The ancient Waccamaw were river dwellers and inhabited the riverbanks from Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina all the way to Winyah Bay near Georgetown, South Carolina. They may have even been one of the first mainland Natives introduced to Europeans, demonstrating their journey began long before they were officially recognized. The Europeans nearly wiped out the…
Category: Renewables
Native Americans throughout history have held the belief that all elements of Earth, living and nonliving, are respected and equal in rights to humans. The landscape, animals, plants, and other environmental elements play a major role in the religion of Native Americans.They believe all things are connected and give each other life, for which we…
Passive solar design uses the natural energy from the sun for heating and cooling living spaces. Key aspects of passive solar include properly oriented windows, thermal mass, distribution mechanisms, and control strategies. Windows are used to collect solar energy and should face southwards for maximum solar input during the winter months and minimum input during…
During the process of gathering information for this project, Santee Cooper was asked several times for information on involuntary electricity terminations for their service area. That information was never made available. The private utilities operating within South Carolina have the information publicly available on their websites. Santee Cooper does not have a visible organizational structure,…
People are getting interested in solar. They are interested in producing their own energy, reducing the energy bill, and taking another step in reclaiming self-sustainability. According to a 2015 article in Fortune, the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) reported, “[m]ore solar panels were installed on U.S. home rooftops in the first quarter of [the] year than ever…
1.2 billion people,17 percent of the global population, in the world presently live without electricity. In developing nations where incomes are low and jobs are difficult to find, there tends to be lower education achievement. A large part of has to do with lack of electricity; when the sun goes down, the books have to close. There are…
According to the Brundtland Commission report, sustainable development calls for “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Long before the report was published in 1987, Native American indigenous cultures lived by the proverb, “we have not inherited the earth from our fathers,…
Conventional solar panels are sometimes regarded as an eyesore, but there are new forms for rooftop solar. Solar shingles are building-integrated photovoltaics that are integrated into the existing design of a conventionally-shingled rooftop. Solar shingles were introduced in 2005 and have since been making ground mostly in Colorado. Household solar shingles have the ability to cut…
As the world modernizes and realizes the urgency for cleaner energy sources, countries are writing policies to introduce more renewables onto their grids. Germany is a leader in this movement and has developed a policy that expedites this process. Energiewende is Germany’s energy policy enacted in 2011 to introduce a significant increase in the use of…
Wind energy is a renewable energy source which means there is an inexhaustible amount of energy that can be cultivated. With zero greenhouse gas emissions, wind energy has very low impacts to the environment and can be used virtually anywhere the wind blows. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind industry has generated…