Hi friends,
We just finished and uploaded our latest eco-video, but first I have a big announcement and a request for a little help!
I have set up our eco-video series, Our Renewable Nation, as a video podcast on ITunes. ITunes is the premier online music store and directory for podcasts, so being listed as a podcast there is a BIG DEAL and exposes our videos to a much wider audience, potentially. On ITunes, people can subscribe to our videos to play on their IPods, IPhones, or on their computers, updated as soon as each video is online. There are very few environmental video podcasts listed on ITunes, so we don’t have much competition.
ITunes can give a podcast a lot of publicity by listing it as a featured podcast, but in order for them to notice it the podcast needs to have a lot of good ratings and reviews. If you use ITunes, could you help give us a boost? Do a search in the ITunes store for Our Renewable Nation, and our podcast will come up. A quick rating and/or some comments about the videos would be a big help! If you don’t already use ITunes, you can download it free from www.Apple.com – I very highly recommend browsing through the available podcasts, all free and an endless source of brain food. Really, my IPod was one of the best purchases I ever made; I listen to podcasts for hours every day and learn so much.
OK, now our newest video, ORN#4 Solar Decathlon 2009. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPVyrGeSMLM) We visited the Solar Decathlon in October down in Washington DC; it’s a competition of homes from universities all over the world that are completely powered by the sun. The homes are assembled on the National Mall for 2 weeks and are open to the public to show just what’s possible. When built specifically with renewable energy and energy efficiency in the design, there are amazing possibilities for zero energy homes. For example:
-Team Germany’s house is almost completely covered in solar panels, both traditional PV and new thin-film panels on the siding of the house, which generates several times more electricity than the house uses (selling the rest back to the electric company!).
-The University of Illinois house is so energy efficient that it could be heated with a single hair dryer.
-Team Spain’s house features the first-of-it’s-kind tracking solar roof that follows the sun throughout the day.
-Team California’s house has computerized lighting, heating, and cooling controls that can all be changed on-the-go using an IPhone.
As you’ll see in the video, these are very high-tech houses featuring solar technology for electricity and heating, super-insulation, passive solar heating with south-facing windows, etc. The Solar Decathlon houses stand in strong contrast to the very low-tech zero-energy homes we visited in Taos, New Mexico, called Earthships. Very different approaches to building! Stay tuned for our upcoming video about Earthships!
There were 20 houses at the Solar Decathlon and we filmed each one, but in this video we covered 5 of the most interesting and high-scoring houses. I want to put together a few more videos that cover the other houses but that would take weeks, and I want to move on to the other exciting videos that are next in line. Maybe once the video series is finished I’ll return to these remaining Solar Decathlon houses and make some ORN web extras. In the meantime, you can visit the Decathlon website, www.SolarDecathlon.org, which has plenty of information about all 20 houses, plus lots of pictures and videos of the competition.
In the 2009 Solar Decathlon, there was a focus on how much it would cost to build these houses. For example, Team Germany’s house cost roughly $750,000 to build (it features some very cutting-edge technologies). Some things to consider about the costs though:
1. 1. You’d never have an electric bill or heating bill again.
2. 2. You could get paid for the excess electricity you produce.
3. 3. State and federal credits can make solar technology much more affordable.
4. 4. These are prototype homes; if they were mass-produced the cost would be much lower.
We hope you enjoy our latest video! As always, feel free to leave comments on YouTube and rate the videos.
Thank you everyone for your support!
Be well,
Colin & Carrick--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org
Showing posts with label solar decathlon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solar decathlon. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, October 19, 2009
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
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
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