happy earth day!

Happy Earth Day!

Make an effort to unplug today somehow--use less energy, buy locally, take a walk, ride your bike, do some gardening & clean up! But then try doing that more often all year long!

There is an endless list of ways you can help: Today you could recycle, plant a tree, give to an environmental non-profit program, spring clean and donate to a Salvation Army, start a compost pile, take the bus, change to energy efficient light bulbs, adopt a road and remove the trash, cook a vegetarian meal, make a call to a solar company to install photovoltaics on your home or buy a carbon offset if you are flying.

Become Vegetarian: meat production is responsible for around 18% of global CO2 emissions. 5,214 gallons of water are required to produce a single pound of beef, and the EPA estimates that more than 27,000 miles of US rivers have been polluted by livestock waste.

Stop using plastic from now on! Americans dispose of 10.5 million tons of plastic garbage every year, and about 8% of the world's annual oil production is used toward the creation of plastic products. A single plastic bottle can spend anywhere from 100 to 1000 years in a landfill.

But remember, earth day is everyday-this is our home.
Check out the EarthDay.org action center rallies, campaigns, arts & more!

upcoming eco events: front range colorado

Boulder Startup Weekend April 16-18th--Got an idea for a business? Bring it here.

EarthWorks Expo May 22-23 2010 @ Denver Merchandise Mart

Sustainable Living Association--Ongoing Workshops

Crafty Ballyhoo Saturday April 17th--Craft Market across from Denver Museum of Modern Art--with call for cakes for their cakewalk!

Green Route Restaurant Tours Throughout April

Colorado Renewable Energy Society--Ongoing Events

Earth Fest Boulder April 25th Downtown

Doors Open Denver April 17-18th-an annual celebration of Denver's built environment and design.

LOHAS June 23-25th Boulder

jenni tieaho: environmental artist

Jenni Tieaho

new belgium brewery: solar array

New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins Colorado has recently announced the largest privately owned solar array in Colorado has gone live at their plant. The 200 kW system will produce 16 percent of New Belgium’s peak electrical load and 3 percent of their total electrical energy use.
The array is part of the brewer’s commitment to Fort Collins’ FortZED initiative, a public/private partnership that aims to create the world’s largest “active zero energy district” through Smart Grid and renewable energy technology.

Boulder-based Namaste Solar began the installation in late August 2009. The New Belgium packaging hall now holds 870 panels, and engineers estimate it can power the bottle line for up to eight hours on a sunny day.
New Belgium became the country’s first brewery to subscribe to 100 percent wind powered electricity in 1998 and can produce up to 15 percent of its electrical needs by capturing methane from its process water treatment plant to fire a co-generation engine which produces heat and electricity on-site.

haute nature local favorite maps: denver boulder

View Haute Nature's Favorite Places in Denver. in a larger map


View Haute Nature's Favorite Places in Boulder. in a larger map

garbage warrior: pre-screener

Gotta see this movie about Earthship construction around the world and trying to get a bill passed for experimental architecture that is environmental and energy efficient--you can rent it on Netflix.

upholstery arts: biodegradable sofas

Upholstery Arts is a completely biodegradable sofa! Using FSC-certified wood, 100% natural latex, 100% natural wool, non-toxic fire protection, non-toxic glues, stains and finishes & ecological textiles; this has to be the greenest sofa around!

urban transformation through landscape

Giardiningiro is an international event taking place in Torino (Italy), from 9 to 11 October 2009.

Giardiningiro is a project that aims to create twenty temporary garden installations in the city of Turin, Italy, in the district called San Salvario, nearby the river Po. The project also includes a cultural program of book presentations, workshops and activities to promote the creation of gardens in the disused areas of the town.

Giardini is part of a wider energy campaign called Uniamo le energie, sustained by Regione Piemonte (Piedmont Regional Government).

Each garden should carry a message and provide the visitor with a stimulating new experience through the layout of the installation and the interaction of artistry and creativity so that places that are normally ignored are reinterpreted and their special features and inherent vitality revealed.

An international jury will select the 20 best applications from all those submitted. Over the following months the different projects will be developed alongside the organising team.

engineering giants go green

With positive business forecasts for profit in the green sector, some of the biggest U.S. engineering companies are moving toward power plant retrofits, solar and wind energy installments. Fluors, Jacobs and Bechtel are all changing direction and seeing profit in green energy, with current economic climate & current political leanings, this is just what US needs to make the full change over to the SmartGrid. More from Reuters.

boulder colorado favorites

Check out my list, Haute's Favorite Places in Boulder, Colorado. (You must click to link at top left.) There is one for Denver too.

Boulder will be the first smart grid city, thanks to Xcel Energy which will use (V2G) technology and plug thousands of PHEVs and different energy sources, such as solar and wind, into the grid and made them work together. The reasoning behind Boulder being the first city to try this system is it houses the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST is involved in the project, and several other federal agencies. I cannot wait for the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle stations!

13 new solar plants in the west

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Senator Harry Reid announce plans to fast-track commercial-scale solar power development on public lands.

Federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development.

Under the zoning portion of the initiative, 24 tracts of Bureau of Land Management land located in six western states, known as Solar Energy Study Areas, would be evaluated for their environmental and resource suitability for commercial-scale solar energy production. Those areas selected would be available for projects capable of producing 10 or more megawatts of electricity. The Solar Energy Study Areas (maps) located in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah encompass about 670,000 acres.

The goal is to produce a total of 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity. The plan would streamline the entire development process; coordinate zoning and environmental studies, and; prioritize the processing of the projects. The new plan will tap resources made available in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Obama.

via RGB

biodiesel from waste

A group of Spanish developers working for a company called Ecofasa just announced a new biofuel made up from trash. This isn't a biodiesel made from used frying oil; instead, it's made from general urban waste which is treated by bacteria. The result of that bacteria? Fatty acids that can be used to produce standard biodiesel. According to the company's CEO, the process is fully biologic, competes with no feedstock and is really sustainable. However, the process doesn't yield that much actual fuel: just one liter of biodiesel from 10 kg of trash. The project is now in a development phase, but Ecofasa said that a commercially viable model could be ready in three to four years.
Source

denver green fest

Denver's first Green Festival debuted this last weekend. If you missed it, you'd better mark your calendar for next year--or get on over to Chicago's. Tons of great eco vendors, speakers, food, entertainment and demonstrations! Featured in the pictures are:
Livity
Green Guru
Growing Spaces
To-Go Ware
Sambazon
and the following fairly new local Colorado Companies that I have not covered yet --stories coming soon:
House Fish
Teatulia
Bhakti Chai

clear water revival: natural pools

Clear Water Revival from UK, builds natural swimming pools free from chemically disinfected water. Working with Blue Base from Austria, each garden & swimming pond is carefully designed to meld with the surrounding landscape with unpolluted water. BlueBase was set up in Austria in 1996 after 3 years of research at Vienna University. The company has been responsible for over 1200 pool installations worldwide.

first denver green fest

The first annual Denver Green Festival is this weekend May 2nd and 3rd. Tickets are cheap, $15--Go!