Wednesday, February 17, 2010

NEC 25th Birthday!!!


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Photo courtesy of the wonderful staff @ the Neighborhood Energy Connection
624 Selby Avenue • Saint Paul • MN • 55104 • Phone: 651.221.4462

The NEC invites YOU to join us in CELEBRATING 25 YEARS of conserving, cycling, recycling, building community, driving less and driving change in the world.

Party with the NEC, HOURCAR members, celebrities, friends and supporters. We will be serving Summit beer, root beer, Chipotle burritos, chips & salsa, and cake.

Come one come all for great food, games, live music and fun

Thursday, February 25
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
SUMMIT BREWING CO. - The Ratskeller Room
910 Montreal Circle
St Paul, MN 55102
Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by calling (651) 221-4462 ext. 136. Visa/MasterCard or checks accepted.

If anyone out there still reads the outpost known as "Nothin' but a Drew Thing" you know that I usually focus on issues related to Land use and Transportation (HSR, Woot!!), descriptions and photos of major occurrences in my corner of South Minneapolis, and whatever else crosses my Radar.

But now I am taking a big leap into the world of Home Energy efficiency, Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs), and Water Heater blankets, my specialty ;-)

In late January I started working with a great group of people over at the Neighborhood Energy Connection (NEC) as a crew member for one of their many programs: The Home Energy Squad (HES).

I have only been on the job for a few weeks and already I have been exposed to a lot of information on how simple, low cost improvements can result in significant energy use reductions and savings for home owners in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area.

We are hoping to have a strong attendance to our 25th Anniversary party, so if you consider yourself a home energy efficiency junky, a fan of delicious CHIPOTLE burritos, live music, and a great group of like minded people we hope that you can attend.

P.S. Xcel energy has partnered with major retailers in Minnesota offering its energy customers CFL light bulbs for as little as $1.00 per bulb, this is a great opportunity for home owners to replace their most used light fixtures with CFL bulbs that come in various shapes and lumens:
From the Wikpedia:

The lumen (symbol: lm) is the SI unit of luminous flux, a measure of the power of light perceived by the human eye. Luminous flux differs from radiant flux, the measure of the total power of light emitted, in that luminous flux is adjusted to reflect the varying sensitivity of the human eye to different wavelengths of light. The lumen is defined in relation to the candela by

1 lm = 1 cd·sr

That is, a light source that uniformly radiates one candela in all directions radiates a total of 4π lumens. If the source were partially covered by an ideal absorbing hemisphere, that system would radiate half as much luminous flux—only 2π lumens. The luminous intensity would still be one candela in those directions that are not obscured.

Not sure when the program ends, hoping to get to my local Home Depot and pick up a bunch for the fixtures I use the most.