Unplugged and Lovin’ It

FROM THE EDITOR
As a kid I looked forward to tornado season in Kentucky. Every spring brought the promise of stormy weather and, with it, the likelihood of losing our lights for an evening.
Nothing beat the thrill of watching those dark, ominous clouds roil in the western skies and hearing thunder crack so loud it… »

Solar in Kentucky? 1970s house shows it works

By TOM EBLEN
Lexington Herald-Leader
Richard Levine has heard all of the arguments about why solar energy won’t work in Kentucky. And he has been defying them for three decades.
Levine, a University of Kentucky architecture professor, designed and built one of the nation’s first solar homes on 32 acres he bought in 1974 near Raven Run Nature… »

Holding Out Hope

FROM THE CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
I don’t want to give up. I told my sons this on a hiking trail called Honeymoon Falls at Pine Mountain State Resort Park this summer.
Parker was 9, James Tucker was 2, and they were dying to get in the pool. It was closed for chemical testing our first day. On day… »

Don’t buy it

FROM THE EDITOR
Buy, buy, buy.
Being frugal, and especially in these tough economic times, those are precisely the words I don’t want to hear.
So the day my husband David came up with a plan to construct a much-needed hay shelter out of recycled materials, I was game. In his construction job, he’d torn down a customer’s… »

Offshore wind power could meet United States’ electricity demand

From Mother Earth News

Excellent wind resources off the coast of the lower 48 states could generate enough power to exceed the electricity demand in the United States, according to U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
The NREL findings are included in a report released April 2 by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which… »