It's All About the Grid

You know it's all about the Grid.

It's all about who controls the power and the means of transmission of that power.

The good thing about what is going on now in terms of renewable energy is that it has the possibility of decentralizing the generation of power and the transmission of it. The famous but not nearly famous enough scientist Niloka Tesla was around when the Electrical Grid Started and was instrumental in getting it possible in the first place.

Ironically his goal was to centralize and then let it out to the world in a world wide web that would be free for everyone to use. Maybe we should call Nikola Tesla the real Father of the Internet.

The following article by my friend E.D. Faraday sheds some light on Tesla and gets one thinking about where the Grid is headed today.


LEGEND IN LIGHT

Peserving the (Almost) Lost Long Island History of Electrical Genius Nikola Tesla
by Edward Dylan Faraday

Originally Published in canvas Magazine on Long Island January 2007 (http://www.canvasli.com/ )

Lying in ruins off Route 25A in Shoreham, N.Y. is the former laboratory of Nikola Tesla, forgotten father of modern electricity, radio and wireless communications. With an astonishing career of more than 700 patents, including a 1928 flying machine that was a combination airplane and helicopter, Tesla literally lit up the world—and airwaves—with his genius.

After immigrating to America from Serbia in 1884, Tesla developed a system of alternating current electricity, which was later sold to George Westinghouse and became the de facto standard when Thomas Edison’s direct current system was proven less practical in its ability to transmit power over long distances.

At the turn of the century, Tesla proclaimed a vision of creating the first worldwide wireless broadcasting system. Borrowing money from banker JP Morgan, Tesla bought land on the cliffs of Long Island Sound at a site called Wardenclyffe, and in 1902 he commissioned architect Stanford White, who made his own home at Box Hill in St. James, N.Y., to build a stately brick laboratory with a magnificent 187-foot tower crowned by a spaceship-like steel sphere. There was even a private track spur off of the LIRR track that went directly to the Wardenclyffe laboratory.

Tesla’s dream, which seemed like science fiction at the time, was to use the tower to broadcast news, stock market reports, and private messages across the ocean. He proclaimed to Morgan, “When wireless is fully applied, the Earth will be converted into a huge brain, capable of response in every one of its parts.”What Tesla did not tell Morgan was that he also planned to transmit electricity from his tower to the whole world, without wires, using the ionosphere, which is the air mass surrounding the Earth.

So why is Tesla the genius you’ve never heard about? And why is his former laboratory, built by one of America’s most celebrated architects, lying in ruins as a designated hazardous waste disposal site in Shoreham, N.Y.?

The demise of the Tesla tower starts with Tesla himself. After inventing alternating current electricity and helping enable America and the world to electrify, Tesla’s life kept taking downward turns. Conspiracy theorists think his dreams of broadcasting free electricity throughout the world without wires was the start of his misfortune, since wealthy oligarchs who controlled the electrical grid would not have been able to profit if they did not control the means of transmission.

While Tesla remained productive long after his failed Shoreham project, he became increasingly alienated from the outside world. Many of his ideas seemed too fantastic at the time. At one point he even claimed to have received radio messages from aliens in space. He died, destitute, of heart failure in 1943. It was only after his death that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s patent that recognized him as the inventor of radio.

Immediately after his death, Tesla’s personal papers disappeared and it was later discovered that J. Edgar Hoover instructed the FBI’s Office of Alien Property to seize and classify them top secret despite the fact that Tesla held U.S. citizenship.

Wardenclyffe Tower, never finished after Tesla lost the financial support of Morgan, was eventually seized by creditors and torn down in 1917. The Shoreham laboratory then went through a series of owners, including RCA and Peerless Photo Products. Then after 60 years of industrial activity, the site was declared a hazardous waste site and decommissioned.

Yet, Tesla’s Long Island legacy may soon be restored.

In 1997, New York Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani proclaimed July 10 Nikola Tesla Day and Friends of Science East in Shoreham, N.Y., and other Tesla-related organizations are attempting to restore and designate the laboratory a National Historic Landmark.

The first phase of hazardous waste cleanup at the lab site has already been finished and it has been reported that Mortsel, Belgium-based AGFA, which now owns the site, has expressed interest in donating all or part of the 16-acre site to establish a Tesla Museum.

HELP SAVE TESLA’S LAB

If you would like to voice your support, please send an e-mail to teslamuseum@canvasli.com. We will forward your e-mails to Long Island officials to make your voice heard.

For more information, contact the following organizations:
Tesla Memorial Society of New YorkP.O. Box 863867Ridgewood, NY 11386
(718) 417 5102
teslasociety@aol.comwww.TeslaSociety.com

Friends of Science East, Inc.P.O. Box 552 Shoreham, NY 11786 (631) 929-8685teslamuseum@hotmail.com Tesla Wardenclyffe Project, Inc.P.O. Box 8041Breckenridge, CO 80424-8041(970) 453-9293
info@teslascience.org

Paul's Post on GreenBuildingsNYC.com about Margaret Lydecker and Green Drinks NYC

Bring It On: Green Drinks Chapters Battle for World’s Biggest
Green Cocktail Party

By Paul McGinniss

February 25th, 2008 •

It’s never been about the number of people, getting credit for beating somebody else in business, or winning a game for Margaret Lydecker, founder of Green Drinks NYC. It’s all about being true to herself and bringing disconnected people together to talk about the state of the world and finding ways to lead a more sustainable life, while at the same time not cutting back on the good times. But, like other genuine and passionate people who don’t set out to be famous, Margaret nevertheless finds herself at the center of a magnificent chain of energy that has spiraled out across the world.

Last fall, Margaret thought that she could rest on her laurels after hosting the biggest Green Drinks International gathering since the founding of Green Drinks in London in 1989. Almost 1,000 people showed up at her Green Drinks NYC Holiday Party back in December- a record number for the international organization which now has regular gatherings at chapters on every continent and in over 200 cities around the globe.

Sorry, New York. Damien Melotte in Melbourne, Australia recently emailed Margaret to tell her that 1,817 people came to the Green Drinks Melbourne bash that just took place on February 15. Melotte, who chairs an organization called ecoresonance.org, signed off his email to Margaret by asking her to “bring it on.” I recently had brunch with Margaret at a coffee shop in Union Square and wasn’t surprised to find out that she’s planning on putting her party hat back on, fighting back, and showing the folks down under that New York City has no intention of bowing down.

As a major part of her green battle plan, Margaret told me that she just opened up the first official Green Drinks Chapter Office anywhere in the world. Located between Chinatown and Little Italy in New York City, her officemates include Deep Green Living and YRG Sustainability Consultants. Margaret has also hired an assistant, Sarah Butsch, to help launch a top secret project that will surely get her back to being the Queen of Green and show Mr. Melotte that she’s not one to rest on her green laurels.

“Green Drinks International Phenomena- that’s what I call it,” Margaret says. “It’s not Green Drinks International Corporation. One thousand people. Two thousand. I love what they’re doing in Melbourne, Munich, South Africa, and Beijing. It’s all about sharing and spreading the positive energy that’s coming out of this. It’s a fabulously healthy competition we have going. It’s all about bringing it on.”

If you’re not on her list already, make sure to email Margaret at nycgreendrinks@gmail.com and come to her next Green Drinks NYC event. Let’s show Melbourne what we’re made of!

canvas Magazine article February 2008

Healthy Home: Radiant Floors

This eco-friendly heating system gains popularity as new technology reinvents an ancient practice.

by Paul McGinniss

To Email:

From Email:

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There’s a reason why in Korea and other Asian countries people stay so close to the ground, literally sitting on pillows or mats set on the floor. And have you ever noticed when you see ancient Romans portrayed in movies they always seem to be lounging on low beds or on the floor, reclining on lots of luxurious pillows? You’d think with massive stone interiors so common in ancient times those people would be freezing. But in fact, they weren’t cold because since Roman times, different cultures have figured out how to heat their floors and walls from below.

Romans called their under-floor heating systems “hypocausts,” and even heated indoor pools in posh bathhouses. In Korea, the under-floor heating system was called ondol, literally meaning “warm stone.” The Korean and Roman systems were similar: Heat from stone fireplaces and stoves below the living-area floor circulated through vents and ducts under the floor and behind walls, warming them and radiating into the room. Hot air or steam from the fires eventually vented through chimneys at the corners of the rooms.

The idea of heated floors is relatively new in America, and was first introduced here by Frank Lloyd Wright, who discovered the Korean ondol concept while in Japan designing the Tokyo Imperial Hotel in the 1920s. Wright brought Asian-inspired under-floor heating to America, but with a twist, by inventing hydronic radiant flooring. He designed a system to run hot water heated from a natural-gas boiler through metal pipes that were embedded in concrete fl oors.

Radiant floors are finally catching on in the U.S., as improvements since Wright have made the method much more reliable. Now the heated water is not run through copper or other metal pipes, which are more likely to leak and harder to install, but through PEX, a sturdy but flexible plastic that some plumbers now use to plumb an entire house.

PEX was introduced in the 1970s in Sweden by one of the world’s oldest plumbing and piping companies, Wirsbo, founded in 1620. The material is now used in the majority of radiant systems, and is the reason why radiant flooring is increasing in popularity. PEX tubes are inexpensive, easier to install than metal, and last a long time without the need for any maintenance.

What you Need to Know
Many different flooring options are possible with radiant heat. There’s a lot of misconception about what floors work best over radiant heat; the bottom line is many floor types work perfectly fine if they are installed correctly and the system design takes them into account. Some flooring materials are more efficient in radiating and holding the heat than others, but you do not have to feel limited. If a contractor tries to tell you that you cannot use radiant heat in a material you might prefer—wood instead of poured concrete, for instance—then find a contractor who is able to work with your preferred flooring, because chances are it can be done. Floor choices that can be coupled with radiant floors include marmoleum, tile, wood, bamboo, cement, and stone.

Radiant tubing can be put over the sub floor, under the sub floor, or be incorporated into the sub floor itself. Most new homes have the radiant tubes installed over the sub floor, or within the sub floor as part of panelized radiant sub-floor panels. With a renovation of an older home, it might not be possible to easily replace the floor and sub floor, or put the tubes above a sub floor, so often the tubes can be installed underneath the sub floor from the basement or room below.

Choose the right power source to heat the radiant floors. Just as without radiant heating, there are many options on how to heat the water that is used in the home. The heat source could be a conventional water heater that uses propane, natural gas, or electricity; or even better, you could get a geothermal heat pump or solar water heater to do the job.

Here are a few ideas on how to get the hot water you need:

• The simplest option is to get a super-high-efficiency boiler such as a condensing hot water boiler. These are more than 90 percent efficient and well worth the upgrade.
• If you want to go even greener, you can install a solar hot-water heater to run hot water through the tubes under the floor. You can also use some of that hot water you get from the solar roof panels for your hot-water heating in general. You’ll still need a back-up hot-water heater, but it’s pretty affordable and saves energy.
• An even more ecologically responsible option is a geothermal heat pump to generate the energy you need for hot water. Better yet is to add a solar PV system to offset the electric use of the geothermal heat pump. With this kind of combined system you can get radiant heated floors and a home that might reach zero net-energy use.

An Old Friend's Husband Died of Cancer

She still lived in the Washington, D.C. area. Her name was Maurgerite but we called her Bambi. Her husband Mark who died who I never knew called her Meg. She was like that. She could have different names but they all seemed to capture her.

Bambi was the heart of the 107 Zimmerman constellation. Zimmerman was a dorm at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. where we went to school in the late 70's. Suite 107 became a mini commune of sorts, us renegade folks finding each other and caught between the 60's and the 80's, who thought College was not about getting a degree but figuring out what was going on, how we felt about ourselves, each other and the world around us.

We were not all focused on getting big jobs and internships but focused on how to unwind the first part of our lives so we could start to weave it back together again the way we wanted.

We thought we were so trapped back then but looking back we were more free then we were since probably. The weight of the world and adult hood weighing us down now like all the plastic we can't figure out what to do with so we just bury it somewhere or let in float in the ocean and hope it will go away.

Now we have to be concerned and focused and get the job done. We have no choice. The 70's blur is gone and the go go 80's are never coming back either.

So why am I telling you all this?

It's funny because I have not seen Bambi in almost 25 years. I didn't know anything about Mark who came out of a long remission and then got sick again and died. I know all this because incredible Julie, another friend from School, googled me and found me on the internet via another college friend, Chris. Julie suggested I email Bambi and say hello and she told me her husband was ill.

I emailed Bambi and she emails me back at 5 am saying her husband just died. Amidst telling me some of the fragments of her life that I knew nothing about Bambi tells me that her husband Mark worked at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC. He was considered the go to guy for anything about toxic and solid waste. They called him the super fund guy and he advised congress on these issues for many years.

When the Bambster told me this I thought how behind the veil of separation and not seeing something there has to be some link or chain that still connects us.

I told Bambi that sometimes people refer to me as the go to guy for green stuff and that one of my latest obsessions was that almost all of the garbage from NYC office buildings is thrown into a landfill and it really pisses me off.

So Bambi writes in the email today when she was telling me about all the funeral arrangements for Mark that it disgusts her that so many offices just leave the computers on all night and what a waste of energy that was.

She also told me her son had the same name as me and while I know that this has nothing to do with me and my platonic friendship with her decades ago it made me feel good that there was a kid with my name who had a mother who told him to turn his computer off at night and whose dad who just died was the go to super fund guy.

And I thought next time the Solar Decathlon happens on the Mall in Washington D.C. that Bambi and her son and me should all go see the houses entered into the Solar Decathlon which are built as an exhibit on the Mall. And we will talk about Mark the go to guy and 107 Zimmerman, the Moody Blues, and how to put a solar hydrogen system onto a house.

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Plastic Flowers Found to be More Real Than Real Flowers


Scientists on the Green Washing Committee at the Plastic Fantastic Council of America (PFCA) recently discovered that plastic flowers are more real than those grown in greenhouses organically.

The report called for more Asian plastic flower imports and the banning of natural flowers coming into the country from South and Central America, flowers that are reportedly laden with harmful pesticides and cocaine dust.

The PFCA did also say in a separate press release that they are working with Community Supported Agricultural Farms across America to encourage local flower growing, as long as the farmers given support package the flowers in a new bio plastic they are developing made out of recycled plastic flowers and a mixture of bio oils coming from fast food restaurants at the local mall.

Primary Politics

GUANTANAMO GOES GREEN
Report From The Office Of Greener Homeland Security

Not to be out done by the inconvenient truth of Al Gore's environmental activism, President Bush, in preparation of polishing his legacy, has announced plans to green Guantanomo base in Cuba has part of what the administration calls "a spring house cleaning. " Beltway insiders already applaud the fact that the new CIA headquarters in Virginia has been given LEED status by the USGBC, the coveted green certification that endorses sustainable building.

The foreign bases will not however seek the USGBC's LEED certification despite the fact that LEED is now spreading to places like China and India. The Office For Greener Homeland Security has stated in a recent press release: "From now on we intend to seek our own private Green Certification for all facilities, for all War on Terror prisons, whether they be secret or not. The new secret certification system is called Green Water."

These soon to be green facilities will include detention centers and other secret and not so secret compounds in Europe, The Middle East, Asia as well as the United States.

The Office For Greener Homeland Security's report went on to say "Due to security risks we are not able to seek official LEED certification as part of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program, but we have set up our internal green building guidelines using the USGBC's program as a model."

When asked about specific changes that will be made to war on terror facilities around the globe to make them more green and sustainable, an official stated: "Kitchens will be outfitted with Solar Ovens to start. And all prison informs will be made with organic cotton. Believe it or not, we have actually gotten a lot of support from detainees. If they have to rot in jail for the rest of their lives, they might as well help save the planet from self destruction"

Thank You Ellen Levin: Long Live Agit Art

I was walking up Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan the other day and inside the windows of the ubiquitous free newspaper and Learning Annex catalog stands on each corner of the street I saw the above sign. The signs went on for a few blocks and I could not help myself from taking one as they were so brilliant and I have somewhat of an addiction to works on paper, specifically of a political or (anti) social activist nature. (Okay, I lied - I took more than one "America For Sale" because I felt like I was witnessing true art history and I wanted all those mementos of the moment for myself)

At first I did not think this for sale sign said what it said. Then I looked again and I instantly fell in love with it. On the back it says it's from something called a "protest series" called America For Sale by Ellen Levin. I'm not sure who Ellen is but thanks. Ellen.

What I get from the piece is that Americans need to stop thinking they can buy their happiness by consuming cheap goods that we buy from overseas sources that deliver the lowest common denominator. We all need to get on board with the "cradle to cradle" concept and know what we are buying and all that it entails.

Have we become a third world country now because of our shortsightedness and wide spread demand for instant pleasure and instant profit?

We're all to blame: lazy consumers, money hungry manufacturers, the politicians who will say anything to get elected and take money from just about anyone.

Maybe the next agit art street art sign Ellen Levin will make is AMERICA: SOLD!