I knew about burning wood and using corn for energy--neither of these is really carbon neutral, though because of the costs of growing, harvesting, and processing. The best plant materials for biomass are waste from mills and sustainably grown perennial crops. It can reduce heating costs by up to 80%.

I never heard of gasification (instead of combustion) which is actually carbon negative. It puts biochar back into the soil which increases plant growth while decreasing the water needed to grow the crops--beneficial in places like California.

I also learned about several companies in Africa that convert human waste into safe fuel briquettes that burn longer and cleaner than charcoal and are much less expensive to purchase. 1 ton of briquettes saves 88 trees! The "yuck factor" is overcome by the cost savings and efficiency even though they are used mainly in cook stoves. I like the efficiency and beauty of recycling waste!

I would consider geothermal instead of a central A/C but an air source heat pump would probably better meet our needs. I would definitely advocate for US cooperation (financial support) for development of geothermal in lower income nations where geothermal resources are greatest. There is a high upfront investment and risk but operating costs are low--and, there is a huge amount of energy that can be tapped.

First of all, clean and quiet but also, kind of like the space station or a biosphere--where everything is recycled and reused and nothing is ever wasted--or as close to this ideal as possible. Just read about methane digesters and really like this idea. They could greatly benefit farmers, industries, cities, governments, universities, schools, and prisons as well as reduce methane pollution which has 34 times more warming power in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

Central Hudson sends us several "report cards" a year and we always score really low on energy usage (less than 200 KWH/month) compared to our neighbors. We use energy efficient light bulbs, have Energy Star appliances that we use sparingly, and we turn lights off when we leave a room--we don't turn the Internet and connected devices completely off when we're not using them, though--just takes too long to boot up several times a day--maybe someday we'll do better with this. We just changed our energy provider to CleanChoice Energy www.cleanchoiceenergy.com and chose the 99% wind/1% solar plan which should save 3,477# of carbon emissions per year!

That is a good question. I know that most of the Bard campus is powered by geothermal energy and I would love to hear more about its energy solutions by our CCL team Leader Laurie who heads up the sustainable department at Bard!  I know there is a company in the Rhinebeck area that hopes to begin offering geothermal....