Curt
Sommer
RenewableEnergy/
Sustainability
Consultant
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I am a professional speaker on the subject of geothermal heat pumps. I also give presenations on sustainability, climate change and peak oil, in addition to geothermal heat pumps. I welcome
your comments, ideas, or suggestions.
Curt
a t green-nrg d o t net
Personal
info is kept confidential and is never sold or
traded.
About me
I
spent
several years in real estate appraisal after college, but became
interested in the
environmental movement while living in Boston. Who would think
that something as mundane as recycling could change your life? I
returned to graduate
school at Arizona State in
August 1994, where I became very interested in the issue of
sustainability.
My thesis
project was a feasibility study of a potential geothermal district
energy project in Mammoth Lakes, CA. It was published in the
professional journal Geothermics in January 2003. After
completing my Masters in Geography with a specialization in Renewable
Energy, I decided to move from the desert southwest.
I had been to Portland a couple times and I liked the availability of
numerous outdoor recreation possibilities.
About
two
years after moving to Portland, OR, I stumbled on the theory of 'peak
oil'; the concept that oil production for any given wrell, field,
country or
the world will ultimately reach a pinnacle, after which it begins an
inexorable decline. Production data indicates that date could
very well have been around August 2006. Please refer to the Links page for
more information on peak oil.
How we will replace oil remains to be seen. How do
you replace the most highly concentrated and easily accessible form of
energy ever discovered by humans? After discovering that our
car culture was not truly sustainable, I began researching and learning
about how to reduce the individual's dependence on fossil fuels.
With oil prices predicted to spike in the next two to three years
the viability of suburbia as a lifestyle will come under increasing
scrutiny. The days of commuting forty or fifty miles or more are
essentially over.
I am
currently working as independent contractor, selling and promoting
geothermal heat pumps. I'm a certified geothermal heat pump
installer through the International
Ground Source Heat Pump Association.
I am also acitvely promoting a solar energy option for
homeowners called CitizenRE. You can learn more about CItizenRE
by visiting this web site: www.jointhesolution.com/csommer.
I try to commute by bike as much as possible, or use the bus if I have
to but I try to avoid using the car. We have a Jetta TDI that
we run on 100% biodiesel for 9 months out of the year. During
the winter we use a 20-50% blend. In the future I hope to buy
an electric plug-in or convert a small
truck.
In a
sense, my interest in sustainability goes back to high school.
When my dad bought my first car for me he was very
perplexed when I opted for a Chevy Vega over a muscle car.
Not that a Vega was a great car, but I was more interested in
gas mileage than horsepower.
I think the muscle car would have made me more popular than the Vega
did, but that was thirty years ago. I've been
researching sustainability issues and renewable energy resources for
over 10 years.
Our family of three usually generates about one grocery bag of garbage
per week. We try to buy products with limited packaging and
we recycle as much as we can. We compost, grow lots of
veggies...etc. Big decisions are important but it's also the seemingly insignificant things that can make a difference as
well.
If you have any ideas on sustainable living please feel free to share
them.
Photo Gallery - Images of current projects as well as
humor and photographic art.
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children." Native American proverb.
