Solar Compass

What’s your Personal Carbon Footprint?

Eshone Energy's Solar Compass Blog topic:  The Department of Energy actually has a calculator to tell you how much greenhouse gases you produce on a daily basis.

What IS a Carbon footprint? The amount of greenhouse gas you generate by an activity or process. In other words, what impact you make on the environment measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide (C0₂).  This calculator, compliments of the Department of Energy, lets you calculate your own carbon footprint.  How much greenhouse gas do you produce while going through your daily activities such as driving, electricity use, and heating your home?

Okay, but what exactly are greenhouse gases?  Bottom line: Without Greenhouse Gases to maintain Earth’s temperature, it would be too cold for habitation.  We need Greenhouse Gases but… we’re tromping heavily with our carbon footprint boots and that’s making the temperature too warm.  Hence, the Greenhouse Effect moves into Global Warming and that’s moved us from “we really should seek out renewable energy” to “we MUST implement renewable energy NOW”.

Okay, I get that but Carbon Dioxide is a gas…it’s hard to wrap my head around “Metric Tons of CO₂”…how much is that really?  The tonnage doesn’t really matter as much as what you can do to reduce that weight.  The average homeowner who drives to work, comes home each evening to a household of four, and flies once a year on vacation has an average carbon footprint of 17 tons of C0₂.  That’s not counting what you breathe out…that’s the just excess CO₂ you’re using that, multiplied by millions, contributes to Global Warming.  On the flip side, by taking simple steps like changing your light bulbs, driving 10% less, buying Energy Star appliances, you can cut your personal damage from 17 to 7 tons…and that’s not even counting installing solar panels on your house or business!  By taking that additional step, you not only zero out your personal carbon footprint but you create a solar footprint and that footprint's good because it helps lessen the damaging effects of others.  In that way, going solar helps the community, which helps the Earth, which helps us all.

KGO Radio Station Reaches Listeners Via the Sun

Solar Compass Blog topic: KGO, a popular Bay Area radio station, gave up the power hungry ghost this Halloween season by going Live with a little help from the sun.

KGO Newstalk AM 810 in San Francisco has a weekly audience of 700,000 listeners.  And now their listeners will get their news from Solar Power. 

KGO teamed up with PG&E and SolFocus to construct this Solar Power System to lessen KGO's impact on the power grid.  This move also makes them a leader because they are the first major radio station in California to Go Solar.

Not only is this radio station visible from the highway, marking a solar footprint on the landscape & thus spreading the word further, but KGO often hosts or covers Green Events.  That’s not just talking the talk…it’s walking the walk…and that being SMART SOLAR TOGETHER

Features:

• The panels are CPV (concentrated photovoltaic).
• The panels are mounted on dual-axis trackers that allow the panels to follow the sun for maximum energy generation.
• The two-part system (roof & ground mounts) generates 12 KW power.

For more information on its construction phases (including photos) check out this link.