Welcome back from a long holiday weekend. I hope everyone had a fun but safe holiday. I enjoyed this weekend with my kids. We watched the fireworks over College Park High School, but were not fortunate enough to get in close.

Now that everyone is back to work, I am back at working on reducing our water use, electrical use and redirecting any and all materials I can for recycle or reuse. As part of my research, I like to share some of the more interesting things I find here.

Today I thought I would share this article on InterHome. This is a system being developed by University of Hertfordshire in the UK. What is different is the ability of the system to learn the habits of those who live there. This learning allows the system to increase efficiency while also hopefully increasing the comfort level.

For a detailed article, follow the related link below.

There is so much information on the original article that summarizing would be difficult. Follow the related link to get the details. Basically someone went to the trouble of figuring out which veggies save the most money and gives a complete breakdown from greatest return to least.

Many people know that little steps add up when we all make an effort. There are differences in what people consider a little step. Some think of turning off lights when you leave a room and converting to florescent wherever possible as a little step. Others think of having a compost pile and finding ways to reuse everything as a little step. While we should all be doing these things as a matter of course, there are many more steps to take.

Something in the news right now is -

The Composting Toilet...

In Austin, Tex., a group called the Rhizome Collective has built a commode that uses no water. Instead, when you're finished, you pour sawdust down the toilet.

My first question about this is wheather or not it is meant to replace every toilet eventually or just those in certain environments. If we all start flushing with sawdust we might be cutting down a few extra trees which are needed to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere. We must always consider the sustainability and moderation of any new approach to a problem. This may be an option for areas with a regular drought cycle.

I am interested in seeing a chart with the whole lifecycle process for the toilet. I would think it needs emptied eventually too. I would not want it on my list of chores. However, as with cat litter, there will be improvements as more people are exposed to the system.

Now, just a reminder, we are in a drought. Remember to fix leaking faucets, running toilets and be frugal with your water use.

The law as it was signed will give the power to decide which vehicles will be eligible for the program to the dealers. The dealers will also be in charge of scrapping the older vehicles, which must be less than 25 years old to be eligible for federal funds.

Their are some details left to work out. Accountability for the dealer to ensure the trade in is scrapped and not resold. The trade in must meet a fuel efficiency improvement goal that is set in real numbers. You can not trade in a car that gets 26MPG for one that gets 32MPG and receive the incentive. The improvement for a car must meet or exceed 10MPG. Trucks have a 5MPG improvement goal. The incentive is not to exceed $4500.

Although this happened on June 26th, I thought I should pop it in here since I shared information on 3 cars in just a few days.

Well, here is another car. The smart car for two, shown above, is getting and incentive boost.

From the article:
"smart USA will allow qualified consumers using the federal rebate to purchase a new smart fortwo for as low as $99 a month. The smart Fortwo will qualify for the highest voucher level of $4,500 upon the trade in of an eligible vehicle. This special financing was designed to provide an additional monetary incentive for consumers to replace older vehicles that guzzle fuel and emit high levels of greenhouse gasses with new, highly efficient ones like the smart fortwo. It will launch later this summer when the rebate system officially takes effect."

See the related link for more information and photos.

-- Another note: This car weighs more than a Toyota Yaris and the Yaris seats 4 people. If you are into an Eco-Vehicle, this is not the only option that is better for the environment. Don't forget to look at the Honda Fit as well. All of these cars have similar gas mileage.