Katrina Irwin will air a story tonight on Channel 8 Rochester bewteen 5:30-6:00 PM about Dick Gammell's Big Green Dog House that is on display at this year's Homerama in Victor.  You read about it first here last week at thebatavian.com!

 Last year on thebatavian.com, you may have read about Dick Gammell of Canadice Construction Corp. and his efforts to make his construction company more cost effective, more independent, and more environmentally friendly by developing a wind/ solar generator that powers hand tools and small pieces of equipment at work sites.  His idea has gotten lots of press in the past 12 months, including news stories on Binghamton, Buffalo and Rochester TV stations, an article in the “Industry News” section of The Rhode Island Builders Report, a front page story in The Journal of Light Construction -- in all, 11 pieces.  You even can see the generator in action on YouTube! 

Now Dick has some new ventures (that you may hear about first right here).

On Saturday, June 6th, western New York’s original off-grid cafe opened in Springwater.  Theresa’s Sunshine Cafe is located at 8148 South Main Street, across from the fire hall, and is open Tuesday - Friday, 6:00 AM - 2:00 PM and for breakfast only on the week-end (closed Monday).  Every part of the Sunshine Cafe is electrified solely by the sun and the wind!  While customers enjoy a solar cup of coffee, they can recharge their electric vehicles!  (see photo)

Canadice Construction also is playing a unique role in this year’s Rochester Homerama which opens Saturday, July 11th at Somerset Hill in Victor.  Eight members of the Rochester Homebuilders’ Association, including Dick, will exhibit their “barkitecture” -- stylish and creative doghouses which will be auctioned off to benefit Lollypop Farm.  Dick’s contribution, called The Big Green Dog House, is a fully insulated doggie condo and short-term, back-up green power generator all in one!  Built with power tools electrified completely from the sun and wind, The Big Green Dog House is constructed with recycled lumber and has an outdoor outlet for human convenience.  Of course, it has excellent curb appeal!  (see photo)

Dick Gammell and Canadice Construction continue to demonstrate innovation and efficiency in energy consumption.  To learn more, head to the company website: 

http://www.canadiceconstruction.com/

Pavilion's Steve Rigoni is the subject of an article in today's Buffalo News. Rigoni is a cash crop farmer, descendent of three generations of upstate dairy farmers, who has been featured in a pair of videos on The Batavian for his construction of a corn dryer that is fueled by switchgrass rather than propane. (If you haven't seen either of those videos yet, please check them out. It's pretty remarkable what Rigoni put together... from scratch.)

In the Buffalo News piece, Rigoni is in the spotlight again for his allegiance to alternative energies—this time, for mounting a windmill outside his home. From that article:

It’s easy to spot Steve Rigoni’s place in Pavilion — just look for the wind turbine spinning high above his house.

“I look at it as my midlife thing,” Rigoni said. “Some people get a Corvette, or a new woman — I got a windmill.”

His 10-kilowatt Bergey Windpower rig is hardly a wanton spree, however. While it cost him $25,000, after state incentives, it has nearly wiped out electric bills that used to average $120 to $140 a month.

Reporter Fred O. Williams calls it "wind power to the people."

For Rigoni, converting to wind power was as much a labor of love, he said, as it was about economics. A proponent of alternative energy, he also heats his home partly with wood, and burns switchgrass instead of propane to dry corn for his farming operation.

But the wind turbine pays its way. For the last two years, it has pumped out about 800 kilowatt-hours a month, powering Rigoni’s washer, dryer, water heater, fridge and lights.

When the wind is blowing but the appliances aren’t on, the turbine spins his electric meter backward, generating a small credit toward future energy use.

“We don’t ever make much money on it,” he said.

It turns out that the Great Lakes region is "a prime wind-resource area," especially in the colder months, which would be good news for folks like us who max out our energy bills come January and February. But is it really worth it?

Does small wind save money? The rule of thumb is that a well-located turbine with an average wind speed of 12 mph and with 10-kilowatt capacity can generate about 1,000 kilowatt- hours a month, or enough to power a typical home — not counting heating or air-conditioning. Whether that will break even over the 20-year life of a turbine depends on current and future electricity rates. Utility rates of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour begin to make the cost of wind attractive.

Wind power economics just got a push from Congress. The financial bailout package enacted in October included a tax credit of up to $4,000 for small wind systems.

So, would you do it?

This past July, we paid a visit to Rigoni Farms in Pavilion. Steve Rigoni was a dairy farmer his whole life, and his father and his father's father before him. Not long ago, however, Steve made the switch to cash crops and began experimenting with alternative sources of energy. When we visited him in July, Steve showed us the tank in which he planned to burn switchgrass to heat the air to dry his corn crop—bushels of dried switchgrass would replace propane as the fuel source. He told us about how he manufactured the device and a little about his reasons. Please, be sure to go back and watch that video.

Well, we got a message from Steve last week asking us to come back out and see his invention in action. Long story short: it's a success. There are some things that need to be tweaked, as there are always things that need tweaking. But all in all, it works great. We put together another video to show you the burner and hear a little bit more from Steve about how it works. You can check that out below.

Before you watch it, however, let me say one thing. This video does not quite capture the marvel that I felt—and that I would hope some of you would feel—when I saw up close what Steve had built. This burner was made by hand, by Steve from whatever he could find to piece it together. He welded, he fanagled, he improvised. He manufactured a heat exchanger out of metal sheets and pipes. It's a thing of beauty, really. And that's before you consider that he now grows his own fuel and saves some 1,000 gallons of propane per day, every time he uses the dryer.

Did you see it -- today at 3:00 PM?  The future rolled right through Batavia, right down Main Street.

You may have seen it and not recognized it for what it is.  Perhaps you thought it was an ordinary shed on a trailer being pulled by a red pick up truck.  In fact, it's part of a display from Homearama 2008 in Perinton that came through Batavia on its way home .

Look carefully and you'll see Dick Gammell reflected in the panes of glass in the door.  Dick is the owner of Canadice Construction Corp. in Springwater, and he's come up with a wind/solar generator that has limitless applications.  He developed the original unit to attach to a standard construction trailer to provide sufficient power to run hand tools and small pieces of equipment on site.  This somewhat portable, combination wind and solar generator replaces the gasoline and diesel varieties (up to 7,000 watts), resulting in the reduction of the use of at least 5 gallons of gas for every 8 hour work day -- per site.   One set of solar panels on half the roof (see photo) and one small wind turbine (stored in the shed for today's trip) does the trick.

In western New York, as in many geographic locations in the Northeast, we have an abundance of wind in the colder months and enough sunshine in the warmer months to power this kind of generator.  This unique "shed" provides all the portable power Dick needs to make his small construction company more cost effective, more independent, and more environmentally friendly.

But Dick didn't stop there!  He's applied his green thinking to golf greens.  This week-end, you can see his Green Cart at Dande Farms Country Club in Akron (see the ad in this week's Genesee Valley Pennysaver).  To test the most far-reaching application of his technology, he recently purchased a plug-in, electric vehicle and hopes to generate 10-14 kilowatts per day to power the car for 40-50 miles at once -- with no emissions!

Dick Gammell is an unassuming, straightforward businessman who saw a need and decided to do something about it.  He works every day at making his idea better.  The successful development of a highly  efficient wind/solar generator for use in generating up to 10-20 kilowatt hours per day of power for a family business may seem like a drop in the bucket, but imagine if we could engage MANY small businessmen in energy conservation and the use of alternative power sources!  It may be the only way to protect this nation's energy security.  I applaud Dick's efforts. 

You can read more at: http://www.canadiceconstruction.com/alternativeenergy.nxg    

With the possibility of wind power coming to Genesee County, the Buffalo News account of a new wind farm in Bliss is timely.

Stanley Marsh didn’t answer immediately when asked whether the wind turbine in his backyard was noisy.

“You hear anything?” he asked. Birds chirped and an electrical buzz was coming from a streetlight that wouldn’t shut off, but noise from the turbine, perhaps 1,000 feet away, was undetectable.

The region’s newest wind farm, a collection of 67 turbines perched atop 265-foot-tall towers, officially opened Sunday. More are on the way.

The most entertaining complaint about the turbines -- shadows.

Since the beginning of April, when most of the turbines in Bliss began operation, a handful of complaints have been voiced, according to Eagle Town Supervisor Joseph Kushner.

“We’ve had three or four complaints about noise,” he said. “We had one person complain of shadows.”

That person, Town Board Member Jim Barber, said he saw shadows from the turbines for 20 to 25 minutes early in the morning when the blades first started turning, but that he hasn’t seen any for the past three or four days.

It’s a minor annoyance, he said, adding that Noble Environmental Group has promised to look into possible remedies.

How the hell are shadow's a problem?

As we've noted before, there is some opposition to a wind farm in Perry, but we're still not clear why.

Wind power seems like a good thing -- clean, natural, a renewable energy source.

These days, who can be opposed to such benefits?

So why are people in Perry blocking -- and have been blocking for three years -- the construction of a wind farm in their town? Matt Suretl's story in today's Daily News doesn't tell us.

Surtell writes:"It often appears there's little middle ground between the most adamant supporters and opponents," yet he never gives much information on the pros and cons, as Perry residents see them.

This leave the impression that the opponents are nothing more than unapologetic NIMBYs.

My only experience with wind turbines comes from often driving past the majestic, earth-saving machines in Tehachapi. From everything I heard while a resident of nearby Bakersfield, the people of Tehachapi consider the wind farm an asset -- but then it's a bit of a tourist attraction. There's no guarantee the people of Perry would be as fortunate.

Here's some related links:

• Pros and Cons of wind power
• A wind farm opposition site
• More pros and cons

What do you think? Should there be a wind farm in Perry?  Why or why not?

Note: Today's Daily News is available on new stands now. If you're not a subscriber, you can subscribe at BataviaNews.com.