Solar Heater Works

On the up side - I know my design works.




On the downside, I have found out that vinyl clad windows might not be the best choice for making a solar heater.


Here's the link to the original note regarding my design.
http://kermitsteam.blogspot.com/2007/09/storm-window-solar-panel.html



Yes, it took me awhile to finish. Not because of procrastination, mind you. I have many hurdles to leap over to finish any larger project, particularly if I must rely on someone else for my errands - which is all the time.



So - this morning, I finished putting the cover frame over the window, screwing it in place, calking everything I could think of, and then wheeled it out of the garage - like some monster awaiting the lightening storm. That puppy's heavy.



I can't stand it up just yet, but placed it so it could vent itself easily. Obviously not easily enough. The air in the 2 pipes was sitting around 120. Woo. I was happy happy happy.



I went out after about 90 minutes and discovered the window had opened itself. The words I spoke are not fit for tender ears - which means anyone but mine! I have learned the fine art of cussing better than anyone I know.











I've gone searching for information on vinyl windows. It seems the melting point of the vinyl is somewhere between 212 and 350. I'm guessing the temperature in there was at least 200, so was enough to soften the vinyl to the point of failure.

I'm not thrilled. I'm brain dead at the moment, so any attempts at repair will wait until tomorrow. I'm sure it will involve many screws - hopefully none coming OUT, but rather just being set in to hold the stupid window in place. We'll see.

I'm truly amazed the window itself didn't break. The amount of displacement of the frame and the way the window is set in, doesn't allow for any displacement toward or away from the cans/solar collector tells me the window should have broken. Oh well.

That's what tomorrow is for. I'm still cussing.

Utility Bills

I can't imagine how people bordering on poverty are making it! I also can't understand the government's claim that no more people have fallen into poverty this past year.

For the last 2 years, I've paid our utility bills. I finally got my finances straightened out enough to take over that largest bill of the house.

Since I've been home (7 years), I've worked to make the house more energy efficient. I've strived to shave 5% off both gas and electric each year. You can imagine this might be difficult!

However, in THIS house, it has been rather easy. In fact, I'll be able to continue that trend for at least 2 more years, and all with simple changes. Some have cost, but have been simple.

Since 2004, our natural gas use has decreased by 50%, and electric by 40%. This last year has seen a drop of natural gas by 6% and electric by 11%.

More insulation in the walls, new siding, a new roof, new stove, new dishwasher, new washing machine, new freezer and some recently added insulation to the roof line have all added up to huge savings. Each new appliance has paid for itself in its savings, especially at today's prices.

The numbers for 2008 are horrifying. Since January, here in NYS, natural gas prices have tripled, electric has jumped 67%. Most families look forward to the summer as a reprieve from high utility costs. But with increases like these, they've not seen their bills go down and may have actually seen them go up. Can you imagine the panic they must be feeling knowing the worst is yet to come in a heating season that's only a few weeks away?

I can not imagine.

I still have much work to do in this house. Still simple, only 1 expensive purchase left, and some good old fashioned hard work to keep making a 150 year old house more energy efficient.

August Update

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been!

Our freezer is stuffed!

Besides the 3 bags of bought veggies on the top shelf, it's all corn. 50 pints and 2 quarts.

Second shelf is summer squash, string beans and Swiss chard.

The third shelf is stuff that wouldn't fit on the second shelf, along with home made broths, spaghetti sauce, soup and the ice cream.

The bottom shelf is about 20 quarts of blueberries from our 5 bushes (about 16 quarts have been given away this year), plus 1 quart of peaches, in case we need to make a pie. The rest of the peaches have been canned. The door is blueberries and veggies for my sister to take with her each time she comes to visit.

I even have a little space on the third shelf! Woo!

These shelves aren't complete yet. I still have tomatoes and applesauce to can. I'll be finished with them by mid October.

First shelf is pickles - 2 kinds of sweet, and jam.

Second shelf is allllll peaches.

Third shelf is a mix of peaches (that didn't fit on the second shelf), B&B pickles, and kosher dill pickles.

Fourth shelf will be allll tomatoes.

Bottom shelf - apple sauce most likely.

Or, I'll rearrange. We'll see. The shelf unit is 4' wide x12"deep x5'high. We also have shelves in our laundry room that will hold a few jars of each as a pantry.

I've also made a lot more jam than what's on these shelves. By making it and selling it very cheaply to friends, I was able to completely pay for the bushel of peaches I bought. Hopefully I'll be able to continue this each year to pay for small things.

Now, if we had to survive on what I'm putting up this fall, we'd live about 3 months. We have another refrigerator freezer full of meat, and the fridge is filling with dried beans, flour, rice, barley, corn meal, etc. It might as well live in there and keep the fridge from running as much, as live on a shelf taking up space for no reason.

I know we wouldn't live very long, but I'm not that much of a pessimist about life. At least not yet. I may get to the point of truly homesteading and preserve all of my own food. But for now, this is what I can handle. A very full freezer, a filling fridge, a filling shelf unit and a full pantry.

I do have to say, living like this certainly isn't the worst life has to offer, and is something I'm truly enjoying. Definitely there are worse ways to live than to stay physically busy growing and preserving your own food, cutting your own heat, and making do with what you have. I've always preferred a simpler way of life, and so this isn't a difficult adjustment for me to make from having worked full time to being disabled with constant vertigo.

A Brainy Robot

Exerpts

University of Reading scientists have developed a robot controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons. And this is a world’s premiere. Other research teams have tried to control robots with ‘brains,’ but there was always a computer in the loop. This new project is the first one to examine ‘how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data.’ As life expectancy is increasing in most countries, this new research could provide insights into how the brain works and help aging people. In fact, the main goal of this project is to understand better the development of diseases and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer or Parkinson diseases. It’s interesting to note that this project is being led by Professor Kevin Warwick, who became famous in 1998 when a silicon chip was implanted in his arm to allow a computer to monitor him in order to assess the latest technology for use with the disabled. But read more…

Now, let’s look at these biological brains for robots. “The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot. Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain’s output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects. The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of control is from its own brain.”

Impressive, isn’t? The team is now working on “how memories manifest themselves in the brain when the robot revisits familiar territory,” hoping to help people affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Here is a quote from Warwick about this project. “This new research is tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorises its experiences. This research will move our understanding forward of how brains work, and could have a profound effect on many areas of science and medicine.”

This project has been recently presented during the European Robotics Symposium 2008 (EUROS 2008) held in Prague, Czech Republic, on March 26-27, 2008. The title of the paper accepted for publication was “Architecture for Living Neuronal Cell Control of a Mobile Robot,” while Warwick’s keynote talk was named “Robots with Biological Brains and Humans with Part Machine Brains.”

Big news against GMOs

Link between Agrobacterium and genetic engineering in the creation of new disease agents

(Agrobacterium: a soil bacterium causing crown gall disease in plants, that has been widely used in creating genetically modified (GM) plants since the 1980s because of its ability to transfer a piece of its genetic material, the T-DNA on its tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid to the plant genome.)

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States announced the launch of an investigation on ‘Morgellons Disease’ in January 2008 after receiving thousands of complaints from people with this bewildering condition: “ a range of cutaneous (skin) symptoms including crawling, biting and stinging sensations; granules, threads, fibers, or black speck-like materials on or beneath the skin, and/or skin lesions (e.g., rashes or sores). In addition to skin manifestations, some sufferers also report fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, and changes in visions.”

The states of California, Texas and Florida have the highest number of cases of Morgellons disease in the United States. Primary clusters were noted in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Houston, Dallas and Austin.

Morgellons Disease first became known in 2001, when Mary Leitao created a web site describing the illness in her young son, which she named after a 17th century medical study in France describing similar symptoms. Until then, people with Morgellons Disease have been diagnosed
as cases of “delusional parasitosis”, in which the symptoms are deemed entirely imaginary, and lesions allegedly due to self-inflicted wounds.

“All Morgellons patients screened to date have tested positive for the presence of Agrobacterium, whereas this microorganism has not been detected in any of the samples derived from the control, healthy individuals.” Their preliminary conclusion is that “Agrobacterium may be involved in the etiology and/or progression” of Morgellons Disease.

“There’s almost always some history of exposure to dirt basically either from gardening or camping or something.” Research done at SUNY Stonybrook reported finding Agrobacterium DNA in all 5 Morgellons patients studied. Stricker suggests it is transmitted by ticks, like Lyme disease, and in a recent survey of 44 Morgellons patients in San Francisco, 43 of them also tested positive for the bacterium causing Lyme disease. Another factor consistent with Agrobacterium being a causative agent, if not the causative agent, is that when patients are treated with antibacterials for their Lyme disease, remission of Morgellons symptoms is seen in most of them

At this point, the findings on the Agrobacterium connection are still preliminary, as only seven patients have been studied. Nevertheless, the implications are far-reaching if this connection is confirmed, as existing evidence (reviewed below) suggests a link between Agrobacterium
and genetic engineering in the creation of new disease agents, and it is paramount for the CDC investigation to include this aspect, if only to rule it out.

Lake Baikal Article

BOLSHIYE KOTY, Russia (Aug. 10) - The world's oldest, deepest and biggest freshwater lake is growing warmer, dirtier and more crowded.

Lyubov Izmestieva is charting these insidious changes. Marina Rikhvanova is fighting them. And the fate of one of the world's rarest ecosystems, a turquoise jewel set in the vast Siberian taiga, hangs in the balance.

For centuries Lake Baikal has inspired wonder and, more recently, impassioned defenders. With more fresh water than the Great Lakes combined, and home to 1,500 species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world, Baikal has been called Sacred Sea, Pearl of Siberia, Galapagos of Russia.

But these pristine waters, a mile deep in some places, are threatened by polluting factories, a uranium enrichment facility, timber harvesting, and, increasingly, Earth's warming climate. The struggle has turned nasty, with Rikhvanova, an environmental activist, claiming the authorities even dragooned her own son into a violent attack on her group.

Tourists, most of them newly prosperous Russians, are flocking to the lake, filling the beaches, building vacation dachas and changing the lake's ecology. Resorts are opening. There are more fishermen, hunters and boaters.

The lake's significance goes far beyond Russia's borders; its size and fragility, say environmentalists, makes it a sort of test case for such bodies of fresh water around the world.
"Baikal is the greatest lake in the world. It is a limitless reserve and source for water that all of humanity can drink without any sort of purification," says Izmestieva, a third-generation biologist. "This is a priceless gift for everyone, whether you live in Bolshiye Koty or Florida ... or Kansas."

Shimmering, crystalline waters lap at the hull of the boat named for Izmestieva's scientist grandfather, Mikhail Kozhov, as her colleagues sort plastic jugs and glass bottles and prepare for the day's work.

Lyudmila Ryabenka lowers a plate-sized disc into the rolling waves to measure transparency and quality. Then she winches a cone-shaped net deep into the lake to pull up phytoplankton -- tiny plants that are an essential food source for many fish and shellfish. Later, she and another biologist use a glass cylinder to measure water temperature and collect animal plankton samples.
On the return to the ramshackle village of Bolshiye Koty, Ryabenka says the sampling is sometimes tedious. When the boat pitches or the Siberian winter winds howl, it's even harder. "We say that only romantics do this sort of work."

But every week to 10 days, four seasons a year, for more than 60 years, Izmestiva's family and their colleagues has kept at it.

Izmestiva, 56, the gruff-spoken director of Irkutsk State University's Scientific Research Institute of Biology, is the third generation in her family to do this work. Starting in 1945, her grandfather sailed out onto Baikal's waters -- or trudged out on its ice -- to take samples. When he died, Izmestieva's mother continued the work until her death in 2000. Izmestiva then took over.

Taking the samples became a family ritual, she says. "There's a kind of work that just has to be done whether you like it or not. ... And it's just worked out that we're the ones who have to do it."

The result has been a remarkable trove of data published in the U.S. journal Global Change Biology in an extraordinary paper that concluded Baikal is warming and its food web changing. That echoes other evidence of climate change, including thinning lake ice, arriving later and leaving earlier.

Izmestieva and her colleagues supplement small academic salaries (around $200 a month) consulting for private companies. They store samples in old champagne and vodka bottles. Their work space is the porch of a tired-looking shore-side cabin in Bolshiye Koty.

Now, the university rector wants to rent out the institute's cabins to tourists. That, Izmestieva says, would likely deprive the scientists of a base from which to monitor the lake's changing nature.

"No one will do this if we don't," she says.

Some 20 to 30 million years ago, scientists believe, a rift in the Earth's crust created Baikal's 400-mile-long, sickle-shaped basin.

Today the lake near the Mongolian border, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, contains one-fifth of the world's fresh water, enough to provide Earth's 7 billion people with six cups of water a day for the next 6,000 years.

It's a sprawling outdoor laboratory of biological diversity comparable to the rich fauna of the Galapagos Islands. Geologists come to study the formation of the Asian continent. Biologists probe such mysteries as how a lake 1,000 miles inland became home to the world's only true species of freshwater seals.

Last month two small, manned submarines reached the bottom of the lake with scientists on board to take soil and water samples. The 5,223-foot dive fell just short of setting a world record.

Baikal inspired the Soviet Union's environmental movement in the 1960s, after Izmestieva's grandfather and other scientists spoke out against Nikita Khrushchev's plans to build a pulp and paper factory on its shores.

Today Marina Rikhvanova, who helped found the nonprofit group Baikal Ecological Wave, is still fighting to close the mill, which has created a dead zone miles wide in the lake and may be contaminating the seals.

A few years back her group led protests against a 2,700-mile oil pipeline, part of which would run along the lake's northern shores. The group's books were audited by authorities, its computers seized and its phones tapped -- retaliation, she says, for fighting the pipeline.

In 2006, then President Vladimir Putin ordered the pipeline rerouted, a rare victory for Russian environmentalists that earned Rikhvanova international accolades. This year she won a prestigious, $150,000 award from the U.S.-based Goldman Foundation.

The 47-year-old former scientist says the victory demonstrates Baikal's potency as a symbol.
The lake "is an indicator of whether modern man can curb his appetite and preserve what nature has created," she says, surrounded by shelves of maps, nature guides and scientific papers. "It's a kind of red line for humanity."

Now she's taking on Kremlin plans to build a uranium enrichment facility 60 miles west of the lake, which would produce nuclear fuel. Officials say the project would bring thousands of jobs to this poor region. Environmentalists say it's a grave mistake that would threaten a natural wonder with radiation.

A year ago Rikhvanova helped organize a tent camp protest not far from the site of the proposed facility. Skinhead nationalists attacked the camp and beat the protesters, one fatally.
Rikhvanova's son, Pavel, was among the intruders, although he denies hurting anyone. She alleges that authorities set up her son in an effort to embarrass her organization. Prosecutors officials refused to comment. Pavel remains in custody.

Despite her personal pain, she says, she is not about to give up. Baikal is too important. "When you see results from your work, you want to continue," she says. "You have to persevere."

The WE Can Do It Campaign

Part of Live Earth

8/17/08
Hi there,
I want to make sure you know about a new ad that started airing today. "Free Us" starts with the phrase 'To our leaders,' and will air during both upcoming political conventions. It completes an important shift in the We Campaign's messaging.
Watch the ad.
This new ad focuses specifically on the challenge to Repower America by generating 100% of our electricity from clean sources within 10 years. This was also true of our recently seen "Switch" ad (watch the "Switch" ad.) These ads, along with the T. Boone Pickens' media buy mean that millions of Americans are now hearing about big goals - with real targets and immediate timelines. The notion that the best way to rebuild our economy is to make a dramatic shift in our energy mix is now getting critical attention.
"Free Us" takes a different tone from our previous ads. While the first We Campaign ads offered a general invitation to the movement for climate solutions, this ad issues a direct challenge. While showing what a transformed economy looks like, the ad also hints at a transformation among the American people. It explicitly moves from a request to a demand.
Have a look. And there's more on the way.
Best,Giselle
Director of Communications
www.wecansolveit.org

We're thrilled about Al Gore's new WE Campaign website http://www.joinliveearth.org/page/m/6fb649c07e5656ff/8b51Tj/VEsE/. The WE Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, which we launched with our first Live Earth concert on 7.07.07. The WE Campaign's ultimate aim is to halt global warming. They are beginning with educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.

On the new WE Campaign site you can:
Sign the petition for a global treaty on climate change
Tell your friends about the latest WE Campaign video
Urge the press to ask candidates about global warming
Ask lenders to consider climate impact when funding new coal plants We'll update you on the WE Campaign regularly - and watch for their broadcast and online advertisements!

WHAT'S GREENER? To bamboo, or not to bamboo?

...that is the question. Is bamboo the answer for your flooring needs? Does bamboo damage the environment? Tell us about how you're using bamboo in and around your home on our blog. Have you found bamboo products you swear by? Check back soon for a report back from our Green Team. http://www.joinliveearth.org/page/m/6fb649c07e5656ff/cEO5nG/VEsHBA==/ (Still haven't gotten around to that spring cleaning? Check out last week's topic: What's Greener? Buying green cleaning products, or making your own? http://www.joinliveearth.org/page/m/6fb649c07e5656ff/8gcqq4/VEsHBw==/ )

Earth Day is coming: Call for Climate!
Earth Day is right around the corner - April 22nd! In the next few weeks, take a minute and Call for the Climate! Let our leaders know if they want to keep their jobs, they have to do something, something big and bold, to solve climate change. What should you ask them to do?

Take these ideas from the Live Earth Pledge:

Demand that our country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;
Ask them to fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;
Tell them to work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of homes, workplaces, schools, places of worship, and means of transportation;
Encourage them to pass laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

If you are in the US...

White House - 202.456.1111
Capitol Hill (our Capitol Hill Operators are really helpful, don't be afraid to call and ask for your Member of Congress!!) 202.224.3121

If you are outside the US - call your president, legislators, and local officials. Check back soon on the Earth Day site (www.earthday.net) for more information on Earth Day events and the progress of "Call for Climate"!

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Heavy Sigh

I fried the stove.
So much for preserving your own food to save money.
Are orange flames coming out out of the knob for a burner a bad thing?
Thankfully, the seals on the tomatoes I was canning at the time sealed.

I got so pissed at this whole mess that I looked up designs for making a solar dehydrator. Not the purest of logic, but it sure works as a coping mechanism...

This link has given credit where credit is due. All others don't give credit, but use the exact same wording and drawing.

So, I looked around at our boxes, and took a bunch of crap that had been saved for no particular reason and came up with the dehydrator in less than 30 minutes....

Here's the front view. The plastic I used was from the bags the grass clippers were packed in. So yes, a little wrinkly, but reused is a good thing. As I was making the collector portion of the dehydrator, the heat coming out of it was pretty intense, so am not concerned about the wrinkles.










Here, you can see the inside of the collector. If you look toward the bottom of the picture, you can see the light from the hole to let the hot air into the dryer portion. The hole to let cool air in at the bottom of the collector is large, and the hole into the dryer is small. My theory is to give it a convection type breeze. We'll see if it works.

I've got about a cup of berries in to start. The screen is from a broken window screen - metal, so no melting or outgassing. I wasn't very good at cutting the screen - it won't stay in place off the bottom of the dehydrator with the berries on it, so have a couple of cardboard pieces - very small - to help support the screen.



The back of the dehydrator - a shoe box. LOL It already had a small hole in it, so I'm using the lid to help hold the heat in, but the vent hole will keep air circulating through quite well. From bottom front to top rear will assure all of the berries will get hot air over them.

Peach Pit Jelly

I have finally finished working with a bushel of peaches. It was only 2 days worth of effort really, so I'm not going to argue. Last year it was close to a week.

Peaches were gorgeous this year! PA peaches - FYI. Few bruises, wonderful flavor and texture. It was just a great year.

I had hoped for 26 pints of peaches, plus a batch of jam. Well, I got 38 pints canned, 4 frozen and the batch of jam. Life is good!

Every year, when we do peaches, my mom speaks of when her mother canned them. She was newly married, and now doing the canning with mother in law and sister in law, who had never heard of scalding the peaches to peel more easily. They asked her what she did with the skins - make jelly, just like you. Oh!

So, I got thinking about it this year. I went online and started searching. What I found was called Peach Pit Jelly. Sounds just so wonderful, huh? LOL - I thought the same thing. But, read the directions and the ingredients and decided this is basically what Grammy made. So - I gave it a try.

The Recipe
Skins and pits from 1 bushel of peaches
Water enough to cover skins/pits in pot by 2"
Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes
Place in 3 layers of cheese cloth
Hang and let drip until dripping stops - 2 hours
Measure 3 1/2 C of juice - boil down to make 3 1/2 or add water, as necessary
Add 4 1/2 C sugar
Bring to boil
Add liquid pectin - boil 1 minute at sea level
Skim foam, ladle into jars, process as you would any other jam/jelly.

What I did
I skinned and pitted the peaches over a bowl, to catch any juice as well as the skins/pits.
I only boiled 2/3 of the stuff since that's all I had that day. I also only added about a half cup water - just to make sure it didn't stick to the pan.
Boiled for about 15 minutes (I did the boiling before I found the recipe!)
I didn't boil the juice down - it looked pretty thick already, and had 5 1/2 C of juice.
I used the clearest of the juice to make the jelly
From here I followed the directions.

Very interesting flavor! I don't know that you could say it was peach if you had to do a blind taste test, but very light, very floral almost. It's hard to explain.

It's way too sweet for me - as most jams and jellies are, but it's worth trying if you work with peaches at all. Very good! Mom likes it, so I'll make a batch a year.

Today, when I finished up the peaches, I decided to make some more of the juice and added it to the syrup for the peaches, rather than water. I ended up making too much syrup again, so will use it as the base for my bread and butter pickles. LOL I don't think it'll add much to their flavor, but it may. And these peaches have a much nicer pink/peach look to them, rather than the yellow/peach they usually are. Will comment on the flavor when we open a jar.