New Wind Generator Arrives!!
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 Posted in Captain's Blog, Green Earth News, Vermont Blog | No Comments »
The new wind generator comes out of the box!
Look what the UPS man brought today! Our new Air Breeze wind generator just arrived and I had to immediately take it out of the box and have a look. We’ll be using it at all our events from now on, helping to power the Solar Stage and anything else that needs juice. This Sunday at the 350.org rally in Burlington will be the unveiling of the great new addition. Gordon Stone will be the first musician to perform on the solar AND WIND powered stage. Come by if you’re in the area to celebrate!
Live blogging on Facebook
Thursday, May 13th, 2010 Posted in Captain's Blog | 1 Comment »Hi friends of the solar bus! We are on a trip to Richmond VA and live blogging along the way! Join us! It’s on Facebook. Here’s the link
Heading to Richmond VA
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 Posted in Captain's Blog | No Comments »
Hi folks, we are getting prepared for another big trip to the mid-atlantic region. We leave from Richmond VT and go al the way to Richmond VA. Just one change of a letter, but it’s a lot of miles in between.
We have a great crew of volunteers and we should have enough fingers and keyboards to do some live blogging on the way. We’ll share some photos, videos, and thoughts on the way. Check here (the Captains Blog) to ride along with us, virtually speaking 
Video from our trip to the White House
Monday, March 8th, 2010 Posted in Captain's Blog, Green Earth News, Progressive Politics, Vermont Blog | No Comments »It took a while to edit down the video from the Solar Bus trip to the White House last October.
On 10/24/09, rallies were held all over the world to call for climate change legislation. Organized by Bill McKibben and 350.org, it has been called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history,” with more than 5200 events in 181 countries. In Washington DC, a rally was held in Malcom X park, followed by a march to the Whitehouse. The Solar Bus was invited to transport a bunch of college students to the rally and to lead the march.
Beware of “DIY” solar panel scams!
Friday, February 12th, 2010 Posted in Captain's Blog, Green Earth News | 4 Comments »After seeing and researching through a few of these “build your own solar panel” websites, I want to urge extreme caution to anyone considering spending even $1 with these. They are virtually ALL SCAMS.
A few months ago these ads were all over the place, through Google ads and others. I sent several complaints to Google, and I’m sure other people did too. They seem to be waning a bit but they’re still around, and many of the websites that support the scams are sitll up.
I have read all kinds of outrageous claims, like for just a couple hundred dollars you can start running your meter backwards, or get most of your power from solar. This is pure BS! There is no way. Even if you got all the materials to make your solar panels for free, you still need an INVERTER to connect to the power company, which will cost you at least $2000. In order to sell power to the power company, youwill need to use UL listed equipment and your homemade panel will NOT be UL listed. Even if you don’t want to sell power back, you still need an inverter to get AC power and there is no way anyone is going to build their own inverter unless you’re an electrical engineer.
I could go on.
This is clearly a case of “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”
You might be able to build your own solar panel as a hobbyist and get some power from it to run a fan, charge a battery, or something like that. But to power your home? No way, it just isn’t going to happen. Anyone claiming you can do something like this for a “few hundred dollars” as some of these ads claim, is blatantly lying. Even if someone handed you free solar panels that were UL listed, that would only be about half of your system and the rest would cost several thousand dollars.
Don’t waste a dime on these scams. Most of them will just send you a book and you’ll find it to be useless. There are even some of these scammers here on this forum posting on threads and sending private messages. Don’t bite.
It is true that you can make your own solar panel, if you buy some surplus cells from a manufacturer and construct a frame around them. And you could charge a battery with them and run some small appliances and learn a lot. However these panels could NOT be connected to the grid as these scams claim.
Video from last event of the year
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 Posted in Captain's Blog | No Comments »The Solar Bus was asked to solarize the music stage for a private party in Massachussettes. It was a lot of fun and the band, Don’t Call Me Shirley, was great. Here is some video of the solar powered stage. Thanks to Windstream Power for the bicycle generator and Evergreen Solar for the solar panels that helped make it all possible.
Solar Bus on the Evening News!
Friday, May 22nd, 2009 Posted in Captain's Blog, Green Earth News | 2 Comments »The Solar Bus visited the ECHO Science Center for Earth Day. The WPTZ news crew, headed by meteorologist Tom Messner, showed up and ran this nice interview and “tour” of the solar bus. The segment aired live on the 6:00 news in Burlington. Here it is:
Special thanks to Tracy at ECHO, Tom Messner, and WPTZ for the publicity!
Visit to Shelburne Community School
Friday, May 15th, 2009 Posted in Captain's Blog | No Comments »
Today the Solar Bus visited the Shelburne Community School. Over 200 kids from grades 5-8 came through the bus and got a 30 minute lesson on solar energy. Phew! My voice was gone by the end of the day but it was really nice to see all the kids and the level of interest they had in the subject. Some kids, I could really tell the wheels were spinning in their heads, thinking about something they could invent to make the solar panels work better, while other kids just wanted to play with the solar powered bubble blower. As they say, kids are the future, so I’m always eager to bring the bus to schools. Onward…
Bonnaroo Video
Monday, November 24th, 2008 Posted in Captain's Blog | No Comments »We finally found some time to edit down the video from our great journey to Bonnaroo this summer. Watching this 30 minute mini-movie is very much like taking a ride on the bus. Sit back and enjoy the ride, meet the riders and drivers. You’re now on the bus!
Video from SolarFest
Thursday, July 24th, 2008 Posted in Captain's Blog, Green Earth News | No Comments »The folks at Brighter Planet made a video from SolarFest that shows the Solar Bus (and other great projects). Check it out!
Today's Green News Report
