$16 nearly gets you the effect of a wind turbine in your backyard

From an article by Julie Lawrence at OnMilwaukee.com

While new fuel efficient cars and home solar panels are some of the most powerful ways to reduce our carbon footprint, a $25,000 investment is usually out of the question for most college students who are already battling rapidly increasing education costs.

But what about spending $16? Two University of Wisconsin student entrepreneurs say it can go further than you might think.

Mechanical engineering major Ted Durkee and business partner Brandon Gador, a recent graduate of Madison's School of Business, launched Powered Green this past October to provide an economical way for anyone to support renewable energy.

Their product, Energy Seal, is a recycled aluminum laptop sticker that funds carbon offsets. At $16, the cost of the sticker covers the production of enough renewable energy to offset what an average laptop uses in its lifetime.

Amazingly, $14 is enough to subsidize the retail cost of the laptop's lifetime energy consumption, paying for wind turbines that create electricity. The remaining $2 is for the actual seal, visual evidence that promotes the buyer's support of the eco-friendly endeavor.

"It essentially has the effect of a wind turbine in your backyard without actually having one," explains Durkee, who partnered Power Green with Village Green Energy, a renewable energy credit distributor based in California.

Posted in: Climate change,Wind