The Ozark Renewable Expo is this weekend

Are you interested in learning about solar panels, wind turbines, and alternative fuels? Curious if your city is actively combating climate change? Do you wonder if there are ways you could lead a greener life?

Visit the Ozark Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Expo at Les Bourgeois Winery in Rocheport, Missouri on September 22-23 to find answers to these questions and more.

Learn ways to integrate renewable energy and sustainable living into your life at the Expo's workshops, exhibits, hands-on demonstrations, and speaker panels. Bring the family along to enjoy the weekend's live entertainment, organic and local food and wine, children's activities, and more. Visit www.OzarkRE.org for directions, a list of exhibitors, and the workshop schedule.

Tickets may be purchased at the gate or online at www.OzarkRE.org.

Buy your ticket online and be entered to win a Solar Gift Basket from MidAmerica Solar ( www.midamericasolar.com). Gift basket contents include a portable 6.5 watt solar panel, an outdoor solar lantern, a portable solar energy charger, and a four pack of Solar Flat Glass Pathway markers.

Ticket Prices:
$15 - Weekend Pass
$10 - Adult One Day Pass
$7 - Seniors 65+ and Students One Day Pass
Kids 12 and under Free

Do you want to get involved? Additional volunteers are needed. Volunteers receive free admission and a free t-shirt. Sign up to volunteer at www.OzarkRe.org.

Workshops Include (partial list):

• Turning your Diesel into a Greasel
• Photovolatics + Wind Power = Hybrid Home Energy System
• Show Me Natural Wonders: Experience Nature Sites - Near and Far
• Global Warming: Answer the Call
• The Solar Kitchen: Solar Cookers and Cooking With the Sun
• Missouri Cities Combating Climate Change
• Home Performance with Energy Star
• Fuel Cells as an Alternative Energy Source
• Green Residential Construction Methodologies
• Vegetable Based Fuels
• Utility-Scale Wind in Missouri
• Wilderness Skills
• Renewable Energy and Agriculture
• Nuclear Energy: A Sustainable Choice?

For a full speaker list and schedule, visit www.OzarkRE.org.
Hope to see you there!

Great Day

Fair visitors enjoy a "candid" conversation beside a mobile solar cart.

Thanks to all of you who made it out to our Memorial Day energy fair!

By our estimates, nearly 300 made it to New Bloomfield for the event – perhaps our biggest show yet! Our registry shows that you came in from all over Missouri, and a surprising number too from out-of-state. We’re glad you came, and we hope you had a good experience.

We certainly had a good time ourselves, and enjoyed meeting a lot of you. My wife, Jen, and I led tours of our house (across the street from the center) where we showed how a normal house can be converted, bit-by-bit, toward life “off the grid.”

And of course, at the center itself, we had some of our old faithful demonstrations – the building and design of dome homes, the making of bio-fuels like biodiesel and ethanol, our electric and hybrid vehicles and mowers, and the use of various kinds of solar and wind energy – from high-tech photovoltaics (solar panels) to homemade solar cookers and passive heating methods. We hope you also got the chance to see our new solar carts – we’re extremely excited about them. Maybe, though, I’ll leave them for another post.

Any rate, hope you all had safe travels home, and if you didn’t make it to this one, we’ll hope to see you at the next…

Memorial Day Festival

Missouri Renewable Energy is having its annual
Memorial Day: Free Energy Festival, this Monday, May 28th, from 10am-4pm,
in New Bloomfield, Missouri.

Rain or shine, we will be there and we are planning on Barbecuing!

Hope to see you then!

Green Priorities?

Image (c) Fred First www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com

Recently my wife and I have enjoyed conversing with a new acquaintance in Columbia: Monta Welch, founder of the Columbia Climate Change Coalition (check out the CCCC's online group). One especially thought-provoking conversation in particular has reopened, at least for me, the question of “green priorities.” As we – as green-minded Missourians, Americans, and earth-dwellers in general – continue to moved toward a united voice and mission, we must ask ourselves, “What for?” Why find and expand our “green community?”

Some of the ready answers are powerful in and of themselves. First, of course, clichéd though it may be, we are a stronger force together than we would be alone – in lobbying, in outreach, in mutual encouragement. We educate one another; we stretch and challenge each other’s perceptions. There is something good – something both utilitarian and ‘holistic’ – about all of this. All things “green” have their value; all green actions have their place.

And to be sure, we should indeed avoid the temptation to hold as more “valuable” any one ecological interest over another: One person’s goal to protect a fragile, local ecosystem is not more “valuable,” per se, than another’s focus on harnessing wind power or teaching conservation to children. But here’s the thing: all “values” aside, are there not, in this hour, some issues more pressing – more worthy of our combined energies and passions as a green community?

If the climate scientists are right, the answer, it would seem, is a resounding “Yes.” The Climate issue, that is, is strikingly “pressing” in that the rivers, the forests, the ice-caps and endangered species, the coastlands, and all that we are trying to protect, are themselves “endangered” by the prospect of what might come in the next few decades if we as a species don’t change our course.

To be sure, whatever we have already been doing, we need to keep doing it, and with no less fervor --- whatever our passions (rivers or forests, alternative energies or endangered habitats) we should not let them go. But for those of us whose main environmental concern has NOT, to this point, been global warming (and I count myself as on that boat), the time has passed for passing the responsibility to “someone else.” If we have no more room on our “front burners,” then clearly we need a bigger stove.

Nathan First
Missouri Renewable Energy

Earth Day is approaching!

If you live near the Columbia area, don't forget about the Earth day event on April 22nd,
MORE Energy will be there, so stop by and say hello!

And if you live near Marshfield, Missouri, MORE Energy will be having a free energy festival from 10am-4pm. We hope to see you there!

Advancing Renewables Conference, March 28

A friend of ours in the area's sustainability society, David Mars (more on him, and them, soon?), tells us this conference in Columbia is a don't-miss event for the renewable-energy savvy (or for those of us who'd like to be...). Something like 200 people made it to last year's all-day event, and it looks like they've got another impressive line-up of speakers for this one (the keynote speaker this year is Julia Judd, executive director of SEPA -- Solar Electric Power Association).

Still, I look forward just as much to milling around during coffee breaks, seeing what's new on the "renewable" market, and meeting other likeminded folk.

See you there?

A New Renewable Group Starting

Missouri Energy Survival

February Renewable Energy Workshops

We had a great time at our Winter Energy show on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007! About a hundred people were able to make it, despite the very cold temperatures. If you were unable to make our winter show, we want to invite you to our Spring show, on March 25th from 1pm-4pm!

We also want to invite everyone to check out our workshops going on in February and March. The workshops provide hands-on information and instruction on a variety of Renewable Energy topics. Also included in the workshops is a dvd/video and/or handouts on the material. We hope to see you soon at a Renewable Energy workshop! If you are interested in saving money on the workshops we invite you to become a MORE member. Details on workshops and membership are all found on our website or call 1-800-228-5284 for more information.

FREE Winter Energy Show

This Saturday we want to invite everyone to attend our Free Renewable Energy show!

Located at 9810 State Road AE, in New Bloomfield, Missouri
Saturday, February 3, 2007 From 10AM- 4PM

The show is indoors, however dress warm to walk between the various buildings. We will have demonstrations and various resources for the public. There will also be a bake sale for breast cancer survivors.

We hope to see you Saturday!
For more information call 1-800-228-5284

Corn Fuel

Check out how John is saving on his winter bills!

Renewable Energy at Work in India

In India, power shortages are felt nearly everywhere. The reasons range from corruption in government to power theft from over-head power lines. Residents rountinely tamper with electric meters and politicians arrange for families to get free power in exchange for votes. In many small villages, electric power lines are non-existent and the people reside in the darkness with the occassional use of kerosene lanterns.

New Life Evangelistic Center founded an ophranage in the town of Kakinada in southern India. Mark Bernier and Paul Day, recently traveled to India to work with Paparao Yeluchuri, the coordinator of the NLEC center in India and teach how to implement renewable energy. Now, NLEC India is teaching people how to use solar photovoltaics, solar cooking, solar hot water and micro hydro! Thousands participated and it was coverd by state television. Steps are now being taken to use micro-hydro in many rural villages where no electricity exists.

Check out articles from Home Power Magazine

The Weather Channel takes a stand for global warming, and takes the heat.

For years now The Weather Channel has taken on what it sees as its "responsibility": providing the facts on global warming. Now they have taken their campaign to a whole new level…

Check out the controversy here, and get acquainted with The Weather Channel’s stand on global warming through their show and blog, “One Degree.”

The Weather Channel and Green Machines

Plus, take The Weather Channel’s “Green Vehicle” test. How does your car (or better yet, your next car) rank? How much does it cost annually to fuel? How many tons of greenhouse gas emissions does it produce? How many miles per gallon, and what’s its “air pollution score”? I was amazed at how disparate (and important) the results were.

For example: The average driver will spend over $2,500 more at the pump each year by driving a Dodge Ram 1500 rather than a Toyota Prius. That’d be twenty grand in eight years—the cost of a car!

See for yourself.

(Note: At this link, I’ve already picked five cars, just for kicks. To see others, just “remove” one or two of these and select a new vehicle.)

A Few Ways to Help the Environment

1. Switch from incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs

2. Take canvas bags to the grocery store instead of adding to the 84 billion plastic bags Americans use every year

3. Use a travel mug when you are taking your cofee to go

4. Insulate your home

5. RECYLE, don’t throw it all in the trash bin

6. Walk or bike

7. Eat lower on the food chain

8. Switch to Green Power

9. Use biofuels and/or a more fuel efficient car

Want to learn how to install Renewable Energy in your home or car??

Check out MORE's January and February workshops! Save $$$ by becoming a MORE Member!

MORE Recommends these Films!

An Inconvenient Truth


Who Killed the Electric Car

FREE FAIR on February 3, 2007

The Winter Energy Show on Saturday Febuary 3, 2007 from 10 am to 4 pm

Plan to attend one of the upcoming renewable energy fairs and learn about alternative energy sources, affordable housing projects, gather FREE material, talk to experts, and much more.

Located at:

The Mid America Renewable Energy Center
9810 State Road AE
New Bloomfield, Missouri

For more details call us at 1.800.228.5284 or email us: info@moreenergy.org

Hope to see you then!

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