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Curt Sommer
Renewable Energy
Consultant

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I welcome your comments, ideas, or suggestions. Please send me an email to the address below if your group or organization would like a presentation on geo-exchange heat pumps and/or peak oil. You can also call me at 503.804.7014.
   

Curt a t green-nrg d o t net 

 

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Personal info is kept confidential and is never sold or traded.   

About me                                                                          

I spent several years in real estate appraisal but became interested in the environmental movement while living in Boston.  I returned to
graduate school at Arizona State in August 1994, where I became very interested in the issue of sustainability.
 
My thesis project was a feasibility study of a potential geothermal district energy project in Mammoth Lakes, CA.  It was published in the professional journal Geothermics in January 2003.  After completing my Masters in Geography with a specialization in Renewable Energy, I decided to move from the desert southwest.  I had been to Portland a couple times and I liked the availability of numerous outdoor recreation possibilities.
 
About two years after moving to Portland, OR, I stumbled on the theory of 'peak oil'; the concept that oil production for any given field, country or the world will ultimately reach a pinnacle, after which it begins an inexorable decline.  Please refer to the Links page for more information on peak oil.

How we will replace oil remains to be seen.  How do you replace the most highly concentrated and easily accessible form of energy ever discovered by humans?  After discovering that our car culture was not truly sustainable, I began researching and learning about how to reduce the individual's dependence on fossil fuels.

I am currently working as independent contractor, selling and promoting geothermal heat pumps.  I'm a certified geothermal heat pump installer through the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association.

I try to commute by bike as much as possible, or use the bus if I have to but I try to avoid using the car.  We have a Jetta TDI that we run on 100% biodiesel for 9 months out of the year.  During the winter we use a 20-50% blend.  In the future I hope to buy an electric plug-in or convert a small truck.   
 
In a sense, my interest in sustainability goes back to high school.   When my dad bought my first car for me he was very perplexed when I opted for a Chevy Vega over a muscle car.  Not that a Vega was a great car, but I was more interested in gas mileage than horsepower.  I think the muscle car would have made me more popular than the Vega did, but that was thirty years ago.  I've been researching sustainability issues and renewable energy resources for over 10 years.

Our family of three usually generates about one grocery bag of garbage per week.  We try to buy products with limited packaging and we recycle as much as we can.  We compost, grow lots of veggies...etc.  Big decisions are important but it's also the little things that can make a difference as well.    

If you have any ideas on sustainable living please feel free to share them.

 
Photo Gallery - Images of current projects as well as humor and photographic art.

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  Native American proverb.

 

 
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Green Energy Solutions, LLC - green energy for a green planet.
503.804.7014