syrinx

Well, it's a start:
Rock Port, Missouri, First 100 Percent Wind-powered Community In U.S.

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2008) — Rock Port Missouri, with a population of just over 1,300 residents, has announced that it is the first 100% wind powered community in the United States. Four wind turbines supply all the electricity for the small town.

tags: energy sustainable wind power

YourGreenDream is an excellent site that describes itself as a "free source of information on how to create your own homemade projects on solar, hydro, wind, tidal, geothermal or other green power". There are articles on various aspects of sustainable energy, a "diy instructions" section detailing home-built projects you can try, a forum, and even a small store where you can order parts for some of the projects... from Australia. Shipping may be an issue for us here in Canada.

The site's a bit sparse at the moment, but it has potential. It's nice to see that a website like this exists at all; it shows a widening awareness of alternative energy sources.

tags: energy alternative wind solar diy doityourself

I found this interesting little project while browsing the MAKE:Blog site today. If I were a teenager or younger even, I would probably try to make this right away. On the other hand, it could come in handy if a hurricane or other weather event cuts off the utilities. Here it is: green energy solar hot water heater

tags: energy green solar hotwater heater

Treehugger recently posted an article on small-scale wind generation called "Small Wind is Beautiful". It discusses a blog post by Glen Estill which covers the subject of erecting a small wind turbine at your home or business. In following the link to Glen's site, I discovered that his blog is excellent. There's a wealth of information, not only about wind turbines, but other forms of sustainable energy as well. The blog entries are very well written and easily digestible by the lay-person.

tags: energy sustainable alternative wind turbine

Treehugger has a reference to an article in the Toronto Star about Canadian Tire's new Canadian Tire Power initiative. Apparently they're making it a lot easier for people to generate their own power by offering products and information on their site. To this point Canadian Tire had been the only commercial outlet I knew of that carried wind turbines, inverters, and such, but it was never marketed at all. Well that's changed with this website. It looks like they're taking alternative energy considerably more seriously now. I hope it proves to be a profitable move, as it's still a risk getting into this market. I think the combination of products and information will help consumers make informed decisions about their own use of alternative energy sources.

tags: energy alternative windturbine canadiantire