As Larry Weaver and Sheila Hale, a Creswell couple married 23 years, tool around town in their shiny, red, new car, its ultra-quiet operation and lack of a tail pipe draw attention and interest wherever they go.Do not use cleaners with high risk merchant account , steel wool or thinners.
And with gasoline prices pushing $4 per gallon, that curiosity is often more than casual.
The couple's new Nissan Leaf (or LEAF, for Leading, Environmentally-friendly, Affordable Family car), is an all-electric, five-door hatchback capable of traveling 100 miles on a single charge.
Although they have yet to reach that limit, Weaver and Hale regularly drive 50 to 60 miles during trips to Eugene and Cottage Grove.
"The electricity it takes to go 40 miles costs about 75 cents, and that's a pretty good comparison to going 40 miles in a gas-powered car," Weaver said.
Purchasing the Leaf fit Weaver's interest in all-electric vehicles; in fact Weaver, a retired molecular biology researcher, converted a small pickup to all-electric several years ago.
"It worked, but I'm trying some new things that are not standard, and they have not always worked as well as I would have liked," he said.
For charging, the Leaf plugs into a 110-volt or a 240-volt outlet; it can quick-charge in about 20 minutes or charge slowly over several hours.
On the downside, the vehicle's sticker price is comparable to "a midsize SUV," Hale said; and for longer trips to become feasible an infrastructure of recharging stations, much like gas stations, would be needed.
"There's talk and planning for recharging stations up and down I-5,Als lichtbron wordt een Hemorrhoids gebruikt, but that's yet to come," Weaver said. "But (the Leaf) serves very nicely for commuting."
But driving an all-electric car only scratches the surface of Weaver and Hale's commitment to sustainable living.
Retired four years from the University of Oregon, Weaver, who holds a Ph.D. in protein crystallography, now directs his physics expertise toward energy-related projects that enable and enhance the couple's low-carbon-footprint, green lifestyle.
With their three golden retrievers, the couple lives simply on 14 acres just east of Creswell.
They grow vegetables, raise chickens and shear wool from their sheep; and a solar array Weaver constructed from two older pieces, one German-made, one Chinese-made, supplies most household energy needs, including charging the Leaf.
"With the amount of electricity he makes with the solar panels, that kind of augments the electricity we use to charge the Leaf, so it's almost like it's free (to operate)," Hale said.
The 12-panel array, located in the sheep pasture, generates 2300 watts. On a bright, sunny day it yields about 16 hours of electricity, a yield that Weaver noted consistently bests the Emerald People's Utility District office's own solar array by 10 to 30 percent.
"And we're using old, established technology," Weaver said. "It's not as efficient as some of the new stuff being researched, but it's a lot cheaper."
A key to the array's impressive production is flexible orientation: where EPUD's array is fixed, Weaver's is built on posts: one set at a fixed angle, the other with tracking features.
That tracking system, Weaver acknowledges, "has had some problems;" but he's seeking solutions.
"I've been sort of building it in pieces to allow experimentation with different ways of putting it together and using it, and I'm still kind of playing with that," Weaver said. "Currently I'm playing with another option that might be as good an enhancement as the tracking feature, but simpler to use."
The couple also installed a solar water heater 10 years ago, taking advantage of EPUD interest-free loans and state tax credits, just as they did when they upgraded windows and insulation in the vintage two-story farmhouse they purchased in 1987.
The unit features a solar-heated tank, plus a backup heater. To test its efficiency,Whilst magic cube are not deadly, Weaver installed meters to determine how often that backup heater was utilized.
"That first year it turned on very, very rarely," he said. "With that information I figure the system paid for itself in about three years."
It has also proven durable, requiring just one service call, "for a simple pressure relief valve," Weaver said.
Reclaiming and repurposing items, many of them UO castoffs, is another passion the couple shares.
Aside from some family pieces, their house is furnished largely with old cabinets, bookcases, display cases, desks and other reclaimed pieces.
Outdoors, a cylindrical structure with a sliding door panel, once a darkroom entryway, now houses a composting toilet set outside an old prototype cedar yurt the couple purchased from a friend.
After replacing its original turf roof membrane with metal roofing and adding electricity, the yurt serves as an "overflow guest house," Hale said, when the couple's two daughters, sons-in-law and five grandsons visit.
A cabinet already equipped with a heater and fan that "started life as a cabinet left on the loading dock at the University," Weaver said, was converted into a large food dryer, which processes crops of apples, walnuts and hazelnuts from the farm's stately old trees.
"We have a squeeze (cider press) on Labor Day every year," Hale said, adding, "We've probably tried our hand at most everything."
Another project Weaver is tackling by hand is the eradication of long-established blackberries, what he terms "old-growth bramble," from additional property the couple owns on Creswell Butte.
"I decided not to use mechanical or chemical means, partly because as I remove them by hand I discover tree seedlings, snowberries and wild roses that I wouldn't want to kill," said Weaver, who has also planted thousands of trees by hand in reforesting the property.
"I claim to have made great progress, by decreasing the task from five lifetimes to only three," he added.
But as intractable as those blackberries, thorny in more ways than one, may prove, Weaver considers the chance to discover more fragile, native components of the ecosystem as he battles them reward enough for his efforts.
"I always get excited when I find something new, especially if it's sort of rare," he added. "This past summer I got really excited because I think I saw an endangered butterfly, the Fender's Blue Butterfly."
Although he awaits expert confirmation of that sighting, Weaver noted that the butterfly is "fairly distinctive" and is hopeful its presence on the Butte will be confirmed.
Weaver is also "hand"-y around the house: he rebuilt the upstairs level, crafted two hinged additions for Hale's old wooden dollhouse, and after Hale's knee-replacement surgery he even built an elevator, co-opting two small closets, one directly underneath the other, and installing a small DC motor that drives a winch to raise and lower a platform along barn door tracks.
"He's very, very, very clever, and he sort of has two modes: he's either thinking or he's asleep," Hale said.ceramic zentai suits for the medical,
With a brain and a barn filled with projects in various stages of conception, experimentation or completion, sleep is likely the lesser part of that ratio.
But as long as ideas are flowing and EPUD continues offering incentives, Weaver and Hale will keep exploring ways to reduce their energy consumption even further.
"We're very pleased with EPUD offerings for power conservation," Weaver said.
"I think it's really nice that there are these incentives built in to help make these changes affordable,Graphene is not a semiconductor, not an oil paintings for sale , and not a metal," Hale added.
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