Jennifer Jones's Groups
Jennifer Jones's Page
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- Are you interested in becoming an organizer in your area?
- Maybe--But Not Sure What to Organize
- Tell us about your experience with alternative energy:
- We have an off grid 2nd home that sits on 40 acres in Eastern Arizona. We derive our energy needs from solar, wind, a wood burning stove, and propane, with a back-up gasoline generator. We love knowing that the bulk of our energy needs there are provided by renewable resources, and knowing that we are not dependent on utility companies, foreign oil, and coal powered electricity.
- What excites you about this campaign?
- It makes extensive use of renewable resources, while reallocating non renewable resources in an efficient manner. It has the potential to put Americans back to work at productive, well paying jobs.
- What do you want to do to help?
- I would like to make my voice of support for this type of plan heard with my local politicians and am willing to help with organized activities in my area.
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Hello Jennifer, These new rooftop mount home wind turbine kits that I am building are great. The profile is pretty sleek and attractive. The system is actually a home appliance and doesn't really stand out much more than an antennae, chimney, or satellite dish. This makes a nice clean way for homeowners to get into the clean energy movement. The systems are inexpensive, easy to install and scaleable.
These systems have wind/solar built right in. The wind is stronger in the winter months, sun is stronger in the summer months, we designed a system that is attractively priced, that gives an even flow of energy year round. Wind power scales down in size to be perfectly feasible for a homeowner sized system to provide power for their home. Many customers have found it easy to become wind turbine customer/dealers. They are able to do this with no further investment and they see how easy people are to get interested.
I have used them to save money on my electricity costs and Jennifer, you could too. The systems pay for themselves in 5 to 10 years depending on your local wind resources, and they last for 25 or 30 years before needing a rebuild. Have a look at these windmaps and see can you pinpoint what number your area is in. 2 is OK and anything over 2 is very good. Let's double check your wind resources are good.
Your Phoenix AZ 85008 Wind Resource Maps
Small Wind/Solar Systems
Contact Us!
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Just wanted to take a second of your time to invite you to view the solar solution equivalent of the PickensPlan.
www.powur.com/homeenergy1
click View Our Mission and if interested click the back arrow to Become an Ecopreneur.
Also you can see what we offer home owners - www.glenburniesolar.com
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Sierra magazine, a publication of the Sierra Club, has named ASU as one of the nation’s top 10 “coolest” schools for its efforts to stop global warming.
The cover story for Sierra’s September-October issue is its second annual listing of the greenest American colleges and universities.
This year’s top 10 “coolest” schools are noted for taking dramatic steps to curb global warming. Sierra’s list, “10 That Get It,” shows that schools of all sizes are taking action. Top schools earned points for policies in 10 categories: buildings, energy, food, investment, procurement, transportation, curriculum, environmental activism, waste management and overall commitment to sustainability.
A perfect score in every category would give a school 100 points. ASU, with the largest student population of the selected schools, ranked No. 6 with a score of 87.
Sierra’s top 10 “coolest” schools of 2008 are:
1. Middlebury (Vt.) College (2,350 students).
2. University of Colorado-Boulder (29,000 students).
3. University of Vermont-Burlington (10,750 students).
4. Warren Wilson College (Swannanoa, N.C., 850 students).
5. Evergreen State College (Olympia, Wash., 4,400 students).
6. ASU (51,500 students).
7. University of Florida-Gainesville (50,000 students).
8. Oberlin (Ohio) College (2,200 students).
9. University of Washington-Seattle (39,250 students).
10. Tufts University (Medford, Mass., 8,500 students).
“A new trend is sweeping the country,” says Bob Sipchen, Sierra’s editor-in-chief. “American schools are going green. When schools take such significant steps toward addressing global warming, it will have a huge impact on hundreds of thousands of students. And if young people take that passion into their communities and careers, it will reverberate globally.”
“ASU’s growing recognition as an institution committed to advancing sustainability education, research, operations and outreach is a source of pride and a testament to the steadfast dedication and leadership of our university community as a whole,” says ASU President Michael Crow.
Through the generous gifts of Julie Ann Wrigley, ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability was established in 2004 as the hub of the university’s sustainability initiatives. The institute advances research, education and business practices for an urbanizing world. Its School of Sustainability, the first of its kind in the United States, was established in 2007 and offers integrated degree programs that advance practical solutions to environmental, economic and social challenges.
Sustainability is a fundamental precept at ASU and permeates its teaching, learning, research and business missions. Some key initiatives under way at ASU include deployment of solar power on all four campuses, development of highly efficient buildings, operation of all campuses to be carbon neutral and produce zero waste, and unified dedication and commitment to finding sustainable solutions for issues of energy, water, urbanization and climate change.
“ASU is proud to be included in this group of accomplished universities,” says Bonny Bentzin, manager of university sustainability business practices at ASU. “Rating systems such as the Sierra magazine assessment are important for benchmarking accomplishments and sharing best practices. Through the work of many departments and individuals across the university, we have come a long way.”
Karen Leland, karen.leland@asu.edu
480-965-0013
Global Institute of Sustainability
I like where your ranch is. I have camped at Lyman Lake State Park several times. I am 50-50 mountain man and desert rat and although I don't have the place near Flagstaff anymore I still own a few acres of raw land in Golden Valley, just west of Kingman.Twenty-three years ago, I married a Texas gal and we enjoy being close to her kids and grandkids in Austin. We live in a farm community called Johnson City (of LBJ fame) just an hour drive away. We built our house here on a former 640 acre cattle ranch. We bought 40 acres of it for retirement living. It took us three years to finish the house while we lived in our camper.
Because we live in the Hill Country with great big live oaks, we don't have enough sustainable wind for generation. However, our roof surface is about 3200 sq ft and we are looking into the new thin film solar material which is supposed to be priced at about $1 per watt - but it is scarce right now.
We now travel about 6 months out of the year in our camper and get to Arizona every other year. The camper has 500 watts of solar panels on the roof which charge a bank of four Optima 75 AH deep cycle batteries. Our inverter is a 2000 watt pure sine wave Ames. Two years ago we went to Alaska and rarely camped at an RV park with hookups. We boondocked for about 15,000 miles worth of the most pristine parts of north America.
We are in our very late sixties and have been lucky to have good health and some windfall $$ from home and land sales earlier in our lives. Our retirement is ample, but we both worked for 35 years to achieve that. So, your turn is coming, just do like you are now - prepare. Your forty acres sounds wonderful - room to grow and tons of privacy. I'm surprised you could drill a well. In the Flagstaff area a well less than 6000 feet was impossible - at least where I built. I'd be interested to know how deep your well is and how do you pump up the water?
Take care, Fred
In 1980-1984, while attending NAU, I built a passive-solar 1700 sq ft home almost eight miles south of Flagstaff and a couple miles east of Mountainaire. It is viewable on Google Earth using coords 35.086973, -111.630006. I worked on it for three years in the afternoons, after attending morning classes in Forestry. It has a southern facing 238 sq ft glass and trombe wall to absorb the daytime sun for heat storage at night.
I used solar panels on the roof to store about 1000 watts/hours into a bank of deepcycle batteries. I did have delivery of propane gas which I used to run a 7KW generator if I needed it for high-power tools.
My refrigerator was propane, my stove and range were propane, there were four backup propane wall heaters, and all the lights were either propane or 12 volt. My primary heat was a main living area Vermont Castings wood stove. I cut and stacked about 3-4 cords of aspen each spring which dried out for burning by October. That was aquired using a Forest Service permit each spring and it cost five dollars for ten cords or less.
I collected water and snowmelt from the aluminum roof and directed it into a filtered cistern below ground, which I then pumped up to a 16 foot high, 1500 gallon insulated tank on the highest point of the property. Gravity then fed that water undergound into my plumbing for normal house usage. The water pressure was about 7-8 psi, and the pure water tasted wonderful.
I had to use a snowmobile during heavy snows from January to March, so I did use some gasoline. The 2.5 acre property was so remote then, that we had no phone, no power, and no water. But, we had wonderful neighbors who raised layer chickens and that's where we got our daily fresh eggs for $.35 a dozen. I had a very productive garden each spring which I grew leafy veggies, carrots, squash, and believe it or not potatoes.
I immensely enjoyed the mule deer, elk, and other wildlife puttsying around my property each morning and evening. I also enjoyed the clean smell of the ponderosa pines and the sound they gave off when the wind was blowing. To conclude, there is nothing like life in the best state in America - Arizona!
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