Story Archives of 'Public Insight'

Charter schools have long struggled to gain a foothold here in New Hampshire. Now there’s a new challenge for them: a proposed cap in the number of students who can enroll and the possibility of “laying off” other students currently attending. We’ll talk about this proposal and the future of charter schools.

Guests

• Bill Wilmot, head of school at the Seacoast Charter School in Kingston
• Rick Trombly, director of public affairs for the National Education Association - New Hampshire

We'll also hear from

• Maggie Hassan, Democratic state senator from Exeter and Senate majority leader
• Lou D'Allesandro, Democratic state senator from Manchester and chair of the Senate Finance Committee

All week NHPR has looked at energy alternatives to fossil fuels, including solar, wind, nuclear, biomass and more. We looked at powering the grid, heating the home and fueling the car. We looked what’s already being done in the state, what’s right around the corner, and what could be exciting opportunities in our future. But how do we figure out where we go from here? Today decisionmakers in the state join us for a special live broadcast to talk about New Hampshire’s energy future.

Guests

• Clifton Below, commissioner for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission
• Amy Ignatius, director for the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning
• George Gantz, Senior Vice President of Customer Services and Communications for Unitil Corporation

People in New Hampshire hear the message- reduce, reuse, recycle. And many agree it’s the right thing to do. But lots of people don’t actually follow through for one reason or another. Businesses continue to rely on inefficient equipment. It’s easy to find SUVs, trucks, vans and cars with lousy fuel mileage all over the road. So New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein went to find out what it’s going to take for the state to become more green.

Going green sometimes requires a helping hand. As part of our week-long series on our renewable energy future, NHPR’s Internet sherpa and new media coordinator Brady Carlson is with us to review some of the latest gadgets to help us conserve energy.

Something that Brady learned through managing NHPR’s Public Insight Network (a group of listeners who share their observations and personal experiences) was that a lot of people feel like there are serious obstacles to some of the green changes they'd like to make in their lives. A lot of people said they'd really like to have their own solar panel, generate their own clean energy instead of using fossil fuels, but the up-front costs are just too high and the tax credits aren't enough to make it feasible. Or they want to buy a hybrid, but don't think the time is right to get a new car. And there were people who said they'd already made a lot of green changes – they recycle, they compost, they switched to CFLs, etc.

Brady's goal was to find conservation-friendly gadgets and resources that people could use right now without a major investment of time and money, or any major lifestyle changes. (which is what we all really want anyway, right?)

Brady's suggested conservation gadgets:

Portable Solar Chargers

Maybe you're not at a point you can power your house on solar, but maybe you can power your tech gadgets. Portable solar chargers are becoming pretty useful – they're compact and, of course, portable, and for 30 to 50 bucks you have a solar charger for your cell phones, BlackBerries, MP3 players, even laptops. Is this alone going to solve the energy issue? No, but for Internet sherpas, or even just tech-savvy people, turning your tech energy over to solar is a good step in the right direction.

Veos

Laundry is one of the most energy-intensive chores we do. The Veos is a design for a fabric softener dispenser, so it goes into the machine with your clothes. It harvests the kinetic energy from the clothes being spun and tossed around. When the wash is done, you pull the Veos out and hook it into your grid and use the energy. This isn't going to reclaim all the energy you use in the laundry - so clothesline advocates may not be Veos users – but if you use a machine and want to do so, this may be for you.

Thermal Leak Detector

New England has a lot of old, drafty houses, so conserving energy for us starts with being efficient with the energy we're already generating. Thermal leak detectors help you figure out where you're losing energy by comparing temperatures at different places on your wall. They're like stud finders – you point them at the wall, and they let you know where the temperature change is significant. If you find a big difference, there's a good chance it's a spot where you might need more insulation. I've read that the detectors aren't as simple as point-and-shoot and that you do have to spend more than a little time to really get a handle on your energy, but these cost around forty bucks, so the price is right and with a little learning you can start to see where you can make weatherization really count in your house.

Veggie Trader

Many of us who garden often have more than we can use. In this case, we either can it, which is time consuming, or we let it rot, which is wasteful, or we find someone to share it with. Veggie Trader lets you interact with other gardeners in your area who have extra veggies so that you can make the most of your garden. How is this conservation? Because eating local food means you're not buying food shipped in from somewhere else, so that saves energy. And it's community-building at the same time! Great quote from one of the operators, who said someone told them: “I wish I had this last year so I didn’t have a yard full of raccoons getting drunk off my fermenting plums.”

(Photo by solar charger Shawn Brandow via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Wood is one of the earth’s oldest energy sources, but Granite Staters are considering wood chips as a new option for fueling the energy grid. Proponents see a lot of possibilities for biomass: New Hampshire is the second most forested state, and there are lots of trees available to burn. But critics warn that the wood supply isn't infinite and that wood isn’t an overly efficient power source. We’ll look at the benefits and challenges of biomass.

Guests

• Bill Gabler, project director for Clean Power Development, LLC, a New Hampshire company that focuses on the development of renewable and sustainable wood-fueled biomass-energy facilities
• Curt Whittaker, shareholder and head of the Energy Practice at the Concord-based law firm Rath, Young and Pignatelli

We'll also hear from

• Steve Walker, president and CEO of New England Wood Pellet
• Jana Chicoine, spokesperson for Concerned Citizens of Russell, a group critical of biomass energy located in Western Massachusetts
• Richard Despins, station manager of Schiller Station in Portsmouth, which is home to the Northern Woods Power Biomass Plant