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Day 11: Roz videoblogging on Pacific’s rough seas

editor — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:37:46 +0000

It’s Day 11, and Roz Savage is dealing with 40 knot Pacific winds on her rowing journey across the Pacific, singing the theme song to Hawaii Five-O. More videos from the Roz Savage Voyage:
- Roz’s launch party
- Naturally Powered by Roz: Roz gives Stanford Professor, Margot Gerritsen and host of SmartEnergy a tour of her self-sustained rowing vessel.
- Roz Savage Begins Her Row Across the Pacific: First Roz videoblog from the ocean:

Roz’s voyage is sponsored by Brocade, a leading network storage solutions company. See more about Brocade’s environmental and energy saving business values.

Tags: Roz Savage, Stanford, Margot Gerritsen, Brocade

Naturally Powered by Roz Savage

Margot Gerritsen — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 06:01:55 +0000

After rowing across the Atlantic in 2006, Roz Savage is leaving San Francisco (her Website has updated departure dates) to conquer her next ocean: the Pacific.

Roz’s rowing vessel is fully self-sustained. During this two-plus months adventure, a total of 6 sonar panels and a wind turbine will provide power for her desalination system, her communications system, computer system and various miscellaneous systems including her iPod and on board soundsystem. We have added a few more gadgets: data loggers that will show us how much energy Roz’s system is generating each day. The Roz Savage page on Smart Energy publishes this data and predicts future generation based on the weather forecast.

I talked to Roz prior to her departure about her ambitions and day-to-day life on the vessel.

Tags: Roz Savage

Are Carbon Credits Just a Clever Scheme to Make Money?

Margot Gerritsen — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 07:01:19 +0000

Meet Tom Arnold, chief environmental officer of Terrapass. The company sells TerraPasses. Buy one and sponsor renewable energy projects such as wind farms, thereby partly or fully counterbalancing your own carbon emissions. How does Terrapass guarantee that their passes indeed lead to carbon emission reductions? Who buys these passes? Is buying a TerraPass an effective way to help reduce global climate change and/or a way to buy off guilt about emitting carbons and a clever ploy to make some money?

In this first in a two-part installment of SmartEnergy, my students talk to Tom about Terrapass, its business strategies and its ambitions.

Tags: Tom Arnold, Terrapass, renewable energy, wind farms, carbon emissions

More on geothermal energy: The little known energy resource

Margot Gerritsen — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:36:47 +0000

Following up on his lecture on geothermal energy, Professor Roland Horne met with some of my students. Horne is an expert in extracting heat from the earth. Hear more about the engineering and science behind traditional geothermal energy, and the promising “hot dry rock” process.

Tags: geothermal, Roland Horne, hot dry rock

Choosing Renewables: Wind and Solar

Margot Gerritsen — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 22:54:15 +0000

Alternatives can help create a sustainable energy future. The most promising long-term alternative energy sources are wind and solar: there is plenty of it, greenhouse gas emissions are low, and the required surface area is relatively small — especially when compared to biomass. In this talk, SmartEnergy’s Margot Gerritsen says we also can’t afford to dismiss nuclear energy if we want to lower harmful emissions.

This talk was part of the “End of Oil” depate, at Stanford University in March 2006.