank and an extra 15 gallons in our 3 containers we're carrying. It's been as easy as a quick Google search for 'WVO (waste vegetable oil) Memphis' or whatever city we're coming to. Next stop for oil is in Austin.

If you have a reader question, please don't hesitate to ask!

Like I said in an earlier message, most of our video stops are on the west coast, but we have some along the way before we get there. I'll send more messages intermittently while we're driving and when we have internet access.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington DC

Hi friends,

We've been unable to spend much time on the internet over the last few days, but all has been well and I wanted to update you on our progress!

Tuesday, May 5 we spent the day in Neffs, Pennsylvania with our friends, and I spent a few hours on the phone trying to confirm interviews and making sure everything is all set for the next several weeks.

Wednesday, May 6 we drove to the beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the afternoon for some video at the coast. One of our videos will be focused on power from waves, and there is a wave power buoy off the coast of New Jersey that has been successful in proving the technology works. It turns out that there is enough potential on the coasts with wave energy to power the entire world two times over. Not bad. We gave a presentation that night at the UU church in Princeton, NJ.


Thursday, May 7 was a busy day! We visited Terracycle in the morning, touring their factory where they make products out of recycled materials. They're in Trenton, NJ, and we saw where the make "compost tea" for plant fertilizer, bags made out of recycled juice containers, and "techno-vomit"...hmmm....how do I explain that one? Guess you'll have to wait for the video. In the afternoon we drove down to Washington DC to visit the headquarters of Green America (formerly CoOp America) and spoke with sustainability guru Todd Larsen about the work Green America does to advocate fair trade, green collar jobs, and a greener America!

Friday, May 8, today, we spent some time in Virginia visiting my 95-year-old uncle and more time in Washington DC, then up to Cedar Lane UU church in Bethesda, Maryland for a presentation. Cedar Lane UU is the 3rd largest UU church in the U.S., so I'm told. Tomorrow we have a long drive from Chevy Chase Maryland, where we are staying tonight, to Nashville, TN.

READER QUESTIONS! How are you guys holding up stuffed into the Beetle? Do you have a better understanding of family closeness yet? How is the roof rack holding up?
Well, it's not the most spaceous way to travel, but it's working out OK so far. Having the roof rack is a big help - that's where we're putting all of our luggage, and the trunk is full of vegetable oil containers and the camera equipment. We definitely feel some drag from the roof rack and it's affecting the mileage, but I expected that. The kids have plenty to do so they're not getting too bored with the driving yet.

Many many thanks to the inventor of the GPS! That thing is absolutely wonderful, just amazing. I can't imagine doing this trip without it. Ours is a Magellan and has a nice female voice; we have named her Maggie!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

First Day on the Road!

Hi friends,

We left today at noon on our cross-country eco-video journey and have arrived at our first destination, Neffs Pennsylvania. Neffs is a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, outside of Allentown and Bethlehem. Some long-time friends offered to host us tonight and tomorrow before we begin the video work. I just picked up the borrowed video equipment a few days ago so I need a day to get it set up and get more familiar with it, before we begin in earnest!

I should go over the timeline of our project, so you all know more what to expect. We are stopping at locations over the next several weeks as we travel the southern route across the U.S., where we have some interviews and video to shoot. The majority of our videos will be shot in California at the end of May and early June, then we have a number of video destinations as we return via the northern route. We have a concentration of videos to shoot in the New England area once we return in the end of June.

I uploaded Carrick's segment from the Bonnie Hunt Show on Earth Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe1eBJWiom4

I didn't end up seeing this until last week - well, I saw it live but not what aired. She asked more questions than what you see here but it was edited down.

Here are some photos from our first day on the road:

From Our Renewable Nation

From Our Renewable Nation

From Our Renewable Nation

We drove 300 miles in 5 1/2 hours, played the license plate game for a while then the kids watched some episodes of Mr. Bean. It was a rainy drive but no traffic so we can't complain.

Time for bed!
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org