Energy Efficiency

Block party

Obama admin teams with grassroots groups to ‘Green the Block’ 1
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago
Green the Block is a new effort by the White House and two grassroots organizations -- Green for All and Hip Hop Caucus -- to bring the benefits of green jobs and clean tech to poor and underserved communities.
Don't keep us in the dark

Shining the light on efficiency lies 1
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago
When it comes down to it, some elected officials will lie about an efficiency provision (or play dumb) rather than be open about protecting a special interest to the detriment of their constituents.
Saving our asses at a profit

The good news about energy efficiency 3
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago
Conventional wisdom has it that the effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is going to be long, expensive, and painful for consumers; efficiency can at best defray the costs. But economic models consistently underestimate energy efficiency. A batch of recent studies supports that argument -- studies that examine the potential for energy efficiency to reduce emissions at a negative cost, i.e., a profit.
Heating the JP Green House with a hairdryer

The amazing promise and many challenges of passivhaus construction 4
Posted 4 months ago
Imagine a building so energy-efficient that it actually gets dinged by LEED and Energy Star -- you've just imagined passivhaus, and we're putting it into action at the JP Green House.
Another category of DSIRE

Tracking property tax financing programs for renewable and energy efficiency investments 0
Posted 4 months ago
Berkeley's program for leveraging property taxes to help homeowners finance investments in solar and energy efficiency is taking off. To date, 11 states (and counting) have enacted enabling legislation allowing local municipalities to follow suit. Which ones?
Coal is the enemy of the human race, pant-wetting terror edition

Blackout: Heinberg on dwindling coal reserves and the siren song of “clean coal” 13
Posted 4 months ago
There isn't nearly as much coal left as most people think. "Clean coal" will run down limited reserves even faster. If humanity doesn't begin massive, sustained investment in renewable power sources immediately, civilization could be at risk before the end of the century. And that's without considering the impacts of climate change. Such is the stark conclusion of Richard Heinberg's Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis, which despite its dry tone and technical complexity is one of the scariest f*cking books I've ever read.
It's the 'Green' Mountain state for a reason

We need an energy revolution 4
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders calls for "an energy revolution that leads us toward energy independence, the cessation of support for foreign dictatorships and the ability to avoid Mideast wars fought over oil."
Governors make promises to update building codes and reform utilities

DOE sending out Recovery Act funding as states promise efficiency improvements 3
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
DOE has been rolling through approvals of state energy plans and releasing huge chunks of the $3.1 billion available through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act for State Energy Programs.
little green houses for you and me

The case for a national building energy code 10
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
Our current system of setting building energy codes has not been very succesful. The codes provision of ACES could fix that.
Good policy pays off

Proof of concept: Well-crafted standards spur innovation in lighting 1
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
Well-crafted standards spur innovations in energy efficiency. These technologies would not be evolving if not for the federal standard.
Why Don’t Gas and Coal Love (Some) Climate Solutions?

Coal-nundrum and Ex-gas-peration 15
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago
Questions for utilities about the economics of climate solutions.
Copin' with Copenhagen

What is Obama’s international climate strategy? 9
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago
International climate negotiations often seem like some sort of cosmic science fair project -- an aquarium full of hamsters connected to rudimentary motors. There's a lot of frantic running, a lot of sweat and heat, but in the end, very little light.

Faith in the UN climate process has dimmed. Joe Romm calls it a "dead man walking." The Copenhagen talks in December are generally discussed with the same dissonant mixture of urgency ("You have to do it in Copenhagen," says UNFCCC chair Yvo de Boer) and fatalism ("There is no movement," says German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel) as the last dozen rounds of international talks.

The Obama administration knows the danger of sclerosis and is working on several fronts to regain a sense of momentum.
Da we can

U.S.-Russia climate and energy efficiency cooperation: A neglected challenge 1
Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago
The summit between President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow on July 6-8 comes in the middle of a packed international schedule of bilateral and multilateral meetings for the United States. on climate change. In the run up to the critical U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen at the end of this year, when the extension or successor to the existing Kyoto Protocol must be agreed upon, it is crucial that the United States and Russia—both major emitters of greenhouse gases and potentially leaders on this crucial issue—explore ways of working together to ensure a positive outcome at these talks. Enhancing cooperation on climate change and energy efficiency should be a major plank of U.S. Russia policy and should be discussed at the highest levels when President Obama meets with President Medvedev next week.
Lost in the shuffle: Some efficiency policies weakened in Waxman-Markey bill 0
Posted 5 months ago
Last second changes to the House climate bill significantly weakened key energy efficiency provisions that would save billions.
Big Blue's electric green dreams

IBM places big bet on lithium-air batteries 3
Posted 5 months ago
IBM has been recycling and repurposing a panoply of technologies to create a portfolio of environmental services -- everything from a traffic congestion pricing system in Stockholm to a smart water and electricity grid for Malta. Now Big Blue has its eye set on achieving a big leap forward in battery technology.
Ya gotta have faith

Why we overestimate the costs of climate change legislation 12
Posted 5 months ago
The way economists calculate the costs of tackling climate change misses low-carbon alternatives and underestimates innovation. Just as economic models have overestimated the cost of virtually every environmental regulation in history, so today they're overestimating the costs of the clean energy revolution.
Sexy Retrofits

Sears Tower to get eco-overhaul — again? Plus: new name! 0
Posted 5 months ago
The tallest building in North America is about to take a giant step forward in energy efficiency, water conservation, and green PR.
EPA: Waxman-Markey will lower electricity bills 0
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
The main argument conservatives and big oil and coal companies use against the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) is that it would cripple American households with a crushing energy tax. To make that claim, they have distorted cost estimates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and conducted their own biased studies. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency obliterated these phony numbers with the release of its economic analysis of H.R. 2454. The EPA estimated the bill would actually lower household electricity bills
The House Doctors Are In

Symptom: High utility bills; Diagnosis: Full energy efficiency workup 4
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
Meet the "greenup" team from Sustainable Spaces, a four-year-old San Francisco firm that conducts residential energy audits and energy efficiency retrofits to shrink a home's carbon footprint while saving the owner money over the long haul.
Putting the economy in the green

New studies tout the economic benefits of green jobs 0
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
Investments in clean energy -- such as those encouraged by the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- would produce several times as many jobs as the same amount of money spent on traditional fossil fuels, according to new studies released Thursday by a coalition of environmental groups and research institutes.

Lower-income Americans in particular would benefit, according to a report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which was commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Green for All.

Upgrading the U.S. economy to rely less on fossil fuels would create a surge of manufacturing and construction jobs that would include renovating homes and buildings to be more energy efficient, tapping clean energy sources such as wind and solar to produce more electricity, and building better transit systems and other infrastructure improvements.