Going Green

We have always been environmentally aware, and have been moving toward renewable energy for a long time. We’ve just made a big improvement and wanted to tell you about it.

Solar Hot Water

In 1975 we took advantage of solar energy incentives from the Jimmy Carter administration to install solar hot water panels on our roof. In the winter they pre-heat our water to about 85° before it goes to our water heater, which is a significant improvement over the roughly 55° town water coming into the building. In the summer the roof panels heat our water to 150°. Woo-Hoo!

Solar Electric

In 2006 we installed solar PV panels on the roof, and have been generating about 2/3 of all our electricity use from them ever since. We can’t go completely off-grid though because the panels generate nothing at night or when they’re snow-covered  — and we can’t generate more than about 2/3 of our electricity because we ran out of roof space. Nevertheless, our solar electric decision has turned out to be an excellent one in terms of reducing our energy costs and our carbon footprint.

The Green Grid

We have now changed our electricity supplier to one that generates all of our electricity from wind farms. So even the electricity we get from the local power company is now green energy. We’ve just done this; it adds only a couple of cents per KWH to our electricity cost, and we’re not polluting air and water or contributing to global warming for any of our electricity anymore.

Green Natural Gas

We’re now getting our gas from landfill generation. Decomposing waste in municipal landfills produces gas, which is a mixture of about half methane and half carbon dioxide. These landfills are the third largest source of human-made methane emissions in the United States, and methane extracted from them is the source of our natural gas now. Not only are we no longer relying on fracking and other destructive methods of extracting natural gas, we’re also using methane that would otherwise have vented into the atmosphere. That’s a good thing because methane has 25 times the global warming impact as carbon dioxide does.

Other Than That

Other than that, we’re still the same personal, all-American, hand-crafted, non-automated SEO company we’ve always been. Going green hasn’t changed how we work with our clients, but if you’ll feel better working with an environmentally conscious company, that’s just another reason to consider Rank Magic. Get in touch to see how we can help you.