Best Blogs: Natural Gas, Finding the Fountain of Youth and More

Did you miss some of the blogs this week on McLean Patch? Each week, we'll round them up in one convenient place for you.

Here are the highlights from blogs that ran over the past seven days.

"The case for diversity: natural gas plus renewables"

• Ivy Main, vice chairwoman of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, writes about why natural gas and a combination of other renewable sources of energy would be best for Virginia's energy portfolio.
• "Natural gas is currently cheap. It’s so cheap right now that some producers are losing money with every cubic foot they pump out of the ground. So what better time to be a buyer, right? That’s the thinking of utilities like Dominion Virginia Power, which plans to shut its oldest, worst-performing coal plants and replace them only with new natural gas-fired electric generation."
• "Wind turbines and solar panels are like a fixed-rate mortgage. Once you’ve built the wind farm or installed the solar panels, the fuel is free. You know from the start exactly what you will be paying over the life of the project."
• Read the full post here.

"Introducing the 'Fountain of Youth' - a New Blog on the McLean Patch"

• We've got a new blogger on McLean Patch this week. Alianna Maren is a self-described "Author, Inventor, Scientist, Serial Entrepreneur, Professor, and Dance Teacher."
• This week, she wrote about "increasing our youthful zest and energy."
• "The goal of this blog is thus to give YOU - the reader - insights and access. You'll get links to the best articles, thoughtful commentaries on the latest research, ideas that you can incorporate into your daily life, and - perhaps most importantly - the "secrets of the Fountain of Youth" - ages-old practices that are perhaps more vital and important today as we desire health, vitality, and energy to go along with our increased lifespans."
• Read the full post here.

"It's all about the children"

• Fairfax CASA Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) blogs Jaie Brown, a CASA volunteer since 2008. 
• "Advocating for a child by becoming a CASA volunteer is probably one of the most challenging volunteer opportunities I will ever encounter; but I never doubt that my efforts are valuable to the children that I serve.  It’s all about the children.  I feel I am needed and I can truly make a difference," Brown writes in the post.
• Read the full post here.

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