Thoughts on President Obama’s Oval Office address

Thoughts on President Obama’s Oval Office address

Posted on June 17th, 2010 by alex

It is unfortunate that most transitions result from a reactionary cause rather than from an assessment. We all try to catch up to newer technology not because of its hip to society, but to convenience, affordability and sense of investment on the choice of expense. Change is one of the most reluctant decision to commit to – especially on lifestyle. Obviously, there are hand counts of factors that greatly depend on those considerations. Nevertheless, some of those decisions are bound to change; only a matter of time. Decisions on alternative energy resources is one of them. It is a course we gravely appear to lag – for the most part the east coast. Solar energy with solar roof panels, wind power with wind energy credits, green remodeling or energy efficient endeavors with car or audits are varieties of choices to consider on the basis of affordability or sense of investment.

Fortunately, the awareness seems to be growing and the push to educate and inform our communities can’t fit in no better time than now. The profound oil spill disaster is more than an awakening for a shift to renewable efficiency energy, it is a commitment that would be our safest resort but sadly under reactionary consequences. President Obama laid out this idea in his Oval Office address on the BP oil spill.

President Obama’s Oval Office Address

From the 11th (11.33) minute, the president expressed this same idea that Sobuka believes in. In addition, we try to inform consumers that these technologies and choices do exist. There is a lot of confidence to move onto these choices. There are also incentives being developed as encouragement for more people to consider these smarter energy-efficient choices. So this message is for you – it is for every energy consumer ranging from the car owners to the homeowners. Don’t wait to react, take on this hard bout which will certainly serve more than its worth.

Start today by getting quotes on solar installs or wind renewable energy credits, or an energy efficiency audit, or green remodeling materials, or simply sign up for our free newsletter to get more information about eco-friendly issues.

Tags: BP Oil Spill, energy efficiency, Green Remodeling, Obama speech, Solar Energy, Wind Energy

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Environment, Green Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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i hope this doesn't turn into what happened in the 70's .. we got high gas prices and everyone panicked, when prices went lower everyone went right back to what they were used to doing.

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Staying Green on Father’s Day

Staying Green on Father’s Day

Posted on June 5th, 2010 by Nick

Depending on who you ask, Father’s Day has been around for several thousand years. It gained popularity in the United States due to Sonora Smart, a resident from Spokane, Washington. She came up with the idea while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. At that time the only parent she had was her father… and you can guess how the tradition in the US expanded with gifts and remembrance to all fathers.
At this time, we came up with several green gift ideas for Father’s Day.

1. Watches have been a popular item for most people. Why get your dad a watch with that needs batteries when you can go solar? One idea is the Casio G-shock Solar Watch from Amazon.com. Too sporty looking? Ok, how about this stylish Seiko Men’s SNP007 Coutura Kinetic Perpetual Watch, also from Amazon.com? No batteries to throw away, so good for the environment.

2. You may not have to buy any products for your father. There may be furniture around the home that can be recycled or beefed up. If you have an old wooden chair that your father may like or anything antique, think about refurbishing them with replacement parts and/or gloss material to make them look like new.

3. Another great gift idea a book. Check out these green books ranging from topics such as green design, green living, and sustainable practices to help improve a home. There are also books available on green facts such as climate change and topics relating to the physical science of our planet. If you want to go super green, Amazon also has the Kindle, an electronic tablet, where you can download from a list of hundreds of books all on-line while saving trees.

4. Save energy for your father by purchasing energy star rated products ranging anywhere from fluorescent/LEDs light bulbs to a new washer/dryer.

5. For handymen out there, tools can be a great gift. For example the Black and Decker Thermal Leak can help weatherize the home. The thermal detector has a color (green, blue, red) module to check for energy leaks. We created an article sometime ago to help people weatherize their homes by sealing their windows by themselves. Check out our previous blog post on weatherization.

If you are looking or shopping the web for appliances or home related goods, you can stop by our on-line store here: Shop Sobuka.

Tell us what gifts you are giving your dad by leaving a comment to share with our green world. You can also check out ZapRoot for some great ideas on media based technology:

If you would like to learn more about what you can do to go green, a nice energy audit will send you in the right direction. The insight you gain from it will give you plenty of ideas for a little green remodeling, so you can become part of the solution. Sign up for an energy audit through Sobuka by typing in your zipcode and selecting contractors in your area.

Tags: father's day, green gift guide

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Featured Content, Shop Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Green Summer Camp Event

Green Summer Camp Event

Posted on June 6th, 2010 by Nick

Are you ready for some fun this summer with Sobuka?! That is why we are partnered with the Patriot’s Center this summer 2010.

Patriot’s exciting Going Green with Technology Camp in collaboration with the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, & Environmental Justice National Nuclear Security Administration U.S. Department of Agriculture. The focus this summer is on GREEN.

This year, students (6th-12th Grades) will get a chance to do research on Renewable Energy and Environmental Justice with the Department of Energy (DOE). Students will be able to fine tune their research skills and network with DOE representatives for opportunities for internship, summer jobs and obtaining a mentor. Johnson Controls, a company that provides building technology, will train the students to be ambassadors as energy auditors. They will conduct hands-on weatherization audits on a house, school, church and business. Other fun activities will be trips to the Shell Hydrogen Center, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, DOE Headquarters and host a Mini Going Green with Technology Conference for the community.

Speaking of technology – NAVSEA from the NAVY will give a training session on building a Lego robot, alarm systems, programming rockets and having a “blast off” day. Our partners, Cy Khormaee from Microsoft and Gerard Cooper of IT Computer Wiz Kids will give workshop on social media and building the ultimate gaming computer. You will even get a chance to make your own video and produce your resume in the Professional Development workshop.

WHEN: June 21 – July 23, 2010
WHERE: Highland Park Elementary School
2601 Lowland Drive
Landover, MD 20785
TIME: 8am-2pm
COST: $600.00. If you are already a member, the cost is $500.00.

Please provide your name and contact information by visiting our events page here.

If you would like to learn more about what you can do to go green, a nice energy audit will send you in the right direction. The insight you gain from it will give you plenty of ideas for a little green remodeling, so you can become part of the solution. Sign up for an energy audit through Sobuka by typing in your zipcode and selecting contractors in your area.

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Great opportunity for kids to learn about energy audits and other green activities.

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Washington DC Bike-Sharing Program

Washington DC Bike-Sharing Program

Posted on May 24th, 2010 by Nick

Program is Getting 10x Bigger!

Washington DC’s SmartBike, the first bike-sharing program in the USA, is about to be supplanted by a much bigger and better bike-share. It will be based on Montréal’s Bixi and grow the number of bikes and stations almost ten-fold!

Bikes in Washington DC

Bike-Sharing is Awesome
SmartBike has only 120 bikes and 10 stations, but the new version of the project will have about 1,100 bikes and 114 stations all around the district and in the neighboring Arlington County.

by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada. View full article here.

If you live in the Washington DC area, commuting on a bike sounds like a good idea to avoid traffic during the weekdays and even the weekends. Think about how much money you can also save and how you can reduce your carbon footprint.

Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be around K street or Logan Circle, and we may have bike rush-hour traffic like this…

If you would like to learn more about what you can do to go green, a nice energy audit will send you in the right direction. The insight you gain from it will give you plenty of ideas for a little green remodeling, so you can become part of the solution. Sign up for an energy audit through Sobuka by typing in your zipcode and selecting contractors in your area.

Tags: bike, Washington DC

This entry was posted on Monday, May 24th, 2010 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Environment, Featured Content, Green Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Time to eMonitor your home

Time to eMonitor your home

Posted on May 14th, 2010 by alex

This outta be the next best thing for any home! Are you one of those wise-conscious owners who tries to police energy usage in your homes? Smile now, help is within your reach. In several efforts to curtail high billing expenses or maintain energy-conserving discipline, an improved technology has been developed just for these kinds of measures. PowerHouse Dynamics introduces eMonitor – a home energy manager. This eMonitor provides information on how much electricity is used in a room or by appliance consumption. eMonitor is considered a long term investment with initial saving on energy bill from 5% to 20% of installation within the year. One can consider eMonitor a good auditing device that would analyze as well as outline proper daily usage of energy.

At a marginal price of $799, the eMonitor is served with a 5-year monthly service – which is reasonable enough if equated on its savings. Its active recommendation through email or phone (with the necessary app) counts as one of the features from the device. I am sure lots of people will be interested to know how much energy is wasted. However most folks do not know that if they buy into this technology, they would be contributing to lowering their carbon footprint. I suppose the government can create some type of incentive program for leveraging energy bills or housing infrastructure…Just a wishful thought. Nevertheless, eMonitor will serve a much greater purpose than expected.

Feel free to take a few steps in the right direction by getting quotes from our green contractors for solar or wind energy services, energy efficiency audits, or green remodeling projects by going to our homepage and doing a quick search with your zipcode (currently supporting DC, MD, VA only).

Tags: Energy-Conserving, Home

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 11:07 am and is filed under Energy Audits, Featured Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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one of many cool alternatives to monitor your home's energy consumption

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Nissan Showing new LEAF

Nissan Showing new LEAF

Posted on May 7th, 2010 by alex

Talk about bang for your buck!!! Nissan’s Leading Environmentally-friendly, Affordable, Family car is a trend setting type of engineered battery car. Its battery pack estimated at (£6000) which is $8,896 raises a lot of interest as well as reasonable pricing that is drawing tons of reservation for this car when it launches in not so far 2011. Nissan LEAF will be in tough competition with GM’s Volt  in terms of  driving range; then  again there will be “logical” reasons to give when the time comes. Nevertheless, Nissan LEAF has been designed to be self-sustaining. Annual car maintenance doesn’t apply with this vehicle (except yearly brake pad inspection) and its navigation system is globally connected especially for re-charging purposes for stations. I guess we will soon start hearing more about charging station expansion and infrastructure in 2011.

I hope other manufacturing car company can follow suit or compete to bring the best of clean energy to the United States as well as getting back to leading in  manufacturing [which interprets as more long lasting green jobs]. Nissan LEAF offers more with its new technology and affordability with all things considered ( pricing for 5-car seater, driving range and up-keep). These are the immediate factors that need be trendy so that climate changes and environmental technology become the new “hip” for the decade.

Tags: Electric Car

This entry was posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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best bang for your green buck?

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Oil Spill at the Gulf of Mexico

Oil Spill at the Gulf of Mexico

Posted on May 5th, 2010 by Nick

While reading up on the possibilities of this bike (Persu Hybrid) powered by a fuel efficient battery, I could not help but think about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If you have not heard by now, there was an oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago. The involved parties involving government and private entities are looking to contain the oil spill by burning it away. Something as severe as this does not happen too often but with all the talk about green, it makes going green an important business.

Let’s start with what oil is needed or its daily use and what types of healthier alternatives can take its place.

There are green alternatives for fossil fuels for all of the products below. So what we did was write possible alternatives right next to each one. Check out the new green world as followed in our alternate ‘universe’ example:

GASOLINE – In our alternate green universe, everyone is driving renewable cars powered by smart batteries and/or hydrogen.

DIESEL FUEL – In our alternate green universe, trucks are being powered by 100% biodiesel.

JET FUEL – In our alternate green universe, all jet fuel is composed of waste materials. Check out Flag-carrier British Airways (BA).

BUNKER FUEL – In our alternate green universe, all bunker fuel is composed of waste materials as well.

SYNTHETIC RUBBER – In our alternate green universe, all rubber is made from crops. The rubber is then recycled. Check out Guayule – A new clean tech industry.

DETERGENT – In our alternate green universe, all detergents are made from natural surfactants (made from coconut, palm and vegetable oil), sodium carbonate, preservatives, and water. Check out Sun & Earth 2x Free and Clear Unscented Laundry as an example.

PHOTOGRAPHIC FILM – By now in our alternate green universe everyone has a digital camera.

PLASTICS – In our alternate green universe, everyone is carrying eco-friendly recyclable/compostable bags.

You get the point. There are many uses of oil and the list can go on and on. It only takes will power. In the United States alone we consume about 20 million barrels of oil per day. That is enough to power a third of the world by itself! The Persu Hybrid is one example of a fuel efficient vehicle running on 75 + MPG. Image that! If everyone were using these types of vehicles, we could cut our dependency to more than half. It only takes will power. Let’s make our alternate universe a reality today.

Tags: alternative energy sources, oil spill gulf of mexico 2010, Persu Hybrid

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Environment, Featured Content, Green Technology, sustainable products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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good list of alternatives to oil

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