Kelly de la Torre―Commercial and Residential Energy Use

Conserving energy residentially and at your business saves money.  Small business owners are impacted by energy use both at home and at work so it is important to have a basic understanding of utilities.  Businesses can work back and forth with their utilities to figure out the best energy savings strategy.   Here are the basics of energy use. An energy rate consists of operating costs, recovery costs, actual cost of energy and return on investment to investors.

Factors that influence the energy rate are energy cost, price changes due to weather, economic forecast, general maintenance and time of day.  Time of day is used determine the energy rate.  Peak hours are defined by each utility company.  Typically peak hours are 8am to 8pm.  Peak hour energy rates cost more than off peak.

Commercial rates for energy can be lowered by allowing devices to be cycled during peak hours.  Utility companies and businesses can collaborate to determine when the cycling happens.

Every degree the thermostat is turned down saves three percent which can be $80 to $100 saved per year.

To save on energy power strips can be used on appliances that continually draw phantom energy such as cable boxes, computers and printers, etc.  Anything that is plugged into the wall can be put onto a power strip and shutting that power strip off saves money.

Purchase energy star appliance both at work and home.

For more information, visit: rmenergyblog.blogspot.com.

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A Glimpse of the Athabasca Oil Sands

As oil prices continue to soar and as North America strives for energy independence, the Athabasca Oil Sands represent a real energy future for our continent. Unlike liquid oil, this mined sand produces large profits and has created more jobs than there are people to fill them. While the region continues to be developed, activists and industry supporters alike are working together to produce the oil sands resource while also considering long-term sustainability.

Recently, ICOSA was invited by the Canadian government to visit the oils sands. The following video gives a glimpse into what one of our writers and his videographer saw while visiting Ft. McMurray.

 

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The Peace Corps

Matt Hogue  

By Annette Perez

Celebrating 50 years the Peace Corps is an independent U.S. government agency that provides Volunteers for countries requesting assistance.  The agency traces its roots and mission to 1960, when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy challenged students to get out there.  Established in 1961 the Peace Corps promotes peace and friendship by remaining true to its mission.  One hundred and thirty nine countries have been served with over 200,000 volunteers.

Volunteers serve 27 months which includes 10 weeks of training on languages, culture, technical, and safety and security.  The application process can be anywhere from 9-12 months and applicants must be U.S. citizens.  The application process is quite competitive and currently there are more applications than there are spots to fill.  Placement of countries is based on suited skill sets for countries.

Today’s guest was Matthew Hogue.  Mr. Hogue started with the Peace Corps in September 2006 and became the Regional Recruiter in December of that same year.  He currently is a Field Based recruiter covering northern Colorado and Wyoming.  Hogue served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand from 2003 to 2005.

One of his experiences he shared was when he was living in Thailand, six months into the program he felt that he was not doing enough on his project and essentially wanted to hit the ground running.  Teachers were brought into the village where he was assigned.  His supervisor started rattling off things that he had done for the community thus making him realize the amount of effort he was doing in Thailand for this village.

Volunteers have the option of applying for the Fellows Program.  Eligibility for the Fellows Program is open to all volunteers who have served and is open for a lifetime.  Sixty universities are participating in the program with 128 fields of study.

To learn more about the Peace Corps or to apply visit www.peacecorps.gov or to contact Matthew Hogue please call 303-901-2141.

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Boyer's Coffee

 

Boyer’s Coffee was established in Colorado, 1965.  The unique flavor comes from being grown and roasted in high altitude.  The environment coffee is roasted in attributes to the flavor for example the humidity and batch size roasted.  Boyer’s Coffees can be found at these supermarkets throughout Colorado: Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, King Soopers, City Market and Albertsons.  And online Boyer’s ships coffee around the world.  Boyer’s sustainable practices focus on consumers, company and environment.  Boyer’s only roasts the finest hand-selected Arabica beans.  Environmentally Boyer’s found a way to re-use coffee chaff which is used to make wood starters, compost and bedding.  They have also implemented a packaging system which saves 450,000 boxes a year.  Boyer’s headquarters is a remolded school house made into a coffee bar.  Uniquely they found a 1920’s wood gymnasium floor and repurposed it for their coffee bar area.  They provide a free meeting space to the community which is available to anyone.  To learn more, call: 303-289-3345 or visit: www.boyerscoffee.com.

 

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Project C.U.R.E and Rio Tinto Partner to Support Mongolia

It was a great day in Denver, but it was an even better day for the people in Mongolia. Thousands of miles away from the capital, Ulaanbaatar, in a ballroom in downtown Denver, 1,800 people came to support and provide hope to a population of people they will probably never meet.

In its seventh-annual fundraiser to increase awareness of global healthcare needs and support, Project C.U.R.E. hosted the First Lady of Mongolia, Mrs. Bolormaa Khajidsuren, to raise $3 million in medical supplies and equipment for the countries hospitals and clinics. “It is about unity and cooperation to achieve great goals and I believe that is what we are doing here,” said Khajidsuren.

And unified they were. In addition to Project C.U.R.E.’s partnership with the Mongolian government and its leaders, Rio Tinto, an international mining company, provided the underwriting sponsorship for the entire luncheon to ensure all of the money raised by attendees would go directly to the Mongolian aid effort. The corporate donation was a huge show of support to the citizens of Mongolia and Project C.U.R.E. who was able to concentrate its fundraising efforts solely towards medical relief.

“Project C.U.R.E.’s work to meet the world’s and Mongolia’s healthcare needs is consistent with Rio Tinto’s commitment to create sustainable benefits in the global communities where we live and work,” said Cameron McRae Rio Tinto Country Director in Mongolia and Oyu Tolgoi copper-mine CEO.

Rio Tinto’s, Oyu Tolgoi open-pit and underground gold-copper ore mining project is located in the Gobi Desert of southern Mongolia. The company estimates that the mine revenue will make up about one-third of Mongolia’s economy by 2020 helping to increase transportation, construction, retail and wholesale trade as well as manufacturing infrastructure.

“Rio Tinto’s support and community outreach initiatives matched perfectly with our goals. It only seemed right to work with them,” said Dr. Douglas Jackson, president and CEO of Project C.U.R.E., “If the people of Mongolia aren’t healthy they can’t achieve success. I want to see them be successful.”

Her Excellency, Mrs Bolormaa expressed her gratitude to both Rio Tinto and Project C.U.R.E. for their generous monetary and in-kind support. But it was Project C.U.R.E.’s founder Dr. James Jackson and his wife who she thanked for their tireless work and years of support for Mrs. Bolormaa's country and communities. “Mongolia needs support for its social settings including and mainly in its healthcare sector,” said Bolormaa, “The donations will be mainly spent on addressing medical and health needs in rural Mongolia, I would like to extend my earnest gratitude to Project C.U.R.E. and Rio Tinto for this support.”

ICOSA is transforming collaboration.

Kim DeCoste is vice president and editor-at-large for ICOSA where she manages the media team, and contributed to editorial planning for the magazine and a book on connections + collaboration. A few of her articles are “The Evolution of E-Learning,” “A Win-Win: Kroenke Sports Enterprises Does Great Work for Kids & Education,” “Living the Mission: Private STEM Solutions & Public Education,” “Authentic Leadership is Gender Neutral” and “Closing the Education Gap.”

ICOSA is thought of as organic―focused on developing collaboration and taking it to the next level which is transformation.  The method ICOSA uses can conceptually be adopted to fit into high schools but specifically higher education.  To be a doer one needs to learn to walk with others, and identify goals and meeting those goals in a manageable way.  ICOSA would like to work with higher education in providing students with collaborative methods.

Amazon is an example of a company who has successfully transformed.  Amazon.com launched its marketplace in 2002 selling books, music, videos and DVS’s and now has since developed the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and sells just about any product globally.

The difficult areas of collaboration are blending the different view of what success looks like and keeping people together and focused on the mission.

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