Ed Begley Jr. Answers Questions about Reliable Wind Power, Solar Cooking, and More

Living with Ed follows Ed Begley, Jr., and his wife, Rachelle, as they green their home, family, and celebrity friends. But if you've ever wondered what kind of advice they'd give the rest of us, then the Ask Ed forum is your chance to find out. Readers submit questions and comments about the show, green living, etc., and Ed chimes in with his green answers; here, we've rounded up some highlights of the past week.

Q. The Nelson family here. We are looking to move out to Northern California in the next year. We want to be as self-sufficient as possible. We need a home large enough for 8 people. We realize that that is a larger home than most so we are wanting to build it. If you could help us find a contractor or point us in the right direction that would be great. We have already found the land (20 acres) in Siskiyou County, CA.

A. Nelsons...you'll need an architect first, which will provide the LEED AP you'll need to make that green home. I've been meeting with several in L.A. lately which you could certainly call. There are many in the SF bay area as well. You can use the USGBC website to download a list of them in your area. In L.A., try William Hefner Assoc., Kafka/Phakos, James Heimler or in OC try Tresor Properties. All are great peeps.

Ed

Q. Lots of folks are interested in wind energy and most of these folks live in urban or suburban areas, so there is a great demand for small, rooftop turbines (because they cannot have towers). I love small wind but I find that it's quite a tough industry with perhaps more unhappy customers than any other industry I know of (save perhaps the health industry). Why so many unhappy customers? It's very expensive to buy and install equipment, and more often than not the equipment does not provide the energy that was expected either due to poor site assessment, manufacturers over rating their product, or poor reliability and often times a combination of all 3.

The vertical axis maglev machines that I've seen you, and Jay Leno endorsing cannot possibly (due to the laws of physics) do nearly what they suggest with regard to energy output, and all the hype is misleading people. I should think it would be wonderful if you, and Jay can test these products, but it should also be your responsibility and people who are very much in the public eye to make well known how much actual energy these machines produce.

A. Agreed. the key to small wind is: 1) have lots of wind 2) have a place to put it where the wind is For those folks near me in Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley and Barstow

You can see the Enviro-Energies turbine on Jay Leno's garage roof in Burbank. Bad wind area, but when the wind speeds are appropriate it is making power right on the curve as projected. I'm very happy with this technology and the results.

The turbine mounted on Jay Leno's garage is rated at 10kw max. The highest level of output we have recorded on the inverters at any one time is 9kw; Not bad for zone 1 wind area. The turbine design does a great job of capturing 'dirty wind' as it crawls up the side of the building. That's what makes this 'sail' design unique and efficient...it's ability to capture multidirectional and dirty urban wind.

Ed

Q. Someone told me that you recommend cooking with solar. Is this true, and if so, do you own a solar oven and if so which one? Is it true they reach 350 degrees F.

A. Yes I have a SunOven. Works fine—a few weird design things I would change. My $100 prototype was built by another company and didn't work well, so its back to the drawing board on that.

Until then, I'll continue to cook with my SunOven.

Ed