renewable energy

Over the last year since I have been back in NJ and owning an old home, I have been thinking about ways we could be more “green”. Solar seems the easiest for the little things (e.g. driveway lights and lights on the front stairs).

I was talking to my brother-in-law about the prospects of them buying a home with a pool and one of the big drawbacks (aside from the weekly cleaning, chemicals etc.) is the pump to circulate the water through the pool. He said a lot of the newer pools are using larger pumps that use more electricity to kick on for a shorter time vs. being slower, lower power and on longer…

I thought what about having a solar panel on top of the pump to power and charge the system to use 50%+ of the power from the sun…

What about just having solar panels or a small turbine on the roof to off-set some of the electricity used on a regular basis. Here in Maplewood NJ we have our share of windy days – what if I could pull down the old TV antenna and replace it with a small turbine?

Just some thoughts for 2009…