Nick Patz

It's all about sex, the Pacific Chorus Frogs in my back yard

There is a pond in my back yard in Napa, California. When we moved into the house a couple years back, I really wasn’t very interested in the pond. It contained several koi, but they did not survive...

Cow poop to energy - a dairy incentive and an electricity solution

Recently there was a three-day meeting in Boise, Idaho orchestrated by the C3 and The Kenyon Group, and encouraged by the Idaho Office of Energy Resources. The meetings included a parade of energy-related projects in various stages of...

Idaho - the US hub for renewable energy

For we provincial Californians, Idaho is a long ways away. It has a substantially different culture and different lifestyle, and we know very little of the state. Many of us have never been there, and most of us can think...

Steelhead remain a threatened species in California Central Valley

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled on an appeal brought by water districts of the California Central Valley. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had listed the steelhead as a threatened species in the Central Valley of California...

New sediment regulations for Napa River

The comment period for setting a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for sediment in the Napa River and related habitat enhancement goals in the Napa River Watershed expired yesterday. It is now up to the California Water Resources Control Board...

Surprise salmon find in the Napa River

The Napa River is about 55 miles long. Its starting point is on the southern slope of Mount St. Helena, and enters the Napa Valley just north of Calistoga. The river then flows through the central portion of the valley...

Hall Winery leads the way to environmental stewardship in Napa Valley

In October 2010 the Fort Worth Club will award Hall Winery of St. Helena, California with their International Award of Excellence in Sustainable Winegrowing from the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. Those of us who are wine snobs from the...

Wind turbines - the newest (and best) design

The Blackhawk Project, LLC is a Boise, Idaho-based company that has designed an innovative wind turbine. Their patent was issued in March 2010. The company’s design is typically referred to as a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT...

Foreign oil imports and how to curtail the problem

In examining the use of petroleum and power in the US, it becomes obvious that the US dependency on importing of foreign oil is almost entirely because of transportation fuels, and not because of electrical generation. Sometimes media lumps electricity...

United States foreign oil dependency and a possible solution

The United States imports about 65 percent of the 18.7 million barrels of oil we use every day. Approximately 12 million barrels of our daily oil consumption are imported. These figures are supplied by the United States Energy Information...

Currently in Los Angeles