One of the newest buildings in Syracuse was the location of an event called Sustainable Skill Share. This event was sponsored by ESF of Syracuse. One thing that is rather unique about this building is that it's roof is covered with vegetation! Since it was early spring, the plants were still dormant. However, it won't take long before the roof is totally covered in vegetation!Inside, there were 12 sessions so it unfortunately wasn't possible to go to all of them. However, here's a sampling of some of them.
Mycology (study of mushrooms). Lots of talk and lots of images. There are apparently lots of tasty mushrooms in the area along with some deadly ones!
Riki relaxation, if delivered by a trained Riki person, seems to work. It's truly amazing!
A Spirituality session is a good way to appreciate how fortunate we are when it comes to having the gift of life.
The highlight of the day was...composting! First, gathering compost from kitchen scraps need not be a smelly exercise. There are kitchen vessels of stainless steel that have carbon filters built right into the top cover!
However, these containers look quite expensive. So, for those who are value shopping, it's also possible to construct a "worm box" out of peg board. Just load up with food scraps, newspaper and some "red wiggler" worms. Of course there's more than one way to process scraps into nutrients. The favored way is simply to make a big pile in a yard and it will usually attract bacteria, molds and other creepy-crawly creatures to break down the pile. Then, it's VITAL that these finished components are separated and sit for about a month before being used anywhere else. Ideally, in a dry well ventilated location. That way the Bugs/worms/bugs/weeds eventually starve and don't infect plants where the compost will eventually go.
The last exhibit was a static display. While there was no presenter for this, there was some literature that gave some clues to what this device did. It looks like it uses small water cooled elements at the focal point of several Fresnel lenses that track the sun. Together, an array of these looks like they could absorb both water and PV energy with a minimum of rare earth materials. The photo on the left shows what appears to be a test set of these. A much larger array of these units are mounted to the side of the building. Maybe this approach will be basis of energy technology of tomorrow or it might be a boondoggle. Time will tell. Either way, it shows that smart people are giving alternative energy some serious thought! 
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