Donna Hagan and her husband, Jim Heffner, want to build their new home from the ground up to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly.
Married 18 months ago, the couple each already had a home but, if one sells by next spring, they hope to break ground on another. As they build a new home and life together, they plan to keep in mind the planet's future, not just their own. Saving money on fuel is just the icing on the cake.
"We're interested in a livable lifestyle, green building and energy efficiency,” said Hagan.
Hagan was one of 26 attendees Saturday at an Energy Awareness Day held at the M-TEC building and hosted by Northwestern Michigan College's Energy Center. Presenters at the four-hour seminar covered topics ranging from Energy Star, energy auditing and indoor air quality to wind, solar and geothermal power, oil supplies and climate change.
The couple's designated attendee while her husband helped with a VASA trail clean-up, Hagan soaked up as much information as she could, taking prolific notes.
"There's so many choices out there nowadays,” she said. "We're very interested in geothermal heating and cooling. You try to save with rising prices in gas and just try do to the best you can to save money.”
The college's Energy Center kicked off a periodic seminar series with the Energy Awareness Day and hopes to hold more sessions each semester. Bill Queen, program coordinator for the center, noted that the first offering met the goal of introducing energy-related topics to a general audience.
"The feedback was really positive and we have people that are already calling and ready to move to the next step and green their houses and put in energy efficient designs,” he said. "Each term, we will offer additional topics as well as some of the basics.”
Presenter Randy Smith of Renewable Services LLC, talked about wind energy, its potential, windmill size selection, power output and relative cost factors. He also noted that zoning about windmills is a "patchwork” of rules and regulations, varying from use by right to outright banning to special use permits required.
"It's all going to be citizen driven, the technology is there,” said Smith. "Since I first started studying this in 1980, the technology is more reliable and less expensive and more power output — windmills are sleeker and less costly.”
With winter approaching and oil prices topping $88 a barrel earlier this week, Queen said the demand is there for solutions that both save money and help the planet. Founded in 2005, NMC's Energy Center is one of eight centers in the state showcasing alternative energy, educating the public and promoting professional development.
"The old way of power needs to transition,” he noted. "The Energy Center is really about helping to make that transition, it's not going to happen overnight but we're just slowly helping people to understand.”
Wielding a hockey stick for a prop, TV 9&10 weatherman Dave Barrons discussed how the numbers for many climate markers have risen in a hockey stick fashion — that is, sharply upward after millennia of a steady line — in less than a generation since 1980. He believes that the science is settled and climate change cause by humans is a fact that must be addressed. He prompted attendees to understand the issues at stake, social, economic and environmental.
"The whole climate change debate is really not much of a debate, the discussion going on right now is social,” Barrons said. "It is more about values than honest discussion.”
For more information on the Energy Demonstration Center and future events, call 995-1700 or see their web site at www.nmc.edu/energy.