Welcome to the CBS Green Team!
Eden, saying: "Look at my creations! See how beautiful and perfect they are! For
your sake I created them all. Make sure you don't ruin or devastate My world. If
you do, there will be no-one else to repair it."
Ecclesiastes Rabbah
I am Debbie Garelick the middleman of the CBS Green movement. I get all these wonderful ideas from all of you, I repeat them to people who can do something about it and “voila” we have Zero waste kiddushs, (huge thanks to Jessica Hersch for all her work to make this a reality. We have the social action committee working to organized local organic food distribution withHazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz program. I am working this year to write a grant to the city of boulder for Solar panels that would be placed in overflow parking area possibly on a carport. I am also getting an energy audit done for the synagogue so that we can change some things less expensively and start saving more money and the planet.
Here are some of the things we are doing at Bonai Today.
*we are 100% wind energy powered
*We have changed all the light bulbs to Compact Fluorescent
*We are now a Zero Waste facility. We have compostable paper goods, cups and forks/knives and spoons and all the composting is picked and taken away weekly. (two things that were on my to do list last yom kippur.
Things we would like to do in the near future
Timers on all lights for shabbas
Solar ner tamid
Solar panels to reduce our “grid” energy by at least 1/3
Community food sharing with distribution from local farmers
New bike rack for the synagogue and other incentives to get people to bike (or walk) to shul more often
Things we would like to have in the long term
Greener building materials
Snacks for kids at Hebrew school that don’t have many wrappers
More carpooling, biking or walking to shul (basically less need for parking spaces and more need for bike racks)
A community garden for kiddushes and for our members
Have solar and wind energy at the synagogue so that our utility meter can run backwards
Have a majority of our congregants taking an active role in Greening their lives.
We all make our own Jewish paths. Each of us is unique in our way of looking at G-d and Judaism. We should all be unique in the way we look at this wonderful Earth we live in as well and our way of conserving it.
Find your own Jewish Environmental path. Find it this year. Get inspired and share that inspiration with THIS community and beyond.
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai used to say, 'If you have a sapling in your hand, and
someone should say to you that the Messiah has come, stay and complete the
planting, and then go to greet the Messiah'.
Avot de Rabbi Nathan
Stay Green
If you'd like to get involved with the CBS Green Team, please contact Debbie Garelick.
Here is a link to the Jewish Climate Initiative climateofchange.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/jcis-carbon-offsetting-guide1.pdf
ZERO WASTE EVENTS TIPS:
1. Chinette Bowls and Plates that are uncoated are compostible and available at COSTCO.
2. Buy regular garbage bags and empty them into the compost bin. They can be reused.
3. You can now buy compostilbe straws.
4. When choosing to recycle or compost paper, use this rule of thumb: When the paper is clean, recycle it because it will be made into more paper and save trees. When it is dirty with food wast, compost it.
And check out this article on:
7 Ways to Green a Bar/Bat Mitzvah (web link to Boulder Jewish News)
COOL NEWS!!
A Colorado company will break ground early next year on an algae farm that is intended to produce thousands of gallons of substitutes for gasoline and diesel at a rate per acre far higher than current biofuel projects.
Solix Biofuels, of Fort Collins, said on Monday that it had raised $15.5 million in capital and would begin with a five-acre plot to produce “biocrude.’’ That will in turn be shipped to an oil refinery in place of crude oil, according to Douglas R. Henston, the company chief executive.
Investors include on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, on whose reservation, near Durango, the farm will be located; Valero Energy Corporation., the refinery operator; and Infield Capital, an investment fund.
Algae has held special appeal for renewable energy researchers — and some investors — because the organism readily converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into a hydrocarbon fuel, producing an oil that can harvested for use as biodiesel. And the more CO2 present, the faster the algae grows. That holds the promise of cleaner-burning fuels that simultaneously scrub CO2 from the atmosphere during their production.
Algae can also regenerate at a remarkable rate, doubling its volume in a matter of hours under the right conditions, and yielding far more of its body weight in oil than any biofuel feed stock currently in use.
Solix has already achieved production of 1,500 gallons an acre per year at a test plot in Fort Collins, and the company is expecting yields of 2,500 to 3,000 gallons an acre per year, said Mr. Henston.
In contrast, soybeans, the main source of biodiesel used in this country, yields 50 to 70 gallons per acre.
But creating the right conditions for algae to serve as a biofuel feed stock at commercial scale remains an expensive proposition. Carbon dioxide needs be pumped in from outside sources to induce the kind of rapid growth needed to make the process economically feasible. Water temperatures, too, need to be carefully controlled.
Solix uses a “photo-bioreactor system” to overcome these hurdles. These consist of long, narrow, sealed containers, immersed in water, into which carbon dioxide — harvested from a nearby natural gas well — and organic nutrients are circulated. Algae take hydrogen atoms from the water and carbon atoms from the carbon dioxide, to produce a hydrocarbon liquid, which is then recovered by centrifuge or solvent extraction.
The algae strain to be used in Colorado is a fresh-water variety, but other varieties, including marine algae, can be used, Mr. Henston said, because the system is “species agnostic.’’
Oh you have to see this cute video http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/environment/global-warming-environment/this-bulb-ngv.html
A Colorado company will break ground early next year on an algae farm that is intended to produce thousands of gallons of substitutes for gasoline and diesel at a rate per acre far higher than current biofuel projects.
Solix Biofuels, of Fort Collins, said on Monday that it had raised $15.5 million in capital and would begin with a five-acre plot to produce “biocrude.’’ That will in turn be shipped to an oil refinery in place of crude oil, according to Douglas R. Henston, the company chief executive.
Investors include on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, on whose reservation, near Durango, the farm will be located; Valero Energy Corporation., the refinery operator; and Infield Capital, an investment fund.
Algae has held special appeal for renewable energy researchers — and some investors — because the organism readily converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into a hydrocarbon fuel, producing an oil that can harvested for use as biodiesel. And the more CO2 present, the faster the algae grows. That holds the promise of cleaner-burning fuels that simultaneously scrub CO2 from the atmosphere during their production.
Algae can also regenerate at a remarkable rate, doubling its volume in a matter of hours under the right conditions, and yielding far more of its body weight in oil than any biofuel feed stock currently in use.
Solix has already achieved production of 1,500 gallons an acre per year at a test plot in Fort Collins, and the company is expecting yields of 2,500 to 3,000 gallons an acre per year, said Mr. Henston.
In contrast, soybeans, the main source of biodiesel used in this country, yields 50 to 70 gallons per acre.
But creating the right conditions for algae to serve as a biofuel feed stock at commercial scale remains an expensive proposition. Carbon dioxide needs be pumped in from outside sources to induce the kind of rapid growth needed to make the process economically feasible. Water temperatures, too, need to be carefully controlled.
Solix uses a “photo-bioreactor system” to overcome these hurdles. These consist of long, narrow, sealed containers, immersed in water, into which carbon dioxide — harvested from a nearby natural gas well — and organic nutrients are circulated. Algae take hydrogen atoms from the water and carbon atoms from the carbon dioxide, to produce a hydrocarbon liquid, which is then recovered by centrifuge or solvent extraction.
The algae strain to be used in Colorado is a fresh-water variety, but other varieties, including marine algae, can be used, Mr. Henston said, because the system is “species agnostic.’’
Oh you have to see this cute video http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/environment/global-warming-environment/this-bulb-ngv.html