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| Headline |
Author |
Published |
Section |
Connecting the dots
A simple regulatory fix to the coming power crisis |
Sean Casten |
18 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Our electric regulatory model is broken. It preferentially deploys expensive power sources before cheap ones. It compares the variable costs of dirty fuels to the all-in costs of clean fuels and deludes itself into thinking that the dirty, expensive power is economically advantaged. It places the interests of utility shareholders above the interests of other potential investors in our power grid, massively skewing capital allocation, even while it insulates utility in ... |
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| Topics: energy, energy efficiency, renewable energy, regulation, economy (all these topics) |
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Econ 101: The CliffsNotes
A refresher course on economic principles for the right |
Jason D Scorse |
18 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| The other day, President Bush, in response to a question as to why he has not pushed more for energy conservation, responded that the American people are smart enough to figure it out on their own. This prompted conservatives at the National Review to call for a 'Dubya-Love Moment' in honor of what they perceived as the straight-talking truth! It is truly amazing that a philosophical movement once filled with some of the smartest minds in economics now wears econo ... |
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| Topics: economy, energy efficiency, fossil fuels, George Bush, politics (all these topics) |
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NYC government plans 30 percent carbon cuts by 2017
Energy efficiency is cornerstone of ambitious plan |
Adam Stein |
17 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Everyone's favorite McKinsey study suggests that America can shed a huge chunk of its emissions through costless measures, primarily in the realm of energy efficiency. The fly in this delicious low-carbon ointment is that the freebie cuts haven't so far happened by themselves, and it's never entirely clear how well an analyst's report is going to translate into reality. How nice, then, that New York City is gearing up to provide the proof point we've all been waiting for. ... |
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| Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, energy efficiency, greenhouse-gas emissions, New York City (all these topics) |
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The economics of power plant construction
A brief primer on variable vs. fixed costs |
Sean Casten |
17 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| For those of us in the power industry, media discussions of the economics of power generation reveal an almost complete misunderstanding of how power is priced. Depending on our vested interests, we may find this either frustrating or beneficial -- but in all cases, it's false. Herewith I attempt to explain from whence the confusion arises -- and why it is so critical for the clean energy community to understand this math and its consequences ... and to more accurate ... |
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| Topics: business, economy, energy, energy efficiency, tech (all these topics) |
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A prophetic approach to energy efficiency
Taking a three-day weekend for the planet |
Eric de Place |
16 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| From the Beehive State, a gratifying way to reduce energy use (and carbon emissions): Taking Fridays off. And it's mandatory. In part to deal with rising gas prices, Utah's republican governor John Huntsman introduced the measure for state employees. The move, of course, instantly reduces commutes by 20 percent. The remaining four work days get longer -- state offices will now stay open from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. -- so that the total number of hours worked remains t ... |
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| Topics: energy, energy efficiency, politics, state politics, Utah (all these topics) |
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Biomass in Austria: An adventure in pictures
The human-scale, renewable, domestic power systems reviving rural Austrian economies |
David Roberts |
16 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Salzburg, we took a field trip to a few examples of biomass in rural Austria. The country is over 40 percent forested, and over half of the forest is owned by small farmers with less than 40 hectares (just under 100 acres), so the government has put a priority on encouraging biomass use as a substitute for fossil fuels. I ... |
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| Topics: Austria, cogeneration, energy, energy efficiency, placemaking, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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Oil gone wild
Transportation sector lies at the root of U.S. energy problem |
Guest author |
14 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| This is a guest essay from Jack D. Hidary, chair of SmartTransportation.org and the Freedom Prize Foundation. It was originally published on the Huffington Post and is republished here with the author's permission. The price of oil struck an ominous chord for the U.S. economy with yesterday's record trade of $147 per barrel. At these prices we are sending more than $1 million every minute of every day to oil rich countries. As oil hits a new high the dollar has h ... |
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| Topics: electric vehicles, energy, energy efficiency, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics) |
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Scenarios for a low carbon, no-nuke future
Renewables and efficiency would provide more GDP than fossil fuels |
Gar Lipow |
14 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| The attached Excel spreadsheet takes specific technologies, the known cost of implementing them, and various scenarios for responses to such implementation and technical improvements (including no technical improvement!) and calculates costs and benefits. This is intended to be an open source model. The comment section will be used to revise the spreadsheet with links to the old versions added to the bottom of this post as revisions are made (for the sake of transparency.) ... |
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| Topics: energy, energy efficiency, renewable energy, solar thermal power, solar voltaic power, wind power (all these topics) |
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Salzburg: day one
The unglamorous work of change at the local level |
David Roberts |
10 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| I arrived here too late to catch the whole day today, but I did see some people presenting work from Eastern Europe, Sweden, Connecticut, Harvard, and Cambridge, Mass. It was a bit of a random grab bag, but these are all people working close to the ground in local communities -- rather than, say, talking about Perfect Pony Plans like we ... |
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| Topics: Austria, energy, energy efficiency, investing (all these topics) |
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Forbes on utility objections to combined heat and power
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Sean Casten |
09 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Forbes has a nice story about the historic barriers that electric utilities have thrown up to block efficient power generation. This is nothing new to those of us 'in the trenches,' but it is nice to see this topic aired from more visible podiums. It's worth the time to read for anyone who thinks that the only barrier to low-carbon generation is technological development. |
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| Topics: energy, energy efficiency, cogeneration (all these topics) |
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Mine's lighter than yours
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David Roberts |
09 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| When society embraces vehicle fuel efficiency as a goal, hordes of smart people converge on it and try to outdo each other. The same thing will happen when we seriously go after electrical efficiency -- a wave of precocious, egotistical young people that haven't been told what can't be done will chase after it trying to make their mark. I bet we're going to proceed faster than people think. |
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| Topics: fuel efficiency, energy, energy efficiency, cars (all these topics) |
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Be Cool
On fans versus AC |
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07 Jul 2008 |
Ask Umbra |
| Dear Umbra, I'm a girl trying to make it in a big, hot, airless city -- New York, that is. We're in the middle of a heat wave that will soon end, but the longer heat wave we call summer will continue, so I wonder: when the interior of my apartment is up to 93 degrees and I have no less than three fans oscillating, am I using more energy than I would if I purchased and used one energy-efficient air conditioner? What's the best choice here? Elizabeth Q. New Y ... |
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| Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, energy at home, energy efficiency, green living (all these topics) |
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Cheney's third term
McCain's economy plan fails to substantially address energy efficiency |
Joseph Romm |
07 Jul 2008 |
Gristmill |
| John McCain takes the 'conserve' out of 'conservative.' His entire energy efficiency strategy would fit on one side of a very small file card and can be summarized as follows: Ban Porsches, green federal buildings, and applaud homeowners who do stuff on their own! His repackaged new economic plan, 'Jobs for America' has precisely three paragraphs that deal with efficiency: CAFE Standards: John McCain has long supported CAFE standards -- the mileage requiremen ... |
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| Topics: economy, elections, energy efficiency, John McCain, politics, presidential race 08 (all these topics) |
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Californication
California plans to cut 169 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020 |
Joseph Romm |
26 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| How do you return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 while promoting jobs, competitiveness, and public health? Conservatives in the U.S. Senate think it can't be done. California knows it can. The Air Resources Board has just published their 'Scoping Plan.' How do they cut 169 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020? Efficiency, efficiency, renewables, renewables, and even some conservation: Given that the single biggest source of Califo ... |
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| Topics: California, energy, energy efficiency, greenhouse-gas emissions, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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Climate change ideas for On Day One
Day four of the UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration |
Ideas for On Day One |
26 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| The UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration rolls on today with a discussion prompt submitted by On Day One user teiki: A key to the massive use of fossil fuels in the U.S. is gross overconsumption. We use way more than necessary, through a combined dependence on the automobile and an infatuation with big, gas-hungry cars, trucks and SUVs., through wasted energy consumption in our homes and offices in everything from their construction to ... |
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| Topics: green building, green living, energy efficiency, energy, climate (all these topics) |
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No McCain, no gain
GOP candidate calls for energy efficiency in a California speech |
Kate Sheppard |
24 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| John McCain gave yet another address on energy and environmental issues today (the third in the past week, if you're counting), this one focused on energy efficiency, which he says should begin at home with the federal government. 'Energy efficiency is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue,' he told a crowd gathered at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in California on Tuesday morning, echoing language from his June 17 energy speech. 'A sm ... |
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| Topics: elections, energy, energy efficiency, John McCain, Muckraker, politics, presidential race 08 (all these topics) |
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Home Depot Improvement
Home Depot will collect CFLs for recycling |
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24 Jun 2008 |
News |
| Posted at 10:10 AM on 24 Jun 2008 Home Depot announced Tuesday that it will collect compact fluorescent light bulbs and send them off to be recycled. The home-improvement behemoth hopes the new program will keep the bulbs, which contain a small amount of mercury, out of household trash and recycling bins. IKEA also collects CFLs for recycling but doesn't have the market saturation of Home Depot; more than three-quarters of U.S. ho ... |
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| Topics: business, energy efficiency, green living, greening biz operations, greenish companies, mercury, news, recycling (all these topics) |
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A Stirling idea
Development in waste-heat-to-electricity technology |
Erik Hoffner |
24 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Here's a 200 year old idea with merit: A Stirling engine, modified to capture the waste heat of industrial processes to make electricity. Gar noted Stirling Energy Systems' efforts in this vein to make electricity from solar thermal collectors using a Stirling engine a year ago, but instead of the sun, a startup in my neighborhood, ReGen, is developing a Stirling that will specialize in using the low to moderate heat generated by landfill gas systems, paper mills, stee ... |
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| Topics: energy efficiency, cogeneration, energy, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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Refrigeration without electricity
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David Roberts |
24 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Here's Adam Grossner's brief TED talk, on his effort to create a refrigerator that doesn't use electricity: (thanks LL!) |
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| Topics: health, energy efficiency, energy, brilliance (all these topics) |
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The politics of clean energy
Considering recycled energy will politically facilitate a national clean energy plan |
Sean Casten |
18 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| There is a tendency to frame the politics of clean energy as a debate between the enlightened, forward thinkers on the coasts and the paleolithic environment-hating coal barons in the Southeast and Midwest. It makes a good sound bite, but confuses the ends and the means. Yes, there are strong vested interests in the coal belt and the rust belt that consistently resist GHG caps and clean energy policy. But so long as we frame the clean energy conversation as a wealth t ... |
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| Topics: business, energy, energy efficiency, fuel efficiency, legislation, state politics (all these topics) |
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More on the cost of GHG regulation
Short-term high gas prices (hopefully) mitigate long-term environmental disasters |
Andrew Dessler |
18 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| I have been reading Sean Casten's post on the economics of carbon pricing with interest. After some thought, here's my take. A carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system will, without question, raise the price of energy, at least in the short term. In the long-term, it may well be that technological developments lead us to new energy sources that turn out to be cheaper than anything we have today. But that's pure speculation. But in the short term, the costs of a c ... |
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| Topics: carbon trading, climate, energy, energy efficiency, gas prices (all these topics) |
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It's not about the fuel
The case for fuel-agnostic efficiency |
Sean Casten |
17 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Those of us who care about energy and environmental policy have a bad habit: the lazy but rhetorically convenient tendency to refer to energy issues as if they were fuel issues. From solar to coal to uranium, we have developed a shorthand that uses these words to describe a whole fuel-chain, from raw fuel extraction/recovery to end-use consumption. But the language is dangerous. What matters is efficiency -- true, fuel-agnostic efficiency, applied equally to every pos ... |
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| Topics: business, energy, energy efficiency, fuel efficiency, legislation (all these topics) |
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Give my regards to Broadway
The Great White Way goes green |
Sarah van Schagen |
11 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Photo: Springsun via Flickr Mamma Mia! Broadway is going green. Inspired by An Inconvenient Truth, producer David Stone (who recently greened his hit musical Wicked) met with other Broadway big-wigs and the folks at NRDC in an effort to get the theater industry singing a more sustainable tune. There may be five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year, but how much of a difference could this greening make? Well, they say the neon ligh ... |
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| Topics: energy efficiency, An Inconvenient Truth, celebrity, New York City, green living (all these topics) |
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Out With the Red Pen, in With the Green
House passes bill to green up schools |
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05 Jun 2008 |
News |
| Posted at 4:47 PM on 05 Jun 2008 The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would put more than $20 billion over the next five years toward improving energy efficiency in schools. Democrats say the modestly named 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act would save school districts billions in energy costs. In addition, said Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) ... |
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| Topics: education, energy efficiency, legislation, news, politics, US House of Representatives (all these topics) |
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Elder care for the long emergency
Cool housing for oldsters |
JMG |
03 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| People who think about how we're going to adapt to lower-energy living arrangements often miss that the U.S. continues to gray rapidly. Given that we've had almost sixty years of radical suburbanization and cross-country relocation, sundering the extended family networks that once provided child and elder care, we're in a pickle when it comes to figuring out how to care for elders.Here's an encouraging story about a new facility that really seems to get it. My question is why we ... |
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| Topics: energy, energy at home, energy efficiency (all these topics) |
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