Mail that is…

Ever wonder how you can reduce the amount of unnecessary junk mail you receive? Most of us get catalogs that we never use or want and what about all those value coupon packs! Well hopefully you recycle them rather than add them to a landfill by throwing them out. For some handy ways to reduce the amount of junk mail you get see below for how to eliminate or at least greatly reduce it.

Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has an online form to take you off their preferred lists which will greatly help in reducing the flow of marketing mail to you.

Stop Junk Mail.org has an easy to use printable form to stop junk mail. It has postcards to send in, places to write to, and 800 numbers to call to get you off many direct marketing lists.

Privacy Rights.org has a list of places you can opt out of offers yourself.

OptOutPrescreen is the official consumer credit industry’s site to opt out of credit offers.

ProQuo is a company helps stop junk mail, but seems to be more of a venture funded business that is designed to help get catalogs and mailings you might want to you.

Similar CatalogChoice is a company helps reduce unwanted catalogs but allows you to select new ones you may want.

For more information on other ways to reduce your junk mail see the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse website for tips.

A Readers View

by Dan Pearson

The only place I see green technology being integrated right is in California. There are companies that take the inner city youth and train them in the fields of solar panel installation, retrofitting buildings, green rooftops, etc (link at bottom of page, one example.)

In the Midwest if your not an engineer your chances of getting your foot in the door are slim to none. I believe this creates a major gap between the educated and uneducated (which in this country we know is not accessible to everyone). We will never build a middle class in America with the declination of College Institutions being in the state their in. Life skills are not being taught.

America now ranks as one of the most undereducated countries in the world(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national/main838207.shtml), yet most graduates find themselves 70 to 80k in debt in an economy that’s not hiring. This is a major problem. I know first hand.. I went to school and when I got out in the field, I was retrained in a more real life way. It only took about a week to find out I could have apprenticed my way up and that nobody gave a hoot about my little certificate piece of paper, or my accolades I obtained in school.. Still I was 24,000 dollars in debt to an institution that had no concern of my future but loved sending me my bill. It made me realize that our educational system in mimicking, banking system, and that system is mimicking our governmental system and then everything became clear. Most people in higher places have for along time understood, to put people in debt is the best way to (without sounding too harsh) really enslave us.

I think we need to start from our grass roots again; our brothers and sisters, neighbors and family need to help one another out and stop sending all of our hard earned money to these institutions and keep it in our communities and privately owned business. One of the people I look up to on issues like this is Catherine Austin Fittz you might want to check her out at solari.com . Truth of it is, America needs a whole new way of putting people back to work. The Teddy Roosevelt’s of yesteryear are gone.. you know, those people that understood how to put men and women to work and built the greatest country in the world. There is nothing equal to field training and/or apprenticeship, nothing! I’m sick and tired of this mythological green movement that is ever so elusive being the next comparative thing to the computer era or automotive era yet the only way to do it is become an engineer? I’m sorry, the basics of electricity are not that hard, then you can work with a mentor from that point on.. Every job posted I see is for an engineer! I’m getting too old (35) and I am too broke to go back to another school that’s going to suck another 20k out of me.

In a perfect world, there would be someone out there that understood this gap, someone that understood that the only way to really learn something is to mess it up enough times until you get it right. To have someone with you that had been there and had done it, to educate you along the way.

I write this not only because I’m just looking to make a paycheck. This new technology excites me, I want to be a part of something that’s positive in what seems to be such a negative time. Most of all I want to see our men and women working gain, and not just let the Chinese take and do everything for us. As patriots, we should be very weary of globalists and return more back to an isolationist view, I personally think. Thanks once again for your time, and I hope for brighter futures for us all.

Heres a good referance and story that simulates the innovations: needed.http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_green_gap

But really there’s hundreds more, just Google inner city youth back to work California.

Chicago’s mayor also is leaping ahead nicely.

END

Editors Note: The above unedited commentary does not necessarily represent the view of the NRGspot.com.  We have published this to give our readers a passionate real life  perspective of one person’s trials and tribulations with respect to finding a green job. If you should be able to help Dan in his quest to find a green job, have a some insight to share or constructive commentary please e-mail us at info(at)nrgspot.com

New Jobs are very hard to find in the cities below. There is some hope though, look to the right side of this page to see if you can start a new career in the Green Energy field. Many new employment opportunities are posted daily.

8 LED Telephone RJ11 Powered Table Reading Light Lamp

This desk lamp may provide a good light at your desk, using only the power from RJ11 socket to make the 8 bright LEDs shine. Its goose neck makes you adjust the          illuminating angle you desire. It is an interesting idea however we can not vouch for how well it may or may not work. Also many telecommunications carriers may prohibit this type of device from being attached to their network so you should verify that you can before doing so. Additionally, many people also have their phones via their cable company or an alternative service like Verizon’s FiOS so it may not work unless their is a battery back-up on the system. In both cases it is best to check with your supplier prior to plugging it in. Nonetheless we give it an “A” for innovation.

Product Details

Description:

Environment friendly 8 LED RJ11 Lamp is powered by any available RJ11 socket only.

Easy plug in and use, draw power direct from your RJ11 socket.

Made of durable plastic and alloy material, it features 8 white LEDs and ON/OFF button.

Life of LEDs last up to 100,000 hours.

Goose neck makes you adjust the illuminating angle you desire.

Compact design 8 LED RJ11 Light is light and handy.

This 8 LED Table Lamp can be used in nursery, childs bedroom as a desk light or bedside lamp

Plug Type: 6P2C RJ11 plug

Cable Length: approx. 63.5cm.

Base Dimension: ~8.5(L) x 5.4(W) x 3.2(H)cm

Total Height: ~27cm

Weight: 74g

Battery compartment can’t use.

You can see it or buy it here.

Project converts dairy wastes to energy, other products


As part of a project to create alternative sources of energy, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are cultivating green algae that holds promise as a new supply of biofuel.

“People have been growing algae for centuries for food supplements for use by man and animals,” said Cecelia Williams, project lead. “It now has the potential to supply our energy needs too.”

Beginning in the 1950s, the Department of Energy recognized algae as a potential feedstock for energy and biofuels and funded the Aquatic Species Program between 1978 and 1996 with $25 million to investigate the production of biofuel from microalgae. DOE terminated the program in the mid-1990s due to low petroleum prices and other priorities. It has only been in the last few years that DOE has once again become interested in algae as a potential source of fuel.

Recently Williams and other Sandia researchers have grown green algae in a 12-by-30-foot greenhouse using a simulated dairy effluent, the nutrient-rich liquid remaining after bacterial digestion of dairy manure. The solids from the digestion of dairy manure can potentially be used to develop fertilizer and feed and the liquid serves as a nutrient source for algae. The algae are typically cultured for several days, followed by harvesting and dewatering, after which the algal oil is extracted. The algae produce lipids, the most useful being neutral oil made up largely of triacyglycerides (TAG) that can be converted to biofuels.

Williams said that growing algae for biofuels eliminates many problems associated with traditional biofuels.

“The current generation of biofuels [starch- and sugar-based ethanol and oil crop-based biodiesel] rely on the use of commodity crops and therefore compete for use of food crops, primarily corn,” she said. “Also, they are very farm-intensive and use a lot of good farming land, fuel and fertilizer inputs and fresh water.”

Algae ponds, on the other hand, can be put on marginal land and grown with non-fresh brackish water produced from energy mineral extraction (petroleum, natural gas, coal-bed methane), or nutrient-loaded wastewater from municipal and agricultural sources. The Southwest has the potential for being a leader in manufacturing this new type of biofuel because “it has lots of barren land that can’t be used for anything else, lots of sunlight and a lot of marginal water,” Sandia researcher Brian Dwyer said.

Sandia scientist Ron Pate noted that Sandia is bringing into play its scientific and engineering expertise to grow and process specific types of algae for biofuels and other useful coproducts. Sandia’s work in this area ties into broader biofuels efforts supported by DOE’s Office of Biomass Program (OBP) that focus on addressing challenges to commercially viable algal biofuels production. This includes participation in the development of the National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap Report, which is still in preparation and partnering with others on proposals to establish consortia for algal biofuels and for advanced fungible biofuels with potential funding from OBP. The Algal Biofuels Consortium specifically proposes a broad-based collaboration with Sandia and other national labs, industry and university partners that would pursue research and development of algal biofuels as an affordable, scaleable and sustainable solution that can contribute significantly to meeting the nation’s transportation fuel needs.

Williams anticipates that the Sandia research will have the potential to provide new jobs and economic development to New Mexico, the seventh largest dairy-producing state in the nation. The state’s dairy industry employs more than 5,000 people and has an annual impact of nearly $2.7 billion.

The 340,000 dairy cows in New Mexico produce large quantities of manure and nutrient-rich effluent water that represent a significant waste management problem and regulatory expense to the state’s dairy industry. These and other agri-industrial waste streams represent a valuable and underused feedstock for recycling of energy, biofuels, reusable water and other coproducts. The DOE Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap currently in draft suggests the use of non-fresh water sources, including agricultural effluent, for algal biomass production. Besides providing a source of non-fresh water and the recycling of needed nutrients, the use of these waste streams in an integrated biorefinery will help to alleviate disposal regulatory requirements on dairies and other confined animal feeding operations in New Mexico and the broader United States.

Sandia’s greenhouse algae project was conceived by Pate and Kyle Hoodenpyle (Ag2Energy) and has been funded by the New Mexico Small Business Association (SBA) and the New Mexico Technology Research Collaborative. The SBA funds Sandia to work with the private-sector partners Ag2Energy and the Pecos Valley Dairy Producers, one of the largest collections of dairy producers in New Mexico. TRC funding lasted one year and the SBA funding is in its final year of a three-year funding cycle.

Future money to research dewatering algae and monitoring the health of algae ponds will come from Sandia’s internal Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program and possibly new direct-funded projects from DOE. This research will also allow the greenhouse algae ponds to support other aspects of Sandia’s algae biofuel research portfolio by using the data and information generated from these experiments to evaluate or verify both systems and process models. These models are essential for understanding the economics and risk associated with both the R&D and the scale-up that will be required to make algae an economically viable fuel source for the nation. The ultimate goal is to make algae-derived biofuels competitive with petroleum-based fuels.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, an autonomous Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, an autonomous Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.

Source: Sandia