Thursday, August 29, 2019

The Air Conditioning Paradox

This article in the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world

does a good job of describing the problem and paradox of air conditioning, that basically as the planet gets warmer, we use more air conditioning and that energy use, in turn, contributes to the warming of the planet.

Decades ago Christine and I had one of the few serious disagreements we've ever had. We were newly married and I bought a new car. (This will tell you how long ago it was, we haven't owned cars or driven for more than three decades now!) The car I bought didn't have air conditioning. Christine was appalled. I grew up in Minnesota and viewed air conditioning as an unneccessary luxury. Christine grew up in the south and viewed air conditioning as close to essential. That summer, when she was pregnant with Peter, our first born, and we sat snarled in hot summer traffic on our commute from Bethlehem. Connecticut to White Plains, NY along I-684, I realized that I had been very, very wrong. That, of course, meant that Christine was very, very right.

Our ultimate solution was to ditch both the car and the commute and eventually move to the more temperate Pacific Northwest. Issaquah, Washington proved to be a pretty good place to raise our kids and they seemed to have turned out fine despite being raised in a car and air conditioning free household.

Now we live several hundred miles further south, in Eugene, Oregon. While Eugene is a very cool town in many ways (for example, it has the highest bakery & bookstore score of any place I've ever lived) but in terms of average weather, it's a bit warmer and Eugene tends to have higher high temperatures. Clicking below will give you the details:

Average Weather in Issaquah

Average Weather in Eugene

Christine, Inkling and I have been doing fine in Eugene with strategically opening and closing our blinds and windows and using a few fans to keep cool. Inkling, being a black furred solar cat, has become expert at finding the coolest, shadiest places to be in the summer and the sunniest warmest spots in the winter.

I have one more bit of cooling technology, one that both Christine and my friend Michael have declared to be "dorky". It's a USB rechargeable neck fan. It looks like this:


I charge mine using either an Ultralight 6 Watt Solar Panel or the 10 Watt Renogy E.FLEX Solar Panel. The fan sucks air in the front and blows it straight out the top. When worn around the neck it provides a cooling breeze right across the major blood vessels in your neck and I find it makes a big difference in my personal comfort. But, I have to admit that I look like a dork when I wear it.

A comfortable dork.

Keep Cool!

Kent Peterson
Eugene, OR USA



Saturday, August 24, 2019

Solar Nomadics' Director of Marketing In Action

Today Christine and I rode our bikes over to the River Road Community Resilience Festival. We got to chat with a bunch of folks about the wonders of solar energy. Christine now has the official title of "Director of Marketing" and she looked fabulous in her sun costume.



Talking on Sunshine

I've written a small paper describing how you can charge a phone or other USB gadget from the sun. You can read it here:

http://bit.ly/TalkingOnSunshine


Friday, August 23, 2019

What the heck is Solar Nomadics?



Solar Nomadics is a very small business devoted to teaching people about solar energy and providing them with portable solar products. I'm Kent Peterson and I started Solar Nomadics after reading the book Cooler Smarter and thinking about how I could not only lower my carbon footprint but maybe help others do so as well. I've never been a businessman, and at sixty years old it's maybe late to be starting. My goal with this business is not to get rich, but I would like to keep things going and not go broke.

As of today, I still have a day job as the Ebike Service Mechanic at Bike Friday, which is already a pretty eco-friendly and cool way of making a living. My Ebike runs entirely on my power and the solar energy I harvest from my tiny solar shed. While I'm the main instigator at Solar Nomadics, my lovely wife Christine is our "Director of Marketing" because she has agreed to wear a bright yellow sun costume when we are out in the street preaching the gospel of solar power. The final member of our management team is Inkling, who directly harvests solar energy every chance he gets.


On this blog I intend to talk about various aspects of solar energy and the ups and downs of running a very small business. I don't know where this is going, but this is the start.

Kent Peterson
Eugene, Oregon USA