Words and pictures from Silicon Valley by Chris Gulker
Friend, fellow Trinity parishioner Peter Bostock was kind enough to take me to work with him this morning. As mentioned previously, Peter is V.P. at Solaicx, a startup that is perfecting a process for making better, cheaper single-crystal PV cells. Having my own personal physics PhD for a couple of hours was a lot of fun… now I have lots of homework to do. On the way home via VTA and CalTrain, I snapped the ‘weather’ pic above at the Mt. View VTA/CalTrain station…
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So, after being inspired by Ted Turner’s keynote at the Solar Conference in Long Beach (he swears he runs around his giant ranch house turning off lights that people leave on) I decided to tighten up World HQ.
Previously, I’ve left the kitchen lights on much of the day, knowing they were low-wattage flourescents, but a quick audit revealed 6 fixtures each rated at 15 Watts. 90 Watts an hour from around 6 AM to 10 PM or so is more than a kilowatt used, and the lights are really only needed during the dark hours of the day.
So now they stay off much of the day – and with PG&E’s ‘marginal rate’ for power (charged much of the day this past summer) at $.45 per kilowatt – that can mount up. We have CFLs almost everywhere now, as well, or low wattage-low voltage work-area lights – 3 fixtures @ 20W each as seen above. We’ve also taken a rack of computers in the garage off-line and are reviewing the other CPUs for optimal ’sleep’ strategies…Â
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From GovernmentExecutive.com:
“The Defense authorization bill approved by the Senate this week would require the Pentagon to consider the effects of climate change on military capabilities, facilities and missions.
“The House version of the bill (H.R. 1585) contains similar language, which means the provision likely will become law.
“The measure requires military planners to assess the risks of projected climate change on current and future missions, update defense plans based on those assessments and develop the capabilities needed to reduce future impacts…” Climate change is, indeed, becoming a security issue…
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