renewable energy

Cool rides

Seen just now at the green car cruise-in at the Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair at CFAES Wooster: a red Chevy Bolt (electric, 238-mile range), a red Chevy Volt (extended range electric), a sharp white futuristic first-generation Nissan Leaf (electric), a cool space-pod-looking Mitsubishi i-MiEV (electric; range, about 60 miles), a red Ford C-MAX (gas-electric hybrid), CFAES scientist Fred Michel’s green Ford Escape hybrid with custom after-market roof-mounted solar panel, and a sleek dark-blue Tesla Model S 100D (electric, 351-mile range).

The fair and cruise-in go until 4 p.m. today. At 1 p.m., the parking lot, next to CFAES Wooster’s Fisher Auditorium, was filling fast but still had plenty of spaces. The food trucks smelled fantastic.

Green cars will cruise in on Thursday

CFAES Wooster’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair on Thursday will have, among other things, a green car cruise-in. You can check out a range of alternative-fuel cars and trucks — biogas, biodiesel, ethanol, electricity and hybrid systems — and talk to their owners, too. Among them should be a Tesla. (Photo: iStock.)

Shine a light on adding solar

If you’re thinking about adding solar energy to your home, farm or business, check out Thursday’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair in Wooster.

The fair’s free Renewable Energy Workshop (10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.) will have sessions about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program and the Washington, D.C.-based Solar United Neighbors effort, as well as a panel discussion by representatives from four Ohio solar installers: Harvest Energy Solutions (Delaware), Dovetail Solar and Wind (Cleveland), Paradise Energy Solutions (Sugarcreek) and Third Sun Solar (Athens).

Those four installers also will have exhibits at the fair and staff to answer your questions, as will The Lighthouse Installation (Fredericksburg) and YellowLite (Cleveland).

It’s a good chance to learn how solar works, to see if and how it could work for you, and to get a feel for companies you could work with. Admission to the fair is free.

Sunshine? Super, man

What’s the forecast for CFAES Wooster’s Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair on Thursday? To quote Leonard in “The School of Rock”: blue. The National Weather Service predicts mostly sunny skies and a high of nearly 60 degrees. Which is especially fitting because there’s a lot to see and learn about solar energy there. (Photo: iStock.)

Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair is Thursday

The Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair, a festival celebrating sustainability and green living, will take place on Thursday, April 26, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in and around Fisher Auditorium at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster. Admission is free and open to the public.

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Sunshine on the water

Click the link in the tweet below to read about the working solar energy system at CFAES’s Stone Lab. (The system? Cool. The water it heats? Hot.) The lab is on Gibraltar Island in Put-in-Bay harbor in western Lake Erie.

Of note, now’s the time to apply for introductory college courses, upper-level college courses, noncredit workshops and professional development classes for educators there this summer.

See how ‘Green Is for Life!’

CFAES’s Wooster campus is holding its eighth Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair on Thursday, April 26. It’s an event aimed at learning new things, enhancing the Earth and having fun. Demonstrations, exhibits, recycling and food trucks will center on a theme of “Green Is for Life!” So will a Renewable Energy Workshop. New this year will be a green car cruise-in.

Admission is free. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in and around the campus’s Fisher Auditorium, 1680 Madison Ave.

Follow the fair on Facebook. (Photo: iStock.)

March 26: ‘Spaceship in the Desert’; or, how oil-rich Abu Dhabi built the world’s first ‘zero-carbon’ city

Gökçe Günel of the University of Arizona presents “Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi” at 4 p.m. March 26 in Room 1080, Derby Hall, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. Admission is free and open to the public. Ohio State’s Cultures of the Anthropecene working group, part of the Humanities Institute, is the event’s host.

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