Green Leaf Report

Today, on the first full day of the WindPower 2008 conference, we attended press conferences and worked the exhibition floor some more.  The expiring federal production tax credit (PTC) is getting a lot of attention and a lot of press.  If this tax credit does not get extended this year, the wind energy industry […]

I arrived today at the WindPower 2008 conference in Houston - I’m so excited to attend!  So far we’ve only attended for one partial day, but I’ve already met some great new people and learned things about wind that I didn’t know I didn’t know.
After our registration, we headed over to the […]

HP scientists have just made my electrical engineering degree obsolete with their proof of the existence of Memristors.  Thank goodness I sold my college textbooks long ago- I’m happy to see any breakthrough related to huge reductions in power requirements, though.  In theory, this memristor component holds memory without requiring power:
Building computers with Memristors might […]

As part of my quest to reduce my environmental footprint, I recently visited a nearby Costco, and was disappointed.  I’ve never been a member at the warehouse giant, but I’m trying to reduce the amount of packaging I purchase with my dry goods, and my theory was that if I buy in larger bulk sizes, […]

As an undergrad, I worked on a research project where we ran bayou sediment samples through X-ray fluorescence equipment to determine the heavy metal content, and thus the amount of long-term pollution. A recent article highlighted that labs are now using the same equipment on new toys destined for our kids, with scary results:
“Tests […]

 At what point did our culture stop respecting anything free?  How many people have kept their air conditioner running on nights that are cooler outside than the air conditioner is set on inside?  Who among us has put clothes in the automatic drier when it’s 80 degrees outside (or even warmer)? Which vendors keep bright lights burning […]

Today I signed up to stop catalog delivery to my home through Catalog Choice, a service supporting sustainable industry best practices.  My biggest pet peeve is the Pottery Barn catalogs- a few years ago we bought a natural fiber rug from Pottery Barn for our living room.  Unfortunately, our dogs seemed to think the […]