In New York State we are fortunate to be surrounded by family farms, a beautiful landscape, and (some) thriving local communities. In the towns in and around the mountains and valleys of the Hudson Valley you will find communities that are supporting their neighborhood businesses, farms, and farm stands. Local produce, beef, chicken, duck, and pork are the rule in resident’s refrigerators, not the exception. Yet local economies in New York are struggling, like much of the rest of the country.
New jobs are needed, along with tax revenue. The fossil fuels industry has made billions upon billions for the elite upper class in this country while very little has seen its way into the betterment of the lives of residents in each town, village, hamlet, or city in this country. In fact, the drilling and mining exploits of big oil & gas has left many areas of the country devastated by environmental damage.  Centralized, globalized Multi-National Conglomerates are dominating and leaving little choice to be had for the average citizen.

The alternative energy industry has been marginalized ever since its inception, even though the possibilities for a renewable & sustainable energy economy are real and expanding as we speak. Thermal Mass Construction INC has developed a system that achieves energy independence for home owners by reducing or eliminating their reliance on fossil fuels for heat and electricity. The call to retrofit homes for energy efficiency is just beginning in New York, and the goal is to create jobs. We are hoping that the new 'Green Jobs Financing Law' will put real investment into helping residents substantially improve the efficiency of their homes and put money back in their pocket. The local contractors can have consistent work rebuilding their communities. Excavators, general contractors, finishers, trucking, and drilling will all get a major boost from this law if serious funds are implemented to make the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy for home owners.

Working class citizens deserve a break. They are locked into the grid and completely reliant upon the fossil fuels industry for the necessities of life (running their home). Renewable energy used with our "Thermal Mass Concrete/Radiant Panels can break that reliance and generate local wealth for the local businesses that are innovating to harness it in the most beneficial and effective way.  By choosing to support Green Construction we are in turn supporting our neighbors, local economies, and the environment.  Once you build a TMC INC Green Home you no longer are tied to the price fluctuations of fossil fuels.  Once they no longer receive billions in government subsidies they will be unable to buy politicians with donations and job offers.  Their industry has caused countless environmental catastrophes and needs to be moved away from.

The cost to our environment is too much.  There are only so many mountain tops the coal industry can blow up, only so many water aquifers Natural Gas can pollute with fracking, and only so many lifeless, industrial swathes of land we can tolerate.  We see things degrading all around us in terms of quality of life; I say it’s time we did something about it.  The planet cannot sustain it, and our wallets cannot sustain it.  Let’s go Green NOW!

The truth is we can actually take you completely off the grid with the right combination of Geo-Thermal, Solar, and Thermal Mass Construction panels. The geo-cell will provide the storage space for heat in the hot Summer months; the stone aggregate holds the heat in and reradiates it back into the structure when the outside temperatures begin to drop, a proportionate solar array will supply the heat for your hot water as well as supplying electricity for mechanical needs, and the thermal mass panels that will make up the housing structure will be the core of the heating and cooling system. The panels lined with radiant tubing will absorb and retain the heat while circulating pumps will transfer the warm air throughout the entire structure, keeping every inch at 70 degrees.

Can retro-fitting be done to existing homes using Thermal Mass Construction? The answer is YES. As long as the structure is supported we can retro-fit one panel at a time. If you want to do it in stages it is very easy to do one side of the structure at a time. Our structures do not require load bearing walls so adjusting the positioning of the panels prior to setting is easy.

As fuel electricity prices rise the average working class citizen is wondering how to keep up with the cost of living. Heating oil and gasoline prices have skyrocketed in the past decade due to speculation in the market, and wages have stagnated leaving the average workers reaching for lint their pockets.  Many economists believe the cost of food and fuel will cause another recession, and if the government allows the United States default on its debt we will suffer a hardship not many in this country are prepared for.  It makes us all wonder if there is something more we Americans can do to solve the energy crisis.  The short answer is, we need to empower ourselves, not industrial corporations.

The truth is alternative energy solutions exist all over the globe, but in America we have not done all we can to support and grow the industry. Oil & Gas companies are some of the most profitable corporations on the planet and are extremely influential in the political arena.  The fossil fuel industry is connected to nearly every quadrent of our economy, which is why there is valid hesitation concerning a transition to a sustainable~renewable energy economy. They have worked to suppress alternative energy to some degree on the local and national level, yet right here in New York State we have created a company that can build you a residential or commercial structure 100% off the grid for good.

Energy efficiency: Real estate’s next granite counter top?

By Elisa Wood

Today marks the start of the panel portion of NewNoise Santa Barbara, a music conference and festival here in town. What brings us here today is a panel discussing the role of sustainability in music, and how musicians are putting in the effort to reduce their impact on the road. Topics covered so far have focused on the use of the internet to bring people together. Whether that means joining non-profits with musicians, or allowing musicians to broadcast directly to their audience over the computer. The panel is ongoing, and I will be updating this blog with specific details. We're streaming the discussion live through the link below, so join in to learn all about it!

Live stream link: http://bit.ly/avvima

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a wonderful local event. Put on by the USGBC California Central Coast Chapter, or C4, it was an art show highlighting green building and design. I haven't heard of too many projects doing this, at least locally, and it seemed to fit very well with the Santa Barbara crowd.

Half of the works on display were finalists from our local entries submitted to the Natural Talent Design Competition. This is put on by the USGBC to challenge emerging professionals to come up with great sustainable designs. This year's topic is focused on the rebuilding of New Orleans, specifically within the Broadmoor neighborhood, and a few finalists picked from all over the US will be sent to Greenbuild to be showcased. The other half on display was a cube decorated on all sides with architectural renderings, drawings, and photographs of building and design from all over the world.

Bamboo is a plant that’s origin dates back to prehistoric times. Many years and many uses later, bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. It is technically a grass found on nearly every continent; it can grow in the mountains, the tropics and even in the Southern United States. There are nearly 1600 different species of bamboo.

Bamboo, although at times resembles trees, differs from them in growth patterns and plant structure. Bamboo has two growth patterns; clumping and running root systems. These root systems create a natural bio filter for storm water runoff; while staying in natural clumped balls prevents soil erosion. Bamboo also produces 30% more oxygen than a like sized timber forest area. These differences allow bamboo to grow faster and straighter than any known tree species. Bamboo reaches the degree of its size in height and circumference in its 1st or 2nd year of life.

Researchers at UC Berkeley are perfecting a technique that will allow clothing manufacturers to embed microscopic fibers that can produce electricity from simple body movements, such as hiking, walking or stretching. While it might take up to three years for clothing containing this technology to hit the shelves of your local GAP store, this new breakthrough technology offers us a great opportunity to reduce our electricity demands on local utilities and reduce our costs for charging all of our high-tech devices.  

These nano sized generators are constituted of micro-filaments that are similar to fishing line, extremely flexible, but are so small they can barely be seen with the human eye.  These ultra flexible fibers can withstand not only the laundry cycle, but are resistant to chemicals and heat.  And when they are woven into clothing fabric according to the researchers accounts “the fibers can soak up the untapped energy produced by the human body” and with even more vigorous motion in certain joints, additional energy is generated.  

This new fiber technology utilizes piezoelectricity, that allows you to produce energy through applied stress, similar to rubbing your hands together to keep warm.  While the dream of producing energy from tiny components has been a far off dream for many scientists, the research team at Berkeley has developed an innovative way to effectively solve this problem.

While this technology is not yet available,  I love to read and learn more about innovative research and development, but only wish we had the funding through loans, grants and subsidies, to inspire and enable more creative and innovative minds the opportunity to design, create, and implement new products to compete in a new market that can create jobs in the green sector as well as revive our economy.  

I welcome your thoughts, comments and feedback on my post.  I would love to engage thought leaders in evolving technologies to offer us insight and education on new developments in alternative energy projects. 

Here's a good article about our exclusive project delivery method, Total Project Management.

http://www.hoffman.net/attachments/Total_Project_Management_Greener.pdf

Let me know your thoughts!
Pete

Yesterday state utility regulators approved a new California Solar Initiative Thermal Program that will offer $350 million in rebates to encourage it’s residents to install water-heating systems powered by solar energy.

Funding for this program is broken down into three areas, with $250 million to replace natural gas powered water heaters and an additional $25 million set aside for low income residents.  Additional monies to the tune of $100.8 million will be used to fund the exchange of electrically powered water heaters.  Federal tax credits are also available and can be coupled with the state rebates for 30% of the value of new water heaters.