Special Announcement and Our Newest Video

Categories: Energy, solar decathlon

Jan 31, 2010 08:17 pm 2 Comments

  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 fromwww.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-- 

Tweet This Post

Jen_Changents
February 1, 2010 - 11:04am

As always, awesome! I just watched the video and what a ton of really cool solar and renewable energy ideas~check it out!. Even if people can't integrate solar power, there are steps they can take to help make their footprint a bit smaller. Energy efficient appliances and painting your roof white are a few places to start. (Cool article about it here http://ow.ly/12zbO) And, I'll hop over to iTunes to help you out. Perhaps posting an volunteer request could help too!

Mary Mitchell
February 5, 2010 - 10:54am

Your video is very inspiring! Thanks for all you are doing to help us learn about sustainable alternatives to our energy-inefficient lifestyles. Sustainable Braintree is a chapter of Sustainable South Shore, which is proud to be a supporter of your project. www.sustainablebraintree.org

Flag as spam/inappropriate