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With the start of our new GTG Blog on EarthDay 2013, we are occasionally renewing our old "postings" dating back from 1987. Please watch our "How To" instructional videos on posting your comments to GTG's Blog and use the RSS Feed on the right to receive notice for a new Posting. Also visit the back Story (Blog Preface) behind all this!
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Sustainable Payback With Solar

6/12/2018

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Above Data is tracked, recorded and presented by Tesla Incorporated

Three Years, Eight Months ago... I went with Photovoltaic Solar Panels for producing electricity at my house. This month I saved the complete amount of my cost to install the panels. The reasons for my fast Three year and Eight month Return on my investment starts with having an energy efficient house. The actions I have taken to live a more sustainable life and have a very energy efficient house took about 12 years prior to implement. Nevertheless, these energy efficient actions taken are NOT rocket science. The estimated "reach" of 1.7 million people who can access my Going True Green blog posts know that obtaining optimum energy efficiency isn't difficult when you have all the facts and done within your own budget of time and money. With my energy efficient house and solar panels, I have not had an electric bill above the 9 to 13 dollars per month service fees from my Electric Utility.

The second reason for the fast payback is due to my research and evaluation of many Solar companies. (Several of the companies that I did not go with are now out of business or their suppliers have bowed out) Product performance was also key, knowing where the products were manufactured, who installed what components and comparing the costs between Lease programs or buying.

The third reason is because I was confident enough with my knowledge of Solar to be one of the first to take the leap ahead. The timing was perfect because the best offers were being made as well as the best tax credits. I did a Lease Program that offered a 33% discount on the total cost if I pre-paid the twenty years of lease payments up front. I then received a tax credit from the Federal Government and the State that was equal to half of my up front cost.

So when I reached a savings of $6,000.00 this month, I had a full Return on my investment. In fact, I have been producing more electricity than I consume, thus suppling power back onto the Grid. Yes, I have AC cooling the house and the lights (LEDs) are on at night. As I took action to live a more sustainable life, I have saved money, energy, our environment and all without making any sacrifices. I am living healthier and happier as I try to present the educational facts through my GoingTrueGreen.com and EnergyHotwire.com websites that provide assistance to everyone who visits.

One additional note... Since installing Solar on my house, several neighbors followed and the value of my house has increased.

Bill Lauto, at GoingTrueGreen.com
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
Contribute your comments!

Invisible Glass

1/5/2018

Even though we can see through glass, glass is not invisible. Until 2017 when scientists at Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials almost eliminated all surface reflections on their textured glass surface containing features that measure billionths of a meter.

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Image provided and Copyrighted by Brookhaven National Laboratory

This ultra-transparent nano-textured glass is antireflective over a large range of wavelengths that include the visible and near-infrared spectrum, along with viewing angles. The glass is virtually invisible because the reflections are reduced to almost non-existent.

With this discovery we should see many benefits such as:

Enhanced solar cell efficiency
Improved high-power laser applications
Eliminating glare on sunny days when viewing smartphones or screens
Resistant to fog
Improvements with steam turning condensation coils
Improvements in car and aircraft windshields

However, one immediate drawback that comes to mind is with those sliding glass doors. Visual stickers on the glass will now need to be mandatory.

Bill Lauto, at GoingTrueGreen.com
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
Contribute your comments!

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TELOMERE, by L. J. Williams "Telling The Untold Stories™ BBV Publishing

Solar Fountain & Eclipse

8/22/2017

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America's 2017 Solar E!

My Solar powered water fountain is another action I did so that I can be “going true green.” I improvised the construction with left over parts and pieces that all came together as a conglomerate, thus provoked the fountain’s name…

Then the American 2017 Solar Eclipse occurred slowly casting a shadow that decreased the output from the 10 watt solar panel. As crickets became pronounced in sound production with this false twilight, the babbling water in the fountain stopped. The event gave a realistic aura to my fountain named The Ruins of Pompeii.

So the moral to this story is… Well, just look into a Solar powered pump for your water fountain, if you have one. Make sure you recycle and reuse the same water running through the pump. A battery backup works fine for the cloudy days and evenings when you sit outside with family and friends. The benefits are numerous all around. My water fountain comes on every morning when the sun comes up and runs all day with Free electrical energy from our sun. If I had to pay an electric bill, then I guess I would only turn the fountain on for special occasions. With Solar, I can enjoy the sounds of running water from the fountain every time I step into my yard. Even when I am just outside to pick some carrots or a water melon. This is an excellent Going True Green action that saves money, energy, water, and our environment. All by just living a more sustainable life right in your own home. If we all did these actions, together we the people, will save more of everything compared to any corporate entity.

Solar Eclipse image and video above is Copyright © 2017 by BBV Publishing and can not be reused without written permission

Bill Lauto, at GoingTrueGreen.com
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
Contribute your comments!

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TELOMERE, by L. J. Williams "Telling The Untold Stories™ BBV Publishing

Mouths Drop Open

2/24/2017

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Holiday Conversations

This past year's holiday parties that I attended all had a common topic, Electric Bills. I guess when the weather outside is cold and all the lights are on by 5 in the afternoon, electric bills come to mind. Yet, I myself was surprised by the dynamism and strength of the conversations. Especially because I didn't start the conversations!

At one event, where I didn't directly know the host, guests took turns talking about various steps they have taken to lower electrical costs. Then while dessert was being served, the host proudly announced how much they reduced their electric consumption.

"We went from about $325.00 to $275.00 a month!"

Everyone congratulated our host and so did I which provoked another guest, who knew about my background, to inform everyone that I was an Energy Consultant.

"Oh, what are your electric costs?" Someone asked.
"Mine is around $120 dollars."
"Wow," people replied. "That is really amazing, 120 dollars per month."
"No," I responded. "That is per year."

Mouths dropped open with or without dessert still in them. They slowly closed as I explained:

For almost 15 years I have been making my house energy efficient and more sustainable. No rocket science, common steps everyone can afford to accomplish. So when I went with solar panels two years ago I have been producing more electrical power than what I consume. Prior to this winter, I had 2,000 Kilowatt hours in excess and with our sun low in the sky I have been using that supply to make up the difference. By the time winter is over, I will have about 1,400 Kilowatt hours still left over and the power company will write me a check after I start my new calendar year in April. The ten dollars or so that I pay per month is for taxes and fees. I hope the check from my power company will cover most of that cost. However, that will depend on how much my electric utility pays me per Kilowatt. They charge us at least 18 cents but pay out between 3 and 4 cents per Kilowatt. How do you like them apples?

If you want solar panels to work this well for you, there are many steps to be taken first. The most important one is to have a very energy efficient house and that does not mean a "smart" house. I mean a common sense efficient house. Just peruse through my blog posts, you will understand what I am talking about soon enough.

Bill Lauto, at Going True Green
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
Contribute your comments!

Telling the untold stories™

What's Your EBB?

7/15/2016

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Electric Meter

Electric Bill Breakdown:

Saving at home on electricity starts with knowing what is using the most electricity in the house. Differences will exist between an ALL Electric houses or a house that uses natural gas to make hot water in a separate gas fired Hot Water Heater. Nevertheless, let us look at some examples so that we can start to put our own house bills into perspective.

Twenty years ago and still today, the biggest daily user of electric power is most likely your refrigerator and/or your Air Conditioner. All your Incandescent light bulbs used 15% of your total power. Today that has changed to your electronics. They pull power even when they are not on! Today, electronics will use about 15% of your total electric consumption. Please review my blog on October 31, 2013 called Vampire Appliances.

Below is the average breakdown of electric power consumption for a house in the northern States of America. If the house is in the southern areas of America, the shown percentage for heat must be reversed with the percentage for cooling:

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Electric Meter

Heating 29%
Cooling 17%
Consumer Electronics 15%
Water Heating 14%
Appliances 13%
Lighting 12%

Yearly electric bill for areas with the highest Kilowatt cost (West and East Coast Cities) would be an average of $6,000.00. Please note that this is in addition to any natural gas or oil consumption bills.

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Solar Energy!

My costs are as follows:
Heating - I use Natural Gas with a 92% efficient unit, yearly cost: $ 340.00
Cooling - I use Solar Power, yearly cost: $ 0
Consumer Electronics - I use Solar Power, yearly cost: $ 0
Water Heating - I use Natural Gas with a 92% efficient unit, yearly cost: $ 420.00
Appliances - I use Solar Power, yearly cost: $ 0
Lighting - I use Solar Power, yearly cost: $ 0

My yearly grand total for Energy costs: $760.00. When I go with Solar Hot Water, I will save the $420 a year cost in Natural Gas. FYI: After the tax credits for going solar, my payback is just 4.5 years because I went with the pre-paid Lease program.

Now, I also receive a check at the end of the year from my electrical power company, this reimburses me for the approximate $10.00 a month cost they charge me to still be hooked up to the Grid. They pay me .4 cents per Kilowatt, while taking the extra power I created and placed back onto their Grid, so they can sell it to others for a price between .18 and .23 cents per Kilowatt. Wow! Twenty years ago we paid .12 cents per kilowatt and they paid .4 cents to anyone creating power by wind, solar, or a burning garbage facility. Since then our cost has gone up to .23 cents per kilowatt and they are still paying us .4 cents. Amazing, but that must be fair right? If it wasn't, how could they get away with that type of scalping? All our government politicians have failed us. For more on this, see my Solar Sabotage blog posting!

Bill Lauto , GTG
Environmental Scientist
 International Sustainability and Energy Consultant 
Contribute your comments!

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Telling the Untold Stories: TELOMERE by L. J. Williams

GTG Updates

7/7/2016

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AESS Conference in DC

On June 8th, it was an honor to be a speaker at the 2016 AESS Sustainability Conference in Washington, DC. My three hour workshop was a success and I connected with people from the Philippines to Germany. I was happy to see other workshop attendees looking in on my presentation through the open doors and listening to me when in route to the bathroom or when on a break. The answer truly is, all of us working together as one team.

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Solar Panels at St. John's

St. John's University, my alma mater, had a school reporter for the Torch newspaper write a story online about St. Augustine Hall scheduling a new roof and the amazing opportunity to install a custom Solar Panel system. The article quoted me from 1979!
Ironically, I was the first person as a student back in 1979 to propose solar panels on the roof of St. Augustine Hall. The "photo" on the left is from St. John's The Torch newspaper article that had my original interview! So I hope to stand on that new roof two years from now and 40 years from the first article, with energy and earth saving Solar Panels all around me.

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International Blog Posts

Going True Green's Blog has been picked up by Maximpact, based in Monaco France. They have a force of International Sustainability Consultants which I am part of for providing corporate accounts consulting in energy savings, environmental protection, and going green technologies. Since the month of May this year, when Going True Green's Blog was first added and listed, our international readership has more than doubled.

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Chestnut Hill College

I will be speaking this November at the 5th Annual Interdisciplinary Sustainability Conference in Philadelphia. The event is hosted by Chestnut Hill College. This year's theme is Science, Public Policy and Faith Traditions in Environmental Relationships. Also hosting is the Sisters of St. Joseph Earth Center. Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark, is the director of the Center and I hope to meet this amazing person who has done so much for our home we call Earth. Please Note: Conference was postponed until November 2017, then unfortunately cancelled.

Bill Lauto , GTG
Environmental Scientist
 International Sustainability and Energy Consultant 
Contribute your comments!

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BBV Publishing; Telling the Untold Stories: TELOMERE by L. J. Williams

Solar Sabotage

5/14/2016

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America, the land of the free! Except when you may want to install or lease solar!

I write this blog with great disappointment, because our Federal and State governments have failed us and greed controls many of the now inept utility companies that have sat on their previous prowess. A recent study found that 10 out of our 50 states can produce 35% of America's solar electricity. However, they cannot achieve this amazing task, because these 10 states are hindering the expansion of solar electric energy. Only in America could such an ironic statement like this be made: Several states with the most sunny days are sabotaging the solar industry and hard working Americans who want to install a solar system.

The study reported that Florida and Texas are the most gravest offenders, because they have the second and third highest potential for rooftop solar and are only producing 2.7% compared to the total 16% of their rooftop solar power.

Additionally, these 10 States such as Virginia, Nevada, Florida, and Texas, are contributing to making it more difficult for the United States to meet Fossil-Fuel Emission reductions established by the Paris climate change accord.

One can only assume that the utilities are in fear of losing income with solar customers, because they failed to act years ago to bring affordable solar energy to America. Now the utilities have competition and they are getting political leaders from any party to help defend them and their market that they cornered so many years ago. The defense comes in many forms, from Democratic and Republican governors or legislatures. Rules are put into play, such as if you put solar panels on your roof, you must own them. You cannot put panels on your roof that are the property of some solar company, because you are leasing them. Thus, a leasing program that makes solar energy affordable, saves homeowners money, and our environment's future for all our grandchildren, is now null and void.

Some States who are wearing the white cowboy hat are Arizona and California. They are producing more and more solar power each day. This saves money, energy, and our environment, while creating new jobs year after year. This makes it even harder to understand how other States just go along with policies that are preventing all these blessings. Then again, it is also hard to understand why leaders of some countries fear freedom and still believe the illusion that they must control their people.

In order to preserve this great planet of ours, we must be willing to put the best interests of the people before profit margins. Until that happens, the Earth and all of us living on it remain in jeopardy.

Bill Lauto , GTG
Environmental Scientist
 International Sustainability and Energy Consultant 
Contribute your comments!

Telling the Untold Stories: TELOMERE by L. J. Williams

Solar Power Update

3/24/2016

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Over 1 yr. @ Net Zero

It does not matter if you are interested in solar energy for helping God's green Earth, saving money, investing money, getting a job, writing a school report or just curious. Keeping yourself up to date is important and the article from ThinkProgress at this LINK is worth reading to do just that - staying informed.

Nevertheless, if you don't have time to peruse that article, I will offer you this summary... Growth in the solar industry is doing very well thanks to a few very smart companies and no thanks to the utilities. Below is a list of Highlights from America's solar power business:

In 2015, the solar workforce grew 20% for the third year in a row. That’s an addition of more than 35,000 jobs–bringing the total number of Americans working in the solar industry to over 200,000.
One out of every 83 American jobs created last year was in the solar industry.
The U.S. solar job market is growing 12 times as fast as the rest of the economy.
The solar industry created more jobs last year than oil and gas extraction combined! In fact, the solar installation sector alone now employs 77% more Americans than coal mining.

If anyone needs answers to solar questions, email us at GoingTrueGreen.com or use one of our Social Media connections. If you want to learn how to make your house more energy efficient so solar power works even better for you, again, please contact us. We will be happy to help you with going true green.

Bill Lauto , GTG
Environmental Scientist
 International Sustainability and Energy Consultant 
Contribute your comments!

GivePower Foundation

11/28/2015

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Thanksgiving

As promised I am presenting another Going True Green Blog post about "giving" in celebration of America's Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims at Plymouth probably would not have survived if help was not provided by the Wampanoag tribe, brought about mainly by an English speaking Native American named Squanto. All great things are accomplished when Humankind comes together in peace to learn from one another and to find solutions. The "gift of giving" is very powerful, one current program is shared below:

The GivePower Foundation involves the solar company called SolarCity that donates a solar system to a school without electricity for every Megawatt of Residential Solar Power they installed. The donated solar systems will also include lights and batteries. The schools are in remote areas of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In 2014, SolarCity and their partners installed over 500 systems. About 1.3 Billion people live in our world without any electricity.

The Bottom-Line is that society can not survive without education, so schools are first to receive clean and renewable energy from the GivePower Foundation. Programs like this and the GravityLight program that I posted on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2015 will give our world more educated people to work together so we can all save ourselves and our world.

Peace be with you,
Bill Lauto , GTG
Environmental Scientist
 International Sustainability and Energy Consultant 
Contribute your comments!

Off the Grid

10/30/2015

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I have waited decades to say this:

Solar power has matured to the point that we can see various accounts, from Homes to businesses, getting off the grid. This isn't going to happen over night, but it has already started thanks to "disruptive" solar products from Solar City. Elon Musk's battery from his car called Tesla is being used by his cousin Lyndon Rive, the CEO, at Solar City who has over 170,000 customers and about 40% of the residential solar market place.

Walmart stores, that pay higher electric rates during peak hours, had Solar City install Tesla batteries to store up solar power to use when peak rates are being charged. Thus saving 20 to 30 percent off electric costs. Homes are using the new 10 kilowatt hour battery packs that store around two days of electrical power.

So utility companies have been expressing significant concern because of this new storage technology that translates into people getting off the grid. This transition event is likely to occur at the same rate as landline phones to cell phones. GTM estimates the solar market, now at $48 million, will grow to $1 Billion by the year 2018. Nevertheless, utility companies will not go out of business. This is a transition like the horse and buggy to the automobile. As for the delivery of electricity, currently only the utilities can provide that service. However, who is producing clean electricity is rapidly changing.

The bottom line is that each of us has an obligation now to make our homes and businesses as energy efficient as possible. I discussed this in my previous Going True Green Blog post called Making Solar Power Shine on October 19th of this year. Please give that some of your time for perusal.

Bill Lauto , GTG
Environmental Scientist
 International Sustainability and Energy Consultant 
Contribute your comments!

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Author:
Bill Lauto
Environmental Science and Energy Consultant

Bill Lauto, Environmentalist, Energy Consultant

Bill Lauto came on the scene in 1981 to present facts and teach details about how we can save our environment without making sacrifices. He demonstrated how correctly implementing the technology we already obtained in 1981, allowed us to save Money, Energy and Earth. He voice was one among the few who taught green facts long before anyone else talked about Going Green.
Bill Lauto's Credentials
By 1994 the Internet was being explored as a tool to provide energy saving information to all of America by Mr. Lauto. Having the foresight, he first launched the Light Bulb HotLine web site off of the company's Domain in 1996. Then in April of 2001, EnergyHotwire.com became a resource. Today,
GoingTrueGreen.com has joined in to help dispel the mis-information and provide the facts about truly Going Green.

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