Word: heats
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Burn almost any kind of organic material - corn husks, hazelnut shells, bamboo and, yes, even chicken manure - in an oxygen-depleted process called pyrolysis, and you generate gases and heat that can be used as energy. What remains is a solid - biochar - that sequesters carbon, keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere. In principle, at least, you create energy in a way that is not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative...
...interest in Silicon Valley science fiction, the most cost-effective green technology can be found in our own homes, simply by improving the energy efficiency of our houses and apartments. On average, heating an American home with natural gas creates about 6,400 lbs. of CO2 a year; using electricity will produce about 4,700 lbs of emissions. Both numbers can be larger if you live in a cold part of the country. The problem is that many American houses are poorly constructed and insulated, leaking heat in winter and cool air in the summer - and that's not cheap...
Trethewey's advice is simple: Plug up those holes. "If you see light coming through from outside, that means heat is leaving the building," he says. Windows can be particularly tricky: It's easy to forget to lock your windows (unless you live in my New York City neighborhood), but unlocked windows, even when shut, can bleed heat on a cold day. "You might walk by that window outside and think it's nothing, but if you took that thin crack and turned it into a circle, you'd have a hole as big as a nickel or dime," says...
...payback improves," notes Trethewey. A good auditor will use a blower test, which lowers the air pressure inside a home - air from the outside will then rush through openings, revealing any leaks. A truly high-tech test will use thermographic cameras, which detect infrared light, to detect exactly where heat might be leaking...
Another quick fix is to simply to use less heat - without freezing to death. Trethewey notes that many homes are overheated, equipped with boilers or heating systems that are far stronger than necessary. If a building uses about 100,000 BTU of heat, it doesn't need a system that supplies twice that - yet that's how many buildings operate. "It would be correct for about two percent of the year, and overpower you for the rest," says Trethewey. "It's like a V12 engine in a Volkswagen - it leads to wasted energy...