energy efficiency
Buidlings and Energy Efficiency — Just Being New Isn’t Enough
Newer buildings in California put more of a strain on the electric grid than do older buildings. That is the apparent conclusion of a new paper written by Howard Chong through UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas. The strain comes in the form of a greater “temperature response” – an increase in temperature on a …
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CONTINUE READINGDim Bulbs
It’s good to know that there’s still someone who isn’t afraid to stand up for the use of obsolete technologies and the right of every citizen to overpay for electricity.
CONTINUE READINGChilly in Baltimore: Energy Efficiency and Wind Power
I heard an interesting story on NPR today about “district cooling” in which a company in Baltimore uses ice to produce chilled water, which is transported to a number of building in the city for supplemental cooling. What really struck me as cool about this (sorry about the pun) is the fact that this system …
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CONTINUE READINGOne More Try This Year for a National Renewable Electricity Standard
Is something, in terms of a federal renewable standard, better than nothing? There is new talk of setting a national renewable electricity standard before this session of Congress ends, due to the introduction of S.3813, this week. This Bingaman-sponsored bill echoes an earlier proposal that can best be described as imposing a standard of modest …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat a Waste of Energy
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has issued its annual snapshot of our national energy use, based on data collected by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency. The good news is that we used less energy in 2009 than we did in 2008 (almost all of the savings probably attributable to the still-weak economy). The …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Nano Road to Energy Efficiency
Science Daily reports: Researchers at Oregon State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered a new way to apply nanostructure coatings to make heat transfer far more efficient, with important potential applications to high tech devices as well as the conventional heating and cooling industry. These coatings can remove heat four times faster …
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CONTINUE READINGFHFA strangles PACE clean energy financing program
Yesterday, the Federal Housing Finance Administration, the agency that regulates bankrupt mortgage insurers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, issued a letter effectively destroying the promising energy efficiency and renewable energy financing program called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). I blogged about Fannie and Freddie’s lender letters on the PACE program a few weeks ago. PACE …
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CONTINUE READINGRetrofitting homes to make them more energy efficient
When we ponder ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, nothing says “low hanging fruit” more than retrofitting our existing homes and small businesses to make them more energy efficient. Energy use from commercial and residential buildings accounts for 22 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. But relatively simple steps like …
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CONTINUE READINGEnergy Conservation, Southern Style
A new report finds lots of room for energy efficiency in the American South. Here are the main findings. Energy efficiency improvements could: 1. Prevent energy consumption from growing over the next 20 years. In the absence of such initiatives, energy consumption in these three sectors is forecast to grow by approximately 16 percent between …
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CONTINUE READINGHas the Recession Been Good for the Planet?
Sure, the economy is still hurting, and unemployment levels are unbearable and inequitable. But in terms of the desire to reduce climate disruption, are we better off now than we were before the recession hit? I am far from the first person to ask this question, but evidence pointing in a certain direction continues to …
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