Environmental Happenings

Global News

BP reports that it has spent $8 billion due to the Deepwater Horizon drill rig explosion that killed eleven people and caused an uncontrollable flow of oil from the Macondo reservoir into the Gulf of Mexico between April 21 and July 15. BP successfully stopped the leak by capping the well. A relief well is expected to be in place by mid-September that will allow the company to permanently "kill" the leak from the bottom. The Macondo oilfield, which is owned by the United States, is estimated to contain 45 million recoverable barrels of oil, worth less than $4 billion at today's prices. BP has a 65% stake in the field, Anadarko Petroleum Corp has 25% and MOEX Offshore 2007, a Houston-based unit of Japan's Mitsui & Co, holds 10%.

State News

Maine homeowners can get up to $4,500 for energy efficiency projects with state and federal incentives. For details of the Home Energy Savings Program, visit EfficiencyMaine.com.

Local Events

Tuesday, September 7 - Public Forum: "Food and Energy," 7pm-9pm, Frontier Cafe, Brunswick.  All voters in legislative District 66 in Brunswick are invited to a series of public forums between September 7th and 15th to meet their candidates for Representative to the Legislature and to discuss key issues. Each forum will take place from 7 pm to 9 pm. The schedule will be as follows: "Food and Energy," Tuesday, September 7th, at Frontier Cafe; "Transportation and Redeveloping the Base," Monday, September 13th, at Curtis Memorial Library; and "Health Care and Education," Wednesday, September 15th, at Curtis Memorial Library.

Thursday, September 9 - Deep Energy Retrofit, 7 pm - 8:30 pm, F.W. Horch, 56 Maine Street, Brunswick. Join us for our next Sustainable Living Talk. This month we invite Al Heath to explain his deep energy retrofit of a 1940’s duplex in Bath, Maine, into an energy efficient, well insulated single family home. His goal was to double the efficiency of the building -- reducing the heating cost to the bare minimum. Free and open to the public. Space is limited; please call us at 729-4050 to reserve a seat.

Friday, September 10 - Rally to Restore the Shad, 3:30 - 6:30 pm, Brunswick Mall Gazebo. Rally to restore the American shad to the Androscoggin River. Gather at the gazebo in downtown Brunswick, then march with the giant shad down Maine Street to the Topsham bridge. Rally to be followed by a press event and refreshments at the Frontier Cafe. Bring friends! For more information, contact Neil Ward, Program Director of the Androscoggin River Alliance, at 933-5268 or nward@fairpoint.net.

Friday, September 17 - Sedgeunkedunk Symposium and Celebration, 1 - 4 pm, Fields Pond, Holden.  The Friday afternoon symposium will emphasize research on changes to the ecosystem since the Meadow Dam was removed in 2008 and will highlight the dam removal process as a model for ongoing restoration projects in other parts of the Penobscot River watershed as well as a model for other communities that may own dams and are exploring ways for changing the dams that they own.  For more info visit habitat.maineaudubon.org.

Sunday, September 19 -  Brunswick Topsham Land Trust Race 4 Space, 9 am,  Livesay Field
Corner of Middle Bay & Pennellville Roads, Brunswick.  The 4 mile route passes 6 beautiful properties protected from development by conservation easements or open space plans. An open meadow, soccer field, cow pasture, coastal farm, sledding hill and bird sanctuary. Turn around is at a small swimming beach and boat launch. PLUS! Walking tour of nationally registered historic district and kids fun run (distance dependent on age). Register at www.active.com "Race 4 Space."

Friday - Sunday, September 24-26 - Common Ground Country Fair, 9 am - 6 pm Fri & Sat, 9 am - 5 pm Sun, Common Ground Education Center, Unity. Join hundreds of vendors, exhibitors and demonstrators, more than 1,000 volunteers, and tens of thousands of fairgoers to share knowledge about sustainable living; eat delicious, organic, Maine-grown food; buy and sell beautiful Maine crafts and useful agricultural products; compete in various activities; dance; sing and have a great time. Come visit our store's booth in the Energy & Shelter section. For directions, visit www.MOFGA.org. See you at Common Ground!

Monday, September 27 - Birds of the Gulf of Maine, 7pm, Morrell Meeting Room, Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick.  Shearwaters, Storm-petrels and Phalaropes.  Luke Seitz will present photos and tales from his summer as the whale and seabird spotter on the Odyssey Whale Watch out of Portland, Maine as well as other pelagic birding experiences on the Gulf of Maine. Luke is a birder, photographer and artist from Falmouth, Maine.  Free and open to the public. Refreshments. Contact: Ted Allen 729-8661.

Saturday, October 2 - Apple Day, 10 am - 2 pm, Gilsland Farm Audubon Center, Falmouth.  Autumn is a dynamic and bountiful season well worth celebrating. Discover how Maine’s wildlife prepares for the coming winter in all sorts of interesting ways through migration challenges, scavenger hunts for young and old, games, and kids crafts. Our annual harvest festival includes something for everyone - cider pressing, storytelling, organic markets, live music, contra dancing, and more!  For more info visit habitat.maineaudubon.org.

Sunday, October 3 - Belgrade Lakes Member Paddle, 9 am - 2:30 pm, Castle Island Boat Launch, Long Pond, Belgrade Lakes.  This paddle is open to Natural Resource Council of Maine members and area residents who want to join us for a beautiful fall paddle on Long Pond. NRCM staff and Ellen Blanchard, a local naturalist, will be leading this trip for you.  If you don't have your own kayak, you can rent one for $25 per person by contacting Stacie Haines at shaines@nrcm.org or 430-0127.

Tip: Clean and Efficient Heating

September's Sustainable Living Tip

Take advantage of state and federal incentives to improve your home's heating efficiency, then start  switching away from fossil fuel to heat your home. Solar supplemented by electricity is the most sustainable heating system, and it's easy to get started.

 

Facts about Clean and Efficient Heating

1. Conventional houses waste 90% or more of the energy they use for space heating, compared to houses built to the Passive House standard.
2. The Passive House standard is the industry leader in energy efficiency, having been successfully pioneered in Europe and now reaching Maine.
3. Federal and state incentives are available to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes, including up to $4,500 through Efficiency Maine's Home Energy Savings Program.
4. The key to achieving the dramatic improvements in home heating efficiency necessary to reach the Passive House standard is to air seal the building envelope and provide fresh air ventilation using a heat recovery ventilator.
5. Another important aspect of Passive House design is to use passive solar gain, which can be achieved through windows and solar air space heaters that ensure solar energy can enter the home during the day, but prevent heat from leaking back out at night.
   
6. Houses built to the Passive House standard in Maine will maintain a temperature of at least 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout winter when their ventilation and heating systems are turned off. You can leave these houses unheated in the winter without risk of freezing. Passive House heating systems are needed only for comfort.
   
7. While it is challenging to retrofit many existing homes to Passive House standards, the principle of controlling air flow can be applied to every home to improve its heating performance.
8. A professional energy audit is the first step to qualify for state funding under the Home Energy Savings Program.
9. A good energy audit will help you understand how your home uses energy, so you can prioritize your energy upgrades.
10. A blower door test, which uses a big fan to suck air out of your house, is one of the best ways to identify air leaks and to check that home energy work has been done properly.
11. An infrared scan, using a camera that measures surface temperatures, is another important diagnostic tool that allows you and your contractors to see where energy leaves your house.
12. In most existing homes, it is not cost effective to control all air leaks; enough air will flow uncontrolled in and out of the structure to maintain healthy indoor air quality.
13. But if you are able to control air leaks to the point where a blower door test shows fewer than 0.3 air changes per hour during the heating season, then you should install a heat recovery or energy recovery ventilator.
14. Heat recovery ventilators exhaust stale outdoor air and bring in fresh outdoor air in a way that transfers heat from the outgoing air to the incoming air. This helps maintain a higher indoor air temperature, but can lower indoor relative humidity because outdoor air is usually dryer than indoor air.
15. Energy recovery ventilators perform the same function as heat recovery ventilators, but also help transfer humidity to maintain not only a higher indoor air temperature but also a higher indoor air relative humidity.
    
16. If a ventilator fails, windows can be opened to provide fresh air.
17. As homes are "tightened up" by sealing places where cold air enters and warm air leaves, it becomes more important to consider ways to maintain indoor air quality.
18. It is a good idea to choose paints, finishes, and cleaning products that do not emit noxious fumes. A surprising number of household products contain petroleum-based fragrances that irritate human respiratory systems.
19. As you improve your home's energy performance, you increase the affordable options for heating your home.
    
20. A conventional 2,500 square foot home in Maine that is not well insulated would require a heating system rated between 30,000 and 40,000 watts. This is equivalent to about 24 electric space heaters.
21. Doubling the efficiency of this home would allow it to be heated with 12 space heaters; raising it to Passive House standards would allow the entire house to be heated with just three electric space heaters which would typically be integrated with the ventilation system.
22. Solar space heaters are a way to turn conventional homes into passive solar homes. These units can be installed on a southern wall or roof. Without the need for electricity or plumbing, they circulate air from inside your home, through a heat collector, and back into your home, effectively harnessing the free energy that is delivered to your home every sunny winter day.
    
23. In the long term, our society must make the transition away from burning all types of fossil fuel, including propane and natural gas.
    
24. Although a fraction of our electricity here in Maine is generated by burning fossil fuel, much of it is already sourced from clean renewable sources.
25. In the future, we can generate all of our electricity from clean and renewable sources here in Maine.
26. If you want to help jump start the conversion of our economy to a sustainable clean energy future, you can install a grid-tied renewable energy system. The most reliable systems use solar photovoltaic panels. The electricity you generate will flow into the grid, displacing the need to generate electricity from non-renewable resources.
    
27. With current technology, it is much easier to stop burning fossil fuel for home heating than to stop burning fossil fuel for transportation, so it makes sense to start our society's transition to clean energy by changing the way we heat our buildings.
28. One of the advantages to using electricity for home heating, from the perspective of the overall sustainability of our society, is that the delivery system for electricity is largely in place. Since most homes already use electricity for lighting and appliances, we are committed to maintaining this infrastructure.
29. Building a new distribution system for natural gas throughout Maine is an unsustainable and unnecessary expense. Private and public funds will be tied up in this venture that could be better put to use increasing the heating performance of our housing stock and improving the reliability of our electric grid.
30. Delivering cord wood or pellets throughout Maine places a huge burden on our roads.
    
31. Although work is being done to develop renewable sources of solid and liquid fuels, these energy strategies do not lend themselves as easily to distributed production as electricity generation.
32. Most homes and businesses in Maine with a sunny roof can be used to generate electricity; few residential and commercial properties are suitable for fuel production.
33. The heating systems of the past were based on wood; the systems of the present require fossil fuel; those of the future will likely be solar electric.
34. If you are building a new house, you can be part of the solution for a clean energy future by choosing to build to the Passive House standard.
    
35. If you plan to live in an existing house, you can still help bring about a clean energy future by improving your home's heating performance, installing a solar space heater, and switching your home to electric heat room by room.

Deep Energy Retrofit

Join us for our next Sustainable Living Talk on Thursday, September 9, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. We'll host Al Heath for "Deep Energy Retrofit."

 

"You don’t have to build a new house to have a super-efficient home, but you do need to follow basic rules of building science and not so common sense," says Al. "Saving 10-20% is fairly easy.  Saving 50-90% is a much bigger challenge."

 

Al purchased a duplex in Bath and has converted it to a super-efficient single family home with goal being to reduce the total energy load (heating + electrical) by 75%.  From basement to attic he restructured the entire envelope using a combination of techniques and materials that lend themselves to retrofit.

 

"Home energy usage is twenty two percent of the US carbon footprint (twice that of private cars).  A deep energy retrofit home will not only save you money, but be much more comfortable, improve indoor air quality and increase re-sale value.” says Heath. "The time to act is now, before the next price hikes."

Al is a Energy Auditor and Consultant in Bath.  Photos and more information are available at www.ColdClimateHome.com.  He can be reached at 522-4588 or al@coldclimatehome.com.

Our monthly Sustainable Living Talks are held at our store, F.W. Horch, 56 Maine Street, Brunswick, on the second Thursday of each month. Free and open to the public, but please call us at 729-4050 to let us know you're coming so we have enough seats for you.