Clean Power Planet | A Renewable Energy Podcast

Hey there, I’m excited to let you know that Keaton and I have just launched a new podcast called How To Stop Climate Change. It’s a show about the people that are working to fix the climate crisis. Sometimes it seems like no one is doing anything about this upcoming catastrophe.  It’s true that most of the world’s leaders aren’t doing nearly enough, but a lot of people are hard at work every day trying to change our course. It’s not just people in renewable energy or in the activist community. There are people fighting climate change in nearly every industry, from agriculture to transportation.  How To Stop Climate Change will share stories about the determined people who are working on the climate crisis. We’ll also take a look at the actions and policies that could make a real difference and identify the things you shouldn’t waste your time worrying about. Thanks so much for listening to Clean Power Planet over the years. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot from the amazing people that we’ve interviewed. We hope you enjoy How To Stop Climate Change. Episode 1 is already live. Please look for it on your favorite podcast app and subscribe. If you like it, please take a second and give it a positive rating. You can find it here:   Apple Podcasts Spotify HowToStopClimateChange.com   Thanks, David Butler

Frank Morris is a former coal miner who was retrained as a residential energy specialist through the New Energy Intern program. This is the third episode in a three-part series about the program, which helps out of work coal miners train for jobs in energy efficiency. Frank now works for the Appalachia Heat Squad and the Housing Development Alliance. The New Energy Intern program is run by MACED  (the Mountain Association for Community and Economic Development) with funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) Here is an excerpt DB: Would you like to see your kids work in coal mining when they get older? FM: If my son picks up a coal shovel I might smack him with it. DB: Alright, you should warn him about that in advance though. FM: Oh yeah! Please support the show If you would like to support Clean Power Planet please make a donation on Patreon. If you would like to hire Keaton Butler to engineer or produce your podcast contact her at KeatonButlerRecording@gmail.com Please give us a review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear from you. Just email david@cleanpowerplanet.com. Links mentioned in the show MACED has a lot of fantastic programs for people and businesses in Eastern Kentucky. You can find out more about them at MACED.org. If you’re interested in the New Energy Intern program contact Chris Woolery (cwoolery@maced.org). The episodes in this series were recorded at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky which is a fantastic organization that helps people in the region tell their stories through music, film, video, art – you name it. You can find out more about them at Appalshop.org. Music Credits Original music for this episode was provided by: Wonderhills Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.com Avery Reidy The post Retraining Coal Miners for Energy Efficiency Work – Frank Morris appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

This is the second episode in a three part series about out-of-work coal miners in Eastern Kentucky that are being retrained to do energy efficiency work through the New Energy Intern program.  It was created by the Mountain Association for Community and Economic Development or MACED. In the first episode of the series Rachel Norton from MACED told us about the program. Today we’re talking to John Craft. He’s spent a lot of his working life as a coal miner, in both underground and surface mines. He started out doing surface mining permit work at 19 and did a lot of different types of mining jobs over the years. He finally left mining in 1995, partly because he got a bad chest x-ray but also because he saw the decline coming in the coal industry. Now John’s starting his own energy efficiency company, and looking forward to helping people in Eastern Kentucky cut their electricity and gas bills and save money. That means more fossil fuels can stay in the ground. He’s got some great stories to share. Here’s an excerpt David: So if you realized that coal didn’t have a great future in ‘92 I’d say that you were a few years ahead of people because there’s still plenty of people that are hoping it will come back. John: Coal will never be back. Ever. It’s too dirty. We can’t do it and live on this planet. David: When you talk to guys that you used to work with, what do they say about it? Do they feel the same way as you? John: Everybody I used to work with is on disability man. Our next episode will feature Frank Morris, another of MACED’s New Energy Interns. MACED has a lot of fantastic programs for people and businesses in Eastern Kentucky. You can find out more about them at maced.org. The episodes in this series were recorded at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky which is a fantastic organization that helps people in the region tell their stories through music, film, video, art – you name it. You can find out more about them at appalshop.org. The post Retraining Coal Miners for Energy Efficiency Work – John Craft appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

This is a very exciting episode. It’s the first in a three part series about a cool internship program that retrains out-of-work coal miners for energy efficiency jobs. All three episodes were recorded at the historic Appalshop media center in Whitesburg, Kentucky, right in the middle of the Appalachian coalfields. Our guest for this first episode in the series is Rachel Norton. She’s not an out-of-work coal miner. She’s an energy efficiency expert that works for the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED) the organization that created the New Energy Intern program. The coal industry in Appalachia has been in decline for many years and it’s left behind a struggling economy with very few job opportunities. Retraining miners to do energy efficiency upgrades has several positive outcomes. Obviously it helps the miners find work or start businesses but it also helps homeowners and businesses lower their energy bills, which allows them to invest the savings in something more important. When energy costs are reduced it helps the entire local economy and the efficiency upgrades pay for themselves through the savings they generate. Rachel studied Biosystems Engineering at the University of Kentucky. She wanted to find a job that would allow her to work toward a progressive energy future. She knew that there weren’t many opportunities to do that in her home state of Kentucky, but she decided to stick it out because she felt she could do the most good here. MACED has given her an opportunity to make a big difference. She also has her own energy efficiency consulting business called GreenStep. Our next two episodes will feature Frank Morris and John Craft, two of MACED’s New Energy Interns. Here is a little more detail about Appalshop. It’s a unique organization that’s been around for 50 years. It houses an art gallery, a theater, a community radio station, and recording studios. It’s really an amazing place that helps people from around the region share their stories. You should check it out at appalshop.org. The post Retraining Coal Miners for Energy Efficiency Work – Rachel Norton appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

This is our second conversation with Dave Renné. He has such a wide range of experience in renewable energy that we invited him back for another interview. He has focused much of his career on measuring and analyzing the amount of solar energy that renewable energy developers around the world can expect. That’s important when they are designing solar installations and they need to know how many panels they will need and how much electricity they will generate at different times throughout the year. Dr. Renné retired in 2012 from an exciting career at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where he worked on renewable energy development projects with the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Since then he has served as president of the International Solar Energy Society and consulted for the International Renewable Energy Agency, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. In this episode he gives us a glimpse into the the state of renewable energy development around the world. This episode of Clean Power Planet is brought to you in partnership with the American Solar Energy Society. ASES advocates for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy. They bring scientists, policy-makers, business people and citizens together to share knowledge and build community. You can join ASES at https://www.ases.org/. The post A World of Renewable Energy – Dave Renné appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Our guests today are Chris Carter and Jack Martin, also known as Solar Jim and Sustainable Jack. Chris is a performing artist and sculptor with 20 years of experience designing and installing standalone power systems. Jack is a professor in sustainable technologies at Appalachian State University, and together they’re pioneers of DIY wind turbines and co-hosts of their own radio show, The Home Power Hour, where they discuss homemade wind turbines, alternative energy and environmental issues. They also teach Home Brew Wind Turbine workshops at the Handy Village Institute in central North Carolina. This episode of Clean Power Planet is brought to you in partnership with the American Solar Energy Society. ASES advocates for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy. They bring scientists, policy-makers, business people and citizens together to share knowledge and community. You can join ASES at https://www.ases.org/. The post DIY Wind Turbines – Solar Jim and Sustainable Jack appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Ben Bunker is the CEO of the Global BrightLight Foundation, which provides access to affordable solar-powered lights to people living without access to electricity. Many of the people that they help live in very rural areas. They rely on kerosene, candles or even wood chips for light. BrightLight’s vision is a world with universal access to clean, sustainable, and affordable energy. Ben: You know, those of us who have had the power go out before, whether because of a storm or something going wrong with the utilities, we’ve had this experience together but often it’s not one that’s a prolonged experience, maybe one or two days, maybe a week if you’re unlucky without power. And most of us resort to candles, flashlights or batteries. And so for a billion people around the world that’s actually every single day. It moves from being a minor inconvenience to something that significantly impacts their life in a series of different negative ways. I’ll give a couple of examples. One is economics. Some folks are spending up to 25% of their income on candles or kerosene or batteries every single month. When you only make $100 and you’re living in Guatemala or Peru, that $25 represents a significant amount of your income. David: So, you said over a billion people? Ben: Yes. David: And there are what, 7 billion people on the planet? Ben: Every day there’s more but that’s a good round number. David: So this is one out of every 7 people that doesn’t have electricity. Ben: Whether you’re in a waiting room or you’re in traffic or wherever you are just imagine that one out of every seven of those people is going to go home to a house without electricity and is going to have to endure a series of hardships because of that. Our work is focused primarily in Guatemala and Peru and we work in rural areas where most folks are day laborers or do some sort of farming often either as an employee of a larger agricultural operation or just to survive on their own. And these folks in the rural areas are usually somewhere between 5 to 10 hours or even a day away from the nearest town that has electricity. So, let’s say on an average day someone could get up, go into the fields, work on their harvest, come home and then probably have between 30 minutes to one hour of sunlight left, if they’re lucky. Often they work until sundown because they’re using all the productive light they have. And then when they get home, as I mentioned, they’re using candles and kerosene, so the house is almost completely black. To move around from room to room they actually have to pick up this light source and carry it with them. It’s a very dark way to live, not just in terms of the amount of light but also in the quality of the connections you can build because if you think about the time you spend with your family in the evenings that is all predicated on having light to bring together the community and the family. Not that folks don’t do that but it’s just a little harder when everything’s dark. David: I can’t even really imagine what that’s like. Please listen to the episode for the full interview. To learn more about the Global BrightLight Foundation or make a donation go to https://globalbrightlight.org/. Your gift will light a light. This episode of Clean Power Planet is brought to you in partnership with the American Solar Energy Society. ASES advocates for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy. They bring scientists, policy-makers, business people and citizens together to share knowledge and community. You can join ASES at https://www.ases.org/. The post One in Seven People Live Without Electricity – Ben Bunker appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Paul Bony has worked in several areas of the energy industry. Currently he’s a Senior Program Manager for energy efficiency firm CLEAResult, Board president for Solar Energy International and a board member of the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association. He has also worked in the electric and gas utility industries. Maybe that’s why he’s excited about clean electrification. It combines everything that he’s done in his career. Clean electrification and the transition away from fossil fuel-based electricity and end use fossil fuel for heat and transportation has the potential to completely disrupt the regulated utility industry and the way we use energy. We met Paul at the 2018 American Solar Energy Society conference and had a chance to talk about the energy efficiency movement that started with Jimmy Carter’s sweater speech and the challenges that utilities and regulators are facing now. This episode of Clean Power Planet is brought to you in partnership with the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). ASES advocates for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy. They bring scientists, policymakers, business people and citizens together to share knowledge and community. The post Clean Electrification is a shock to the fossil fuel industry – Paul Bony appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Sandra Begay grew up in Gallup, New Mexico, near the Navajo reservation. Her grandmother lived on the reservation and her father and grandfather served on the tribal council. Sandra remembers going to her grandmother’s house when it was first hooked up to the grid. The family got to watch as her grandmother turned on the porch light. That was only twenty years ago. Roughly 18,000 households in the Navajo nation are still without power. Today Sandra is an engineer which makes her pretty unusual. Only one in every 13,000 engineers in the U.S. are Native American Women. Her job allows her to help bring renewable energy to the reservations and to help young Native American students pursue engineering careers. She is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where she assists Native American tribes with their renewable energy development. She also runs Sandia’s Indian Energy Internship Program for the DOE Office of Indian Energy. Interview excerpt DB: So talk a little bit about the program that you’re involved in. SB: Sure. The sponsorship for my work at Sandia National Labs is from the Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy, and specifically I am given assignments to help tribes across the United States, upon their request to the Federal government. And then I can get an assignment to help them out with a specific energy problem. One of the specific things that I enjoy doing is strategic energy planning. So we’ll take a team of three of us from Sandia and our contractors and we’ll go out to the tribal community and host a three-day strategic energy planning session. So at the end of the day we’ve looked at a vision for ten years in the future all focused in on energy and we wind up on that third day with a two year action plan, and part of that is not only to support the tribes in their efforts but to give them the documentation for the tribe to implement. And then we write a report for the federal government so that they’re ready for what the tribes might be requesting in the two year time frame. DB: Do you work with tribes all across the nation? SB: I work with tribes all across the nation but it also includes Alaskan natives out in the state of Alaska. It just depends on the tribe and their readiness to ask for this type of strategic planning assistance. DB: What’s the state of the grid or electrification for a lot of the tribes? SB: The tribes are behind all the way dating back to the 1940s when the rural electrification act was incorporated where many rural communities were connected with lines and poles. For whatever reason tribal lands were skipped over, maybe too complex to deal with from a federal level, and so infrastructure was not actually put in place. Some tribes who might have more money to invest are getting ahead of the curve and having modern infrastructure yet those who do not have a lot of gaming revenue have to go by grants or giving some of their own revenue to put in lines and poles and other infrastructure that they need. DB: So there are still homes out there that aren’t wired yet. SB: Navajo nation is a tribe that skews the numbers quite a bit when you talk about national populations of American Indians or Alaska Natives. So, I’ve heard numbers from 18,000 households all the way to 30,000 people that do not have electricity yet at this point and this is as of 2018. And so the way to answer those problems is, yes there’s need for lines and poles in certain circumstances but the cost of $30,000 to $35,000 per mile is very expensive and that would be out of that person’s pocket. Most people don’t have that kind of money sitting around. So there may be grant dollars available but my unique piece to this puzzle started about 15 years ago where I helped support the tribal utility on Navajo put in solar energy. So it’s off-grid homes that have energy from solar panels and batteries and many even have a small wind turbine associated with it. (For the full interview please listen to the podcast) For more information on the Tribal Internship Program click here. This episode of Clean Power Planet is brought to you in partnership with the American Solar Energy Society. ASES advocates for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy. They bring scientists, policymakers, business people and citizens together to share knowledge and build community. The post Bringing Renewable Energy and Educational Opportunities to Tribal Lands – Sandra Begay appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Andee Chamberlain has been the Sustainability Programs Manager with Texas Parks and Wildlife since 2009 and she’ll be talking with us about her success finding ways to install solar in Texas parks all while fighting tight budgets, climate change and invasive crazy ants. The post Solar Energy in Texas State Parks – Andee Chamberlain appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Microgrids have a dirty past. They were once dependent on diesel generation, one of the dirtiest forms of power generation. Even with the addition of solar or wind it was difficult to cut down on diesel consumption since the generators had to be online for backup. Now with the addition of storage it’s becoming possible to cut down on diesel dependence and bring clean and resilient power to isolated communities and critical operations. Dr. Peter Lilienthal has been working in renewables, distributed energy and energy efficiency since 1978. He worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 1990 to 2007, working on distributed power projects and developing HOMER® (Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources). HOMER software is used to design, optimize and research microgrids and the mix of energy sources that can be used to power them. In 2009 Lilienthal left NREL to form HOME Energy and take the software commercial. Since then HOMER has been downloaded by over 150,000 people in 193 countries. Lilienthal and the other leaders of HOMER Energy have been working to optimize microgrids for over 25 years with the goal of empowering people around the world and accelerating the adoption of renewable and distributed energy sources. In this episode he provides an overview of microgrids and distributed energy resources and tells us how he helped Richard Branson rebuild the microgrid on his island. The post Microgrids, renewables and storage – clean power for the poorest people on the planet – Peter Lilienthal appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Mary Marshall studied journalism in college and then jumped right into a career in television news, working on NBC’s Dateline and Nightly News with Lester Holt. But she became disillusioned […] The post Solar Energy International is moving Solar Forward in rural Colorado – Mary Marshall appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

We’re very excited to announce that we’re partnering with the American Solar Energy Society for a series of interviews from their Solar 2018 conference in Boulder, Colorado. In this episode […] The post A Solar Power Podcast Partnership – American Solar Energy Society and Clean Power Planet appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Tim Darst is the Executive Director at Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light, an organization that’s mobilizing a religious response to climate change. They offer Creation Care Consulting to help churches […] The post Confronting Climate Change with Creation Care – Tim Darst, Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Tim Darst is the Executive Director at Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light, an organization that’s mobilizing a religious response to climate change. They offer Creation Care Consulting to help churches choose the best options for getting started with conservation, efficiency and renewable energy. Tim had a comfortable career in accounting when he had a “lightbulb” moment that took him down a different path. I had a big epiphany when my youngest daughter and I were out playing golf, we were actually practicing golf one day, it was in the summer at a city park in Louisville and she made a really long putt, got really excited about it, started jumping up and down but then had trouble breathing. She couldn’t catch her breath and it went on and on where she was just gasping for air so I took her to the local emergency room and they put her on oxygen and I asked the nurse, “what’s going on” and she says, “well, it’s an ozone alert day” and you’re not supposed to be out in this. And it turns out that there are segments of our population that are more vulnerable to this and in the summer when we’re using a lot more air conditioning, we’re burning a lot more coal and natural gas than any other time of the year and when that combines with all the exhaust from our vehicles it creates ground level ozone. And that’s when I started realizing, okay this is a really serious issue and a lot of people are being impacted by this. So that really motivated me to make some changes. In this episode of Clean Power Planet we talk to Tim about how Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light helps churches get on board with the growing Creation Care movement.

Blake Jones was an Ernst and Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2010. You could even describe him as a serial-entrepreneur. But it would be more accurate to say that […] The post Clean Energy Credit Union putting the green in green energy – Blake Jones appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Lane Boldman is not your stereotypical lobbyist. She is Executive Director of the Kentucky Conservation Committee (KCC), an organization that tracks legislation that impacts Kentucky’s environment and natural resources. In […] The post Citizen Lobbying for Rooftop Solar – Lane Boldman appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Harvard professor and former Washington policymaker Meghan O’Sullivan was named the 2017 “Energy Writer of the Year” by the American Energy Society for her book Windfall: How the New Energy […] The post From Energy Scarcity to Energy Abundance and American Power – Meghan O’Sullivan appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

Steve Ricketts is a partner in Solar Energy Solutions, the largest and oldest company in Kentucky’s fledgling solar installation industry. Steve and his partner Matt Partymiller and many other solar […] The post Kentucky Beat Back the Utilities’ Attempt to Crush Rooftop Solar Two Years in a Row- Steve Ricketts of Solar Energy Solutions appeared first on Climate Change Podcast | Clean Power Planet.

“It’s a lot of memorization and quite honestly was one of the hardest tests I’ve ever taken. I took this test for the first time back in 2007 and you know, me being a 4.0 student back in high school, always getting good grades, when I saw my first practice test came back with like 25% correct, I knew that this was one that I was going to have to put a little more effort into.” ~Pat Flynn on the LEED exam. Pat Flynn, creator of Green Exam Academy Pat Flynn, creator of Green Exam Academy, a LEED exam study site. I had a chance to go to San Diego recently for Social Media Marketing World. It’s a fantastic event with an unbelievable list of speakers. And it’s the only conference that I know of with a reception on an aircraft carrier. I learned a lot and got back home with a thousand ideas to try out. But the highlight of the trip was getting a chance to interview Pat Flynn who was speaking at the event. Pat’s an author, podcaster, blogger and creator of GreenExamAcademy.com a website that’s helped thousands of people pass the LEED exam. In 2007 Pat was working in an architecture firm and studying for the LEED exam. He started putting all of his notes online and eventually organized it all into a website. Now it’s a huge site with study guides, practice exams and classes. Thousands of people have used it to help prepare for the test. DB: I’m here with Pat Flynn, founder of GreenExamAcademy.com, which is a website that helps you prepare for the LEED exam. So Pat, I’m sure a lot of people have heard the phrase LEED certified and they probably know almost nothing about what that means they know it has something to do with sustainability. Can you give us the background on that. What is the LEED exam? PF: Right, well LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and it’s an accreditation that the United States Green Building Council can give to certain buildings that meet a certain requirement for, like you said,  sustainability and there are a lot of different categories related to things all the way from how the building is designed, to the energy use, to the water usage, all that sort of stuff. But you can kind of see it in two different ways. One, a building can be LEED certified, a building can have the efficiencies or meet the certain requirements to earn LEED certification and a lot of people use that who own a building or who access to buildings in terms of marketing. And it just shows that the environment was considered when the building was going up. But my approach is more for the people who want to become LEED Accredited Professionals, and these are people who study for and then take an exam and pass it to be able to earn the right to work on a building. And a building, in order to to become LEED certified has to have someone who is a LEED AP, somebody who has passed this test, work on this, facilitate that discussion and become the liaison in between the United States Green Building Council and everybody who is working on it. There’s a lot involved with putting a building up and making it LEED certified. But with the test specifically, which is what I work on most with people, through offering practice exams and study guides. It’s a lot of memorization and quite honestly was one of the hardest tests I’ve ever taken. I took this test for the first time back in 2007 and you know, me being a 4.0 student back in high school, always getting good grades, when I saw my first practice test came back with like 25% correct, I knew that this was one that I was going to have to put a little more effort into. So I built a website called Green Exam Academy to really focus on studying for this exam and exactly what we needed to memorize to pass, and 10s of thousands of people have ended up using my site, the free content on the site and some of the items that one can purchase, classes, practice exams to help them pass the test. DB: So how many people take the test each year would you say? PF: I would say several thousand people take the test, and I think the current passing rate, it’s climbed over the years, but I think it’s about 50 to 60% now, which is still quite low for a test. But it’s obviously very important stuff, so I’m kind of glad that it’s more difficult because the people who are going to be LEED APs, we know that they’re able and capable of working on buildings to make them sustainable in the way that the United States Green Building Council wants them. DB: Are there different types of LEED APs for different professions in the building industry? PF: Yes, it’s interesting because initially it was just, you were a LEED AP and that’s it. But then they started to categorize them and have specialties so there’s LEED NC, which is new construction, for example. There’s EB, which is existing buildings. There’s also for homes and schools. And you know there’s a whole array of them. So for whatever your specialty is you want to make sure you take that particular exam. There’s also the sort of more general test you could take too. So you have to take sort of the general green exam, the GA test, and that will give you the first level of passing but then you have to take the specialty one too for whatever your specialty is. DB: I see. Is that the green associate test? PF: The Green Associate exam yeah. And it’s undergone several revisions over time but it does talk more about the general aspects. Everything from administration of facilitating a LEED building going up to some of the more general concepts related to some of the more specific categories that are universal across all the different specializations. DB: It seems like this is kind of an unusual program in a way. It’s not governmental, it’s not exactly regulatory, right? Where did it come from and why has it grown in popularity? PF: I think it’s pretty obvious why it’s grown. Everybody is becoming more environmentally conscious now and this is just a way to really put numbers to it, to quantify it. I think everybody over the last decade or so has wanted to become more environmentally conscious but they didn’t know how. And the United States Green Building Council was formed and they came up with this program and the accreditation and LEED itself, to really just quantify and to put some numbers behind actually making a building healthy and not just healthy in terms of the environment but also for the people inside too. That’s another important component, is the air quality that people will experience in that particular design. So it really covers all the bases in terms of the footprint and the experience that users of a building will have. DB: Do you start to see any of the specifics of the LEED requirements work their way into local building codes? Has that happened at all? PF: That has happened. I will be honest, I don’t know too much on the building end of what’s been happening with regulations and whatnot. I’m focusing on those who are trying to pass the exam and like most things, I’m going to be honest, passing the exam is one thing but actually going out in the field, working with contractors on a specific LEED project, that’s what’s really going to give you the most LEED experience. And if possible, even before you take the exam, try to get on a project, if you have access, that is going through LEED certification or one that is being built that will earn that certification. It’s really good to get that experience first hand, even before you try to become a LEED accredited professional yourself. DB: Do you think the credentials for being a LEED professional are almost as important as the degree now? PF: I think so. A lot of people who hire look for LEED specific accolades on a resume for example. If somebody were to have a position to fill and there were two candidates and one had LEED accredited accolades and the other didn’t they’re going to take the one who has the LEED knowledge. DB: You were telling me a little bit about some of the renewable energy things you’ve done on your house. PF: So we run solar on our home. It’s great and I love it because it quantifies how much of an impact it’s making and how much less energy we’re actually using from the grid an whatnot. And so there’s an app that goes with this particular company that we’re using. It’s cool. I like to see it actually working. You know we live in San Diego and it’s quite sunny most of the time. So, it’s nice. I’m also very focused now on renewable energy in other ways. We’re using this kind of energy in more efficient manners. I just bought a Tesla, which is nice, and I’m a big fan of Elon Musk and what he’s trying to do. The model 3 is now a big deal and everybody knows about it and 200,000 people put a downpayment to get one in a couple years. So his whole plan of getting that out there to the masses is working. It’s really cool to see. I think in the future solar is going to be in every home. It’s going to get much cheaper. It’s still kind of weird in terms of the leasing and how it works with the different power companies and whatnot. But I love the direction it’s going for sure. And we’re gonna see a lot more wind and other forms. That’s why I’m really big on it. You know I have a six year old son and he goes to a STEM school. And they’re a lot of science and technology there. The kids that are there now in those types of schools are going to be the ones to come up with the solutions that are really going to save us. And it’s really cool to see my son whose six for example be inspired by people like Elon Musk. And I’m trying to show him the way through what I have access to right now like running solar on the home and showing him how it works and just being smart about the energy use we have. DB: So Pat, how did you get interested in the environment and renewable energy in general? PF: Well my interest really came from trying to take the LEED exam because when I was in architecture still, I got laid off in ‘08, but before that I was doing everything I could to stand out, to become a star employee, to just really show my boss that I was here and here to stay even though in 2008 they kept me as long as possible and then let me go anyway. I was taking all the exams that I could. I was going to seminars. LEED was just one component of that master plan of trying to do everything I could to learn about the world of architecture. And when I got laid off that was the thing that was the thing that was the number one priority at the time and I noticed that so many other people needed help in that realm and that was really where my interest started for it. It was with the exam. And quite honestly approaching it to add it to my resume but then falling in love with the idea of sustainable energy from there. DB: That’s great. Well now your life is probably very different from when you were working in an architecture firm and you have several online businesses. Can you tell us a little bit about that? PF: Sure, you know when I created that website back in 2008 to help people pass the LEED exam with greenexamacademy.com, a lot of my friends, a lot of people online were like, “How did you do that? How did you survive that layoff in ‘08?” A lot of people went back to school and here I was building a successful business. They were wondering how it is I was able to do that. So I built a website to show people and to talk about all the things I was doing, things that I wished I had learned earlier, things that were working and very honest and upfront. Essentially I entered the online entrepreneur, internet marketing space but I wasn’t doing it to make money. I was doing it just to share everything because my LEED exam business, helping people to pass that test, was making more money than I was making as an architect. And then now this platform at SmartPassiveIncome.com has really taken off. I have a podcast and I have a YouTube channel that goes along with it to really help with just general marketing and online business, social media best practices. DB: And you have a new book. PF: And I have a new book. It’s called Will It Fly, How to Test Your Next Business Idea so You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money. And you know I call myself the crash test dummy of online business. You know I put myself on the line. I try new things and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. But whatever the case may be, just like every good crash test dummy does, I go back to my audience and I report back for everybody’s betterment and what I learned through the years of building my own businesses and helping others build their own businesses too, is that a lot of motivation and success can come from knowing whether an idea you have is going to work out or not. You know, validating your ideas before you actually put in the years, the time, the money, the sweat equity, with working on things. Traditionally people, when they have a business idea, they just never act on it or they act too fast and they build it out without ever asking people or understanding their market. And this book will help you take an idea and using a small sample size of your target audience, really understand if it’s something people will actually pay for. It’ll save you time and money if it doesn’t work out so you can move on to one that actually does help people or realizing quickly that it is something that’s going to work and then you can just up what you’ve done to test it. DB: Alright. That’s great. One last question. How do you like your Tesla, and which model do you have, tell us a little bit about it. PF: I love, love, love my Tesla. I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks but it’s the model X so the sort of crossover, SUV style one with the falcon wing doors, which is like as close to a DeLorean as I’ll ever get I think. So it lives out that dream of mine. And it’s… oh man, it flies and it’s so quiet. It’s one of the most incredible pieces of technology I’ve ever seen. And to be able to drive in it and just feel very safe in doing so. It’s amazing. Like I said earlier what Elon and Tesla is doing is revolutionary completely and I’m very happy to support that and be a part of it and be an ambassador for that too. DB: Alright. Well thank you so much Pat. I really appreciate your time. PF: Thank you for having me David. I can’t tell you how excited I was to get a chance to interview Pat at Social Media Marketing World. He’s one of the most popular speakers at the event and he’s kind of a hero for podcasters and bloggers. He was incredibly busy and he went out of his way to make time to talk to me. If you’re studying for the LEED exam, definitely check out his site, greenexamacademy.com. However, if you’re interested in podcasting, blogging or online business you should go to smartpassiveincome.com. He has a blog, a couple of podcasts and a new book called Will It Fly, all of which are full of useful information. I’ve certainly learned a lot from him. Thank you to Hannah Fiddler and Medoki from Bloomington’s MISSFITS Music & Arts collective for this week’s music. Save Save Save Save Save Save Save The post Pat Flynn: Taking the LEED exam appeared first on Renewable Energy Podcast | Clean Power Planet.