It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: Hydro-Electric Home

Here is our ongoing segment known as It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who mistakenly gets his emails.

Dear Mr. President,

I hope this letter finds you well, and after we last met I hope this letter simply finds you at all. Again I apologize.

But moving beyond that I would like to get straight to the point, I have an idea that could save the average American a bit of money on their electric bill, that is of course if they live in the Northeast and that is also of course if it continues to rain non-stop in the Northeast and if the system is actually cost-effective, I'm just the man who thinks of things, I don't actually implement them.

As you know the Northeast has become a rain forest in the past 2 or so months, with nonstop rain drenching the area on a daily basis. What I propose is that we harness this rain water on a house to house basis and turn it into electricity.

In my two dimensional illustration pictured above I show how water defies physics and runs down only one side and one corner of a roof, hits a water wheel and through a system of pulleys it somehow charges a battery. I claim to know nothing about either weather patterns or power generation but I do look outside and I do notice my electric bill and there must be a connection. That's why I think you should hand this off to your energy experts (of which you would do well to remember I am not one of them) and have them develop the system and give it the American Public, the word "give" being loosely defined by you.

As always Mr. President feel use your "Bully Pulpit" to beat people into submission and make them implement this system. Though if the black and blue populace does not re-elect as a consequence don't come crying to me.

Sincerely,

Kevin (No L required) Doyle

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: Sailcar

Here is our ongoing segment known as It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

As a result of your rejection of last weeks plan to invade both Canada and Mexico on the grounds that stealing their oil and then using their homelands as vacation spots does not constitute itself as Green Energy we have come up with a new plan that involves no military involvement what so ever. Sailing cars.

It is quite simple really, we take cars and make them work like sailboats on land. Easy concept.

The advantages of a sailing car would be enormous, especially in very windy cities. It would also be a boon to the ailing sail market as well as spur a whole new generation of sailors which is something we need in order to take back The America's Cup. Damn Swiss and their landlocked country.....

And unlike ideas such as ethanol cars, hybrids and nuclear powered vehicles anyone with a regular car can retrofit it to work as a sail powered vehicle at a small price that we think the government should finance.

There are of course downsides,

1. Useless in areas of the country that get very little wind (we are currently developing a technique that incorporates oars for no-wind situations)
2. Unable to outrun tornadoes
3. Requires roads a mile wide to allow for tacking in head wind conditions
4. Silly sailor outfits would proliferate
5. Engine vs Sail style Road Rage.

All workable problems for sure, I just bring them to your attention so we can put your experts on the case to figure them out.

No sir I'm not an expert.

What am I? I'm just a guy who gets mistaken as a green energy expert and subsequently gets a lot of emails with invites to Green Energy conferences.

Of course I'm not qualified to speak .

Don't blame me! You are the one who let me in here!

Wait, hold on! Hey get your god damn hands of of me!

:Scuffling noises:

Mr, President! Mr. President! Rahm!!!!!

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: Operation Total NAFTA

Here is our ongoing segment known as It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

In our last report we advised you that in order to secure energy independence for this country you should invade Canada.

We have noticed that the invasion is till in the pre-planning stages. Though we believe that it is imperative that the invasion take place as soon as possible, this does allow for an opportunity to add a second phase to the plan: The Invasion of Mexico.

With the addition of Mexico to the plan we believe the codename for the entire operation be dubbed Operation Total NAFTA, a final act in the play started by the 41st President. Other possible names were: operation "Spanish American War Part Dos" but that left Canada out where as operation "Clean the Attic" only works for Canada and not Mexico.

But enough of this clerical mumbo jumbo sir, I'm going to cut to the quick; Mexico is warm in the winter and the Northern USA is not. Because of that warmth Mexicans do not have to pay for heat (the fact that even if they had to they would not be able to is irrelevant) Americans in northern latitudes unfortunately have to. But by invading Mexico we could create a winter quarters of sorts for all Americans who are forced to heat their homes every year.

Of course in the summer months we would relocate the population back to the northern part of the country (and move the southern part of the country to Canada to save on air conditioning costs). Think of all of this as a mass vacation of sorts to escape the cold (and subsequently the heat).

As for the transportation we figured you can just nationalize the Airline industry a few times a year, I mean they would be more than happy to give up their profits to help America, I'm sure of it.

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: The Invasion of Canada

Here is our ongoing segment known as It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

In light of the negative scientific response to last weeks report on nuclear powered automobiles and the fact that even one accident renders the cost-benefit of the program useless we have regretfully chosen to abandon the project, for now. In it's stead we present you with a new solution to our dependence on foreign oil; Invade Canada!

You see sir, Canada is, in the word's of Prime Minister Harper, "an Energy Superpower". First off Canada isn't a superpower in anything except Hockey and that's because we let them. If we wanted to we could be, but we take pity on them.

Second they have vast reserves of Oil and Natural Gas that we want and they won't give us for free. So like any good older brother we need to kick the shit out of them and then take their oil and gas. Trust me they will thank us later.

Now we know you have military advisers to do all the planning of an invasion, and we are sure you have a contingency plan dating back to the early 1800's, but we have some thoughts of our own.

Plan #1
You wait until the Gold Medal Hockey game at the 2010 Olympics, and when they win (because again we let them win) you send in the marines. Because of the rioting and drunkenness that will undoubtedly be expressed by the common Canadian they will simply think the American Forces are riot police, and when they wake up the next day with a splitting headache they will be the 51st - 63rd states in the Union. We can even have a new flag made up to include their stars.

Plan #2
The Québécois having been gaining ground in the polls over the last year as well as have been pushing for the independence of Quebec much more so as of late. What we propose is that you secretly finance the Québécois in a guerrilla war against Ottawa. The result would be all out Civil War within Canada at which point the US enters Canada under the auspices of a "Peacekeeping Mission", a defacto invasion. Hey, it worked for Russia.

Plan #3
Or you simply just invade shock and awe style. It's just basic math, they have 90,251 armed service men and women, we have roughly 3 million. That is approximately 33 US soldiers for every 1 Canadian. Besides some Canadian citizens would naturally surrender because of their French heritage.

What ever the means, the end result is the elimination of our energy problems, as well as the continuance of the American Revolution against the British Crown.


Sincerely

The Underling, Staff, and the American People

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: The Nuclear Option

Here is our ongoing segment known as It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

Forget hybrid cars, for get plug ins like the Chevy Volt, and hydrogen cars? The way of the Hindenburg. The future sir is in the nuclear car.

I know what your thinking, how do we get a nuclear power plant under the hood of a car? Well actually we don’t have to, but if you wanted to all you have do is as Willy Wonka for his shrink ray, which was our initial plan, but Willy Wonka’s mother obviously never taught him to share things.

The way we do it is we created our own shrink ray and we shrink people down to miniature size. Once they are miniature then they can make mini-nuclear reactors. Now I understand that the basic laws of physics would say that this is impossible but so are giant bugs and superman but they exist. So from now on when presented with facts in the physical realm do not trust the physics you have come to believe in over the 40+ years of your life, look to the super secret physics of the US government. Trust me you don’t want the headaches.

Now after these mini reactors are constructed we simply work the reactor into the working parts of an automobile. I’m sure it’s not to hard, if we can do it with submarines, aircraft carriers and robotic soldiers then we can surely fit it into a Ford Focus.

The benefits of placing miniature reactors inside cars would be complete independence from Middle Eastern oil, and Midwestern Ethanol (and we can finally turn the Midwest into a giant replication of Tele-tubby land like we talked about).

Unfortunately there are some downsides, minor ones, but downsides all the same.

Through testing we have found that the effects of a transition to nuclear powered cars would be; approximately 12 million nuclear explosions per year due to car accidents, the eradication of all gas station hot dog stands, and due to the inability to reverse the shrinking process countless lives of mini-people will be lost.

Though these may seem as detriments to moving towards nuclear powered automobiles, we believe that no price is too high for energy interdependence and that you sir are the only person to lead us to the nuclear wasteland, I mean promise land.

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: Green Gyms

Here is our ongoing segment known It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

Americans are obsessed with staying in shape, as you well know, Mr. President by your countless hours at the gym each day. Millions of Americans hit the gym daily like you do, burning up calories, through many forms of exercise. Which is why we have come to you today with this report, on the benefits of the stationary bicycle.

You've seen it sir, in many of the post-apocolyptic movies out there, citizens left with no power, and what do they do? They hook a stationary bike to a turbine to run power to the light bulbs (that flicker constantly). I see you nodding you head over there sir, you can see where we are going with this. We want you to put one of these bicycles in the Oval Office, and stream you 2 hours a day over the web!

No? No camera? Not in the Oval Office? How about in Rahm's Office? O.K. I guess the White House gym makes sense as well, but sir it's just that we foresaw you meeting world leaders perched atop the bike. Vulnerable? Hell Putin takes his shirt off and flexes his pecks every time he has a meeting with Angela Merkel. The Fact that Germanic - Ruski relations have suffered is irrelevant sir. The point is that you are losing the war on machoness to a former member of the KGB!

No sir I'm fine, I....I....I just love this country so much and I can not stand to see you play second fiddle on the scale of manliness to a damn Russian sir! But I digress.

What brings us here today is the effect that these machines could have on the energy market. With our history of dieting and exercising we believe if deployed correctly these machines could account for 1/3 of our energy use (or they could barely cover the energy cost of each gym, you have nerds to crunch those numbers and come up with an exact number).

It's up to you sir to get Americans to use these. We were thinking maybe we would slap your name on it because people will buy any piece of crap with "Obama" stamped on the side of it. Maybe name it the Obamanator, and have you hawk it on an infomercial with one of those guys who yells and gesticulates a lot. You would be good at selling things to people wouldn't you sir? Tell them a whole bunch of really cool things about the product that may or may not be true. Travel the country and show them how it works. Yeah I can see it.

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: The Flash

And we are back with a new edition of (in my best Carl Kasell impersonation) "It's East (but probably not probable) Being Green!"

Again for all of you out there, I am not Kevin L Doyle the renowned Professor on Green Energy. I am just the guy you all mistakenly email.

After a brief hiatus do to the power change in our benevolent overlords we have returned. And returned with proof that Barack Obama or Rahm Emmanuel read my blog! Need proof? Here it is:



Case closed.

Welcome President Obama, we are glad to have you here. In your honor we are going to change this into a weekly briefing on how to make the US a greener place via slightly unorthodox means. It is up to you, sir, to make these ideas a reality.


Dear Mr. President

Sir, since it is well known that you hang out with Spiderman we were wondering if you could ask him to speak with The Flash (yes I am aware that Spiderman is Marvel and the Flash is DC but if anyone can bring the two groups together it is you sir) because we have a glorious idea for green energy that includes his super speed.

What we have envisioned sir is something that resembles a large hamster wheel attached to a giant turbine. And within that hamster wheel we place the Flash and he will, powered by his super strength and super speed, run straight ahead , spinning the wheel and generate electricity. Now of course we do not know how much electricty it will end up generating it may be just enough to power a light-bulb or it could be enough to light 1/3 of the country. We think it is worth the risk of the wheel breaking from its restraints and going crashing through the surrounding area potentially killing the Flash and the millions of people in an immediate 2,000 mile radius.

We believe Mr. President that if you can convince the Flash of this plan (as only you an, we tried with President Sarkozy of France but we neglected the detail that like any good American Superhero The Flash hates the French) that we may fix our energy problem.


Sincerely

The Underling, staff, and the American people.

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: Deriving Power From Headlights via Squinting

Welcome back green energy enthusiasts, I hope you enjoyed last weeks post on revolving doors. I have yet to hear back from the President-Elects Office but I'm sure after the transition my ideas will become a top priority. In slightly less mind blowing news, but an ego boost nonetheless, if you search "Kevin Doyle Green" in google this blog is the first to come up. Though it does not help the fact that people continue to think that I am a Professor on Green Energy but still the unintentional page views are much appreciated.

But enough about me, let's talk about my visions! Today I have decided to bring you an idea from my 5 year old self who is sitting right next to me, I would have him type it out for you but he only uses two fingers when he types and keeps asking for Skittles, so instead I am translating his mumbling into words for you. What we will be talking about today is the ability to draw energy from car headlights by squinting. Yes believe it or not it is possible, I just have to find a way to prove it.

It's simple really, all you need to do is take a ride on the highway (freeway to some) at night and when you see oncoming headlights, squint. I do suggest though for your own safety and for the safety of those around you you probably should not be the one driving.

As I was saying, all you need to do is squint and you will see the beams of light coming towards you, see it? Good.

My younger self informs me that I (he?) used to do this on long rides home from my Nana's house in Framingham in order to keep myself awake. Apparently it wasn't the fact that my head hurt from the light or the way I was screwing up my eyes that kept me awake. In actuality it was the small solar panels found behind ones eyes that drew energy from these beams and transfered them into brain waves that kept me awake. Mind blowing stuff isn't it? Who would have thought that me as a 5 year old would have figured this out before everyone else?

Now the only flaw in this plan is there is no way to harness this energy but I will leave that to the real scientists of the world, or if you know how feel free to post it in the comments section. Until then I will continue to power my own body as should you!

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green:The Revolving Door

In this time of high energy consumption as well as high prices the Underling has taken it upon himself to think of new ways of creating energy. The Underling must admit that none of the following ideas have been researched, there has been no cost benefit analysis done, and no physics have been thought through. What he means to say is, they may just not be feasible, but regardless of that fact they will foment discussion and may lead to the titans of government (We here at Grumbling are convinced that one of our five readers is either Barack Obama or Rham Emanuel, I am convinced of this and you can not prove to me otherwise) adopting something similar. That being said these are just crazy ideas that the Underling feels he must publish and will do so in a new feature we are calling "It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green".

The Revolving Door.

A Quick Note: If you have found this on google by typing in "Kevin Doyle Green Energy" then I must inform you that you have found the wrong Kevin Doyle. That Kevin Doyle actually has the middle initial "L" and his gmail also carries that letter between his name unlike mine which does not. I get far too many emails directed towards him.

And if you are looking for an Irish soccer player then just google image search "Kevin Doyle" and you will find what you are looking for.

Moving on!

You all know the revolving door and you all were either excited to see one in your early years or frightened to death by the prospect of getting stuck inside one forever. Whatever your fancy for revolving doors may be you had to have wondered like I did, why don't they have turbines on top of those things? I know right? If we had every one of the (I would have used the number of revolving doors in the US here but I couldn't find it but I did find this in use a lot) revolving doors in the US configured with a turbine we could power (I would need to understand physics as well as the average use of a revolving door to compute this but alas I don't try when it comes to proving my theories) homes in the US. Mr. Obama make this happen!

Here, for those of you who have no idea how a revolving door works, is a diagram of how to operate a revolving door.



Next week! The underackngowledged ability to derive power from headlights by squinting your eyes! Stay tuned!