By Elisa Wood Efforts have been underway for decades to conserve both energy and water,but never in concert. This is unfortunate because energy uses a lot of water and water uses a lot of energy. Two leading conservation organizations have set out to bring the efforts together. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the Alliance for Water Efficiency this week published a white paper that describes the co-dependence of water and energy resources,and outlines strategies to use both more efficiently. Continue reading Energy efficiency absorbs water By Elisa Wood The Environmental Protection Agency calls big-backyard neighborhoods like mine “automobile dependent locations” and contrasts them with “transit-oriented” neighborhoods,places where you can hop a bus or easily walk to regular destinations. The agency recently looked at which kind of neighborhood uses the most British Thermal Units (BTUs),taking into account size and type of house,its energy efficiency,and vehicle use of its occupants. This is known asLocation Efficiency. Continue reading Energy Efficiency and the Annoying Guy Next Door By AllisonBailes I wrote about energy conservation versus energy efficiency last year and showed how things had stayed pretty level over the past three decades as we’ve spent our efficiency dividend on bigger houses and more electronics. Still,I had trouble believing we were actually using less energy per person than we did in 1970. Continue reading News Flash:Americans Use Less Energy When It Costs More By Elisa Wood We’ve been hearing for years that the energy efficiency industry needs to find its equivalent to the cell phone. These days industry folks refer to it as the ‘killer app,” the revolutionary product or service that consumers can’t resist. But lately,partly because I’m dieting,I’ve been thinking what energy efficiency really needs is something akin to a Weight Watchers dessert. Let me explain myself. Continue reading Energy efficiency and Weight Watchers By Elisa Wood The White House issued a report July 14 that credits federal stimulus money for the rapid drop in costs for electric cars. Once written off as a technological mishap,the electric car now appears nearly road ready for American consumers. The price tag is dropping rapidly,in part because of the $12 billion the federal government has pumped into alternative vehicles,according to the report. Of that $5 billion went to electrifying the US transportation fleet. Continue reading Electrifying vehicles:A car and its drama By Elisa Wood And now for a dose of reality. No doubt smart meters are a good thing,but even their most ardent fans must admit that a degree of hoopla surrounds these little digital boxes. We hear that if consumers can just see how much power they use in real time,and what it costs,our energy woes will be no more. Smart meters will even cure the blind. The energy blind that is. Continue reading Smart meters:Truly a cure for energy blindness? By Elisa Wood The energy world operates under the premise that more is better. If we build more power plants,we’ll have ample supply,and electricity prices will drop. Even better,if those plants are clean and green,we’ll displace older,dirtier plants and reduce emissions. That will help our economy by producing Continue reading Are we thinking about energy all wrong? By Elisa Wood We’ve been hearing a lot about a drop in energy consumption as a result of the economic downturn. In fact,US energy use per person declined last year to its lowest level since 1968. Economic activity and energy use are directly linked. But lately,several reports have noted that the economic slowdown is not the only reason energy consumption is falling. Aggressive energy efficiency efforts also have Continue reading Energy use drops:It’s not just the economy… By Elisa Wood Tip his hand? In fact,as Stewart pointed out,Obama has shown that hand broadly to the world for the last year. Starting with his January 2009 inaugural speech,Obama buoyed the clean energy industry by advancing renewable energy,a first for a US president in that forum. But that turned out to be just the start. In talk after talk this year,he pushed Continue reading Obama,Poker and What 2010 Holds for Energy Efficiency By Green Building Inspector The U.S. Department of Energy and Mississippi Gasification,which has planned a $2 billion energy project in Moss Point,will hold a public meeting on the facility. Continue reading Meeting on new gas plant in Mississippi | |
