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Energy
No wonder renewable energy is such a tough sell: The folks behind the proposed Cape Wind turbines in Nantucket Sound are now telling us the project will raise our electric bills, not lower them.
That plan for a massive wind farm has me again thinking that community and residential projects might yield more tangible benefits for homeowners, and sooner.
Call it the democratization of wind, sun, and rain: You catch it, you keep it. With a residential turbine on your roof or in your backyard, subsidized in part by tax rebates, you (and your accountant) might find a way to break even in a few years.
In a year or so, for example, you might want to charge your Chevrolet Volt, without paying NStar for the privilege.
Enter Envision Solar International Inc. (envisionsolar.com), which this year plans to market a carport, called the LifePort, which has solar panels on its roof.
Envision also plans this year to introduce a solar canopy, the LifeTree. It has a pivoting roof supported by a single pole, to keep the sun off the Adirondack chairs in your backyard, while gathering energy for your evening activities.
A similar but more substantial-looking backyard getup, the LifeShade, has four wooden posts supporting a flat solar-panel roof. The LifeShade is also due out this year.
We have no word yet from Envision on the pricing for its residential products, which can be used on and off the grid.
The company is based in San Diego, but it says it is working on a distribution plan for New England.
Prototypes
Alarm rouses you only when necessary
The Dynamically Programmable Alarm Clock will not make getting out of bed easier. But it will do a better job than your current bedside gadget to make sure you’re on time for that meeting.The DPAC (egaertner.com/dpac), as its developers at Northeastern University call it, connects to Google Calendar via Wi-Fi. It then grabs your first task of the day as a starting point for its calculations.
There is no need to rack your brain, reckoning an appropriately early wake-up time. DPAC does all of the “thinking’’ for you.
Say you have a meeting in Brookline at 8 a.m. The DPAC subtracts the commute time to your destination (based on current traffic conditions, according to Northeastern), along with the time it takes for downing your poached egg and coffee, showering, shaving, and suiting up. (You enter the durations of those normal routines via the Web interface on the device’s LCD screen.)
The DPAC includes an FM radio and connects to your iPod, so you can wake up to any broadcast or music track you choose. The DPAC’s user interface includes commands for navigating your iTunes playlists.
With its wooden housing and dovetail joints, the prototype looks like a cigar humidor with an LCD screen. Unfortunately, any commercial version will probably take on the look of a plastic iHome (www.ihomeaudio.com) iPod alarm clock.
I will miss the old-fashioned cabinet.
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