In the next few years we will see more of these emerge onto the marketplace.  The will continue to develop.  Not entirely sure what the overall costs are yet, but OLEDs hold some potential.

Here is a GE produced video that talk about OLEDs in a broad sense.

I will still have the blog, it will just become a sub of this website.  More to follow.  Thank you for your support.

Dale

This Home was built in Snohomish County and was a qualified Energy Star home. It also met many of the other programs such as Built Green and won many awards for its construction.

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On another note, everyone is greatly concerned about gas and energy prices. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Solar power is making headway in our state and now some of the solar equipment is being manufactured in Washington. I have to agree with many people that Washington is not the sunniest state, but solar power has been making headway and is becoming more efficient and the cost is coming down.

That said, you can get information about solar power in Washington from www.solarwashington.org. There is a wealth of information from products to incentives to installers.

Here is, Silicon Energy, a company that is a spin off of another electrical company located in Arlington, WA. This will be great since they are in the back yard of one of my projects, Lake Riley Estates. Silicon Energy should be open this year.

• Green Washing - Making an items seem ‘greener’ than it really is. In this day and age there are lots of ‘marketing’ schemes being used to make people think they are helping the environment. One item to consider if you are taking ‘too much’ from the environment, is how much embodied energy are you using.
• Embodied Energy - is the total energy it takes to create an item or product. So how much ‘total’ energy does it take to make a dime? Does it cost 10 cents? Really? Or does it cost more, but because it lasts longer, the total energy is less. Think of it in terms of socks. I can go to a big chain outlet (no names please) and spend $5 on 8 pairs of socks. But they only last a year. Or I can go and spend $5 per pair of socks and they last 5 years (or more and still be comfortable). So which on uses more energy? Really the you need to count how many times you went to the store plus the energy used to make the additional socks, how far did it travel, etc. There are a lot of variables and they all ad up to more energy and more money.
• Fly Ash – A by product of a coal fired plant. Is coal the best energy source? Maybe not. But we have many around the country and there is one in Centralia, WA. Does it make sense to just scrap it? I am not sure about that. What about it’s fly ash? Where does it go? Right now most of it is stockpiled. Where can it go? It can be added to concrete (locally in Washington). It is a great additive. Plus it does not then end up in land fills.
• Sustainable Development – think smart and be responsible. What happens with the wildlife, the water flow, etc when development comes into an area. I believe we should be responsible and develop in a sustainable manner. The earth is not getting bigger and so far as I know it. We only have one planet that we can live on. We better take care of it.

Generally speaking LEED is a Green Building Rating System, one of the major systems.

Hope this helps you understand.

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