Dragging a cord around isn't really an issue with some planning. The maximum length needs to be the maximum distance from your outlet.

The trick is always working your way away from your power source. I tried mowing forward and backwards, but rotary blades just don't cut very well backwards and feet can get cut off on grades.

Up and back working away from the cord; always turning away from the cord. The electric mower is very quiet with no exhaust or gasoline to breath. I don't add any fluids and has virtually no maintenance.

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I have debated the benefit of using an electric lawn mower over a gas powered mower for some time. I never spend more than about $10 for a lawn mower, as people usually throw them out and they still work with some cheap repair. My current mower is a free Lawn-boy. A friend put a new piston and rings in it after his brother-in-law ran it with straight gasoline which seized it.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), traditional gas-powered lawn mowers are a public nuisance to say the least. Using one of them for an hour generates as many volatile organic compounds--dangerous airborne pollutants known to exacerbate human respiratory and cardiovascular problems--as driving a typical car for 350 miles. The EPA estimates that, with some 54 million Americans mowing their lawns on a weekly basis, gas lawn mower emissions account for as much as five percent of the nation's total air pollution. Beyond that, homeowners spill some 17 million gallons of gasoline every year just refueling their lawn mowers. scientific american

About a month ago, I bought an electric lawn mower. I have used it for about a month in tandem with my gas powered mower to cut four different lawns. One lawn has no access to electric power. Follow along with this series as I share my observations.

Part II - 2-stokes, wires and batteries.

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How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make -- leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone -- we all dwell in a house of one room -- the world with the firmament for its roof -- and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

Posted in All posts from the start Environment History

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(Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record/ Sunday News)

Charlotte Halpin was 14 years old when she took a job at C.B. "Red" Klinedinst, a York bicycle repair shop. Today, the business founded in 1909, still sells bicycle parts. Halpin said that Klinedinst couldn't stay in business today because he gave everything away. His business and legacy lived on in one faithful employee of 64 years to run the business long after he was gone.

C.B. "Red" Klinedinst began his York business renting bicycles and grew into one of the largest York retailers of bicycles in it's hey day. The business expanded selling motorcycles and tiny British Sunbeam cars before downsizing back to bicycles.

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Joshua Tomel (age 25) doesn't think twice about $4-a-gallon gas prices. He doesn't have to.

"I drive by gas stations," Tomel, a graduate of St. John's University, said Wednesday. "I don't even bother to look. I am disappointed, though. If we had done something about this 30 years ago ... we wouldn't be out of gas. We would have had alternatives." newsday.com (6/08)

Oh but Josh.. we did.

Tomel's truck was made in 1997 by General Motors during the same time period as the fabled GM EV-1 (electric car) which were recalled and shredded. The truck was built with regenerative braking and a heat pump for cooling and heating.

During the 1990's manufactures were looking for ways to make zero emissions cars. California mandated a percentage of a manufacturer's fleet to be zero emissions in order to sell cars in California. Cost for development was defrayed by federal funding.

By 2003 the zero emission mandate in Califonia was all but swept away and so was GM's electric car program.

I was listening to a speech by McCain in Santa Barbara, California today. Gov. Schwarzenegger, who although he supports the Arizona senator, said he would not allow coastal drilling for oil and asked for exemptions to federal laws so that California can once again adopt standards stricter than federal standards.

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Resident gardener Skip Brown, left, works with York Silver Bullet volunteer Pete Langkam of Penn Township on the garden plots adjacent to his home on East King Street in York. Brown said after buying a very expensive tomato at the grocery store recently, he wished his garden would grow faster.

Rising energy costs, climate change and improving standards of living in formally simpler countries are going to make food more expensive.

Corn ethanol funnels food into fuel exciting the speculation market, increasing the cost of all raw food like soy and wheat and those foods that simple food stock feeds like meat and dairy.

Personal and community gardens can take a bite out of food costs, provide a healthy food supply in the summer and doesn't need fuel to bring food to your door. A $2 tomato plant can yield many times that in produce thought the season.

It's just fun to watch things grow and have a tiny bit of control of your world.

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I try to find little ways not to use energy and stretch the ever increasing cost of life. Some of the things we do have hidden implications to the cost of living.

I was reading in a Patriot-News story that the second highest cost after labor for Rutter's is credit card cost. I love getting my 1% credit back for using a credit card and paying it off every month, but how much payment to banks is passed along to everyone in a gallon of gas. What if i used cash for everything... what if everyone started using cash for everything....

I stopped washing clothes in anything but cold water. Just don't buy white. All my socks are black. Why use energy to heat laundry water. Why pay for energy that I don't need. I am going to buy a clothes line next; sun and wind are free.

I built an 8x8 flower box out of an old concrete slab in my backyard with a fitted rock wall. I planted wildflowers in it but the nature of a fast draining planter box is that it needs to be watered every day. I let the flowers die and have started a selection of cactus and succulents that winter in Pennsylvania. They bloom like flowers, are suited to the habitat and I don't have to buy water every day to keep them alive.

I used to buy a couple drinks at a convenience store every day. Now i buy a $3 organic 100% juice concentrate and make nine large recycled glass bottles of grape drink to take along each day. So my drink costs 33 cents each, has little waste and is much healthier than a high fructose drink.

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The York Daily Record/Sunday news has launched a "green" page though the ydr.inyork/ydr web portal.

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Oil hit tickled $140 a barrel Friday.

A First since 1991, demand for gasoline will fall 0.3 percent this year. This represents thousands of barrels of oil a day. Demand usually increases 1% a year.

The biggest decline since 1942, Americans drove 11 billion miles less in March than they did the same month in 2007. The Federal Highway Administration only started to track this figure in 1942.

Bus and train ridership is up 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008

Toyota's Camry outsold Ford's F-Series pickup for the first time since 1992.
St. Louis Post Dispatch

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The Philips 42PFL5603D is high definition 42-inch LCD that consumes between 60 and 80 watts, which is about as much as a standard incandescent bulb.

Comparing against other HDTVs' default modes, the closest competitor was a 27-inch LCD at 105 watts. In the Philips' screen size class, by comparison, the closest 42-inch plasma measured 188.26 watts and the closest 42-inch LCD measured 134.04. asia.cnet.com

Multiply that by millions of households and millions of hours of operation and you have alot of conserved energy.

The technology behind the miserly TV is variable back lighting. An LCD television screen is really a grid of tiny gates which take almost no power to run. The illumination tubes that project light through the gates consume the most power.

The Phillips technology is like having a little man in your TV working a dimmer switch. A scene in a dark cemetery needs far less light projected trough the tiny gates than does a surf scene on a Malibu beach.

The television is also RoHS compliant, meaning it is virtually free of the six major heavy metals including lead, mercury and cadmium.

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