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19 August 2008
Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:11:33 GMTFarewell, My Subaru
Journalist chronicles his transplantation into rural New Mexico with the goal of going green, almost cold–turkey. Solar electricity, water from a well, a veggie oil diesel truck conversion, goats chickens and a big garden. He even manages to find happiness and family. A good story.
I’ve always wanted to try something like this. Particularly the computer nerd aspect of it: I’ll never pull a Thoreau so much as wait out for super–wifi that’ll let me bring an internet connection and solar powered computer paraphernalia into the sticks with me. The author has a website. Gotta figure out how to make that work. Overall a quick inspiring fun read.
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26 July 2006
Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:56:31 GMT William McDonough at Bioneers 2000via Kjell Olsen897 days agoAmazing lecture. Make this into a feature film, and elect this guy president.
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19 June 2005
Sun, 19 Jun 2005 09:42:42 GMT Brazilians buck rising gas prices with innovative fuelvia Kjell Olsen1300 days agoLike tens of thousands of her countrymen, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil’s largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline.
Minnesota just ok’d a bill that called for higher ethanol content in gas, but running your entire car off the stuff sounds like fun.
Today about 40 percent of all the fuel that Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, known here as alcohol, compared with about 3 percent in the United States. No other nation is using ethanol on such a vast scale. The change wasn’t easy or cheap. But 30 years later, Brazil is reaping the return on its investment in energy security while the United States writes checks for $50-a-barrel foreign oil.
Flex Fuel vehicles use an engine that can run off either gas or ethanol, or any mix of the two.
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08 April 2005
Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:24:15 GMT Land Living: Modern Lifestyle Designvia Kjell Olsen1372 days agoPaolo Soleri is an Italian architect who was an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright in the late 1940’s. Soleri later developed the concept of Arcology, the fusion of architecture and ecology, an alternative urban development form. In 1970 construction began on Arcosanti, a prototype town for 5,000 people (there are currently about 60 residents).
Looks cool.
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07 April 2005
Thu, 07 Apr 2005 21:11:00 GMTCradle to Cradle
William McDonough, Michael Braungart
Excellent book detailing how exactly we can begin to stop incessantly raping the earth. Improving the way we build and manufacture things: build things to be recovered and reused, not recycled, but upcycled – made into more valuable or at least equally valuable things after being consumed instead of lesser.
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Also somewhat recently
