Five Percent: Conserve Energy

After our recent energy audit found drafts in a number of places in our house, and even though the damper was closed, one of the biggest was the chimney — the auditor recommended a “chimney balloon“. It’s a good, simple product, and I can tell that it works beautifully. The maker claims that you can save almost twice it’s cost annually: a good way to reduce heating bills.

The chimney balloon is an inflatable bag, available in various sizes to fit inside your chimney. A tube and valve on the bottom allows you to inflate it so that it conforms to even the roughest, oddest shaped chimney interiors. The inflating tube is detachable, so there’s nothing visible when installed. The balloon is made of a tough, durable plastic. It can be easily removed as needed (but don’t forget to before lighting a fire!) and just as easily reinstalled. The cost is under $50, and their web site has a lot of great and helpful information on how to choose the right size.

I can tell that the chimney balloon works because it has solved an annoying problem for us already this summer (more…)

Today’s Times reports that the new Camaro from GM is selling well. The base V-6 model gets a mediocre 22 MPG. A quote from the article sums it up for me, discussing

… Scott Wilbur, a 40-year-old elementary school principal who bought a silver V-8 Camaro in June.

Mr. Wilbur had not purchased a G.M. vehicle in a decade, and traded in his Honda Civic hybrid to buy the Camaro.

He even gave up his California-issued sticker to drive in hybrid-only carpool lanes to get behind the wheel of his new muscle car.

“I might not be as environmentally friendly, but at this point I don’t mind waiting in traffic to drive this,” he said.

To be fair, he says might buy a Volt next year (by the way, how does an elementary school Principal afford two new cars, one very expensive, in two years?).

But c’mon, folks — this is not what we need. We love our hot cars, and have for years. Do we need to define a new “hot”? In the 1980′s women with big hair were “hot” (for that matter, in the 1680s, women with big thighs were “hot”). Tail-fins were in then out. Pocket-rockets were in. Why can’t we figure out how to make a car that people love that they don’t love because of the roar of its internal combustion engine soaking up gasoline?

I see why GM needed to get bailed out, and I see GM changing their views on the way things are. I don’t see the American populace picking up the cues.

I am writing now from Europe. There are a lot of nice cars here, but very, very few are large. Perhaps that’s because gas costs 1.32 per liter, or $6.95/gallon. So people have made some very hot (or cool, or funky, or interesting) cars that also happen to be far smaller.

But perhaps more important, people have created better ways of travel that work (and are not cars).

To make a longer story short: our utility, NationalGrid is currently offering rebates for energy efficiency improvements. I will save $1,889, or 75% of the cost of fixing the insulation in our house. Other credits are available. Work must be done by July 31st. Update: as of August, the program has been extended. Here’s the special NationalGrid web site which provides the details.

After our energy audit, I started thinking about how I would get the things I needed done. I really didn’t know who should do the work, but I got a lead from the man who did our audit. His reference turned out to be a company that was defunct (or something), however I found this through searching the name he provided. The site I came across was called Service Magic, and they provide a referral service for contractors. I explained what I wanted, and they referred me to HomeWorks Energy, an insulation contractor in the Boston area. I called them, and Scott, the owner, told me that not only could he do the work, but that there was a great deal for NationalGrid gas customers doing insulating project using approved contractors in Massachusetts until the end of July — 75% off, up to $2,000.

(This kind of stuff never happens in real life, does it?) (more…)

It’s pretty clear that LED is indeed the lighting of the future — CFL is an important, yet transitional technology. But LED is not ready for prime time — still too expensive, and still not bright enough, and still not suitable for many applications … yet.

But LED makers are doing everything they can to get people to buy, according to an article in the Green Inc. blog of the New York Times. Consider this point, made about a newly announced LED bulb:

…for starters, the advertised light output of the Pharox is about 300 “lumens” — the metric used for measuring the light coming off a bulb. That places it somewhere between a 25-watt and 40-watt incandescent. A 60-watt incandescent emits up to 900 lumens.

The company explained that the light output is comparable to a 60-watt bulb, depending on where one uses the bulb and for what purpose. “There are 60-watt soft tone/flame bulbs that generate less light than a Pharox 6-watt,” the company said.

Please, let’s be realistic: when we’re talking about comparing light bulbs that look like “regular” bulbs, as the Pharox does, I think it’s appropriate to compare their output to the same bulbs. (more…)

GreenTech Media has a good post on how email spam wastes more than just your time — it wastes electricity! Oh, and not just a little, according to the report: enough to power 2.4 Million homes — that’s about 2% of the households in the US. Yikes.

Sounds like a job for the EPA, to me. (more…)

From today’s New York Times:

“In my view, nothing has really changed” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama. “We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”

From this assertion, I can conclude nothing other than it appears Rex Tillerson and I must be living on different planets. The facts, however, sadly suggest we are indeed living on the same planet.

Read the article. I’ll be tearing out my hair.

Black is back at Shell. Black gold. Texas tea. Green is out.

Oh yes, it’s the same Royal Dutch Shell that was so committed to renewable energy sources a few months ago. But they have had a change of heart. The Guardian reports:

The company said that many alternative technologies did not offer attractive investment opportunities. Linda Cook, Shell’s executive director of gas and power, said: “If there aren’t investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won’t put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewables [which made money] we would put money into it.”

I can think of three possible explanations for this change of heart.

1. Shell doesn’t believe that climate change, or carbon trading is a significant enough concern for their bottom line to factor them into any projections. Perhaps this is because recent polls show the number of people thinking climate change is “exaggerated” has risen rapidly. In short, without enough popular support, they are betting that their business will continue as usual for the foreseeable future. Or…
2. They never really meant to do anything in the first place, and it was all a big marketing gambit. Or…
3. As renewable sources grow, Shell sees them now as a competitive threat to their core business.

Perhaps you’ll note that one of my possible explanations for their actions does not include their explanation, namely that renewables are not cost effective. They report that some of their investment is being aimed at carbon sequestration. I do believe that there’s an important role in sequestration, but whereas renewables are getting close to grid parity, carbon sequestration cannot possibly have any immediate revenue potential — it’s almost purely R&D and cost today. One would have to have a rather dismal view of renewables to fail to see how they could be at least as good an investment as carbon sequestration.

Maybe there are other explanations. These were just the ones that occurred to me. But I think some combination of these explanations accounts for the lion’s share of their decision. So how could a company be so … simplistic?

Maybe they’re just suffering the myopia that comes from being a leading, profitable company? After reading projections by BP of energy use in the future (which predict that in 20 years, only 7% of our energy will come from renewable resources), I have come to understand that the oil companies really have a very limited ability to see into the future. They seem to be constrained by their view of the past. Historically, corporations have not be particularly willing or good at predicting the demise (or major change) of the character their business. The ones that did survived (for example: IBM and Smith-Corona both made typewriters). Few people remember the names of the companies that sold candles and whale oil … before the electric light smote them out of existence.

Indeed, the survivors of major change are the ones who not just accept, but embrace the change as an opportunity. To be honest, I have little faith in just about any of the oil companies, at this point. It’s almost moot now to point out how badly GM and Chrysler have failed to recognize their demise, and I give a slight credit to Ford, only because it was clear three years ago that Bill Ford understood why sustainability was a goal worth pursuing.

I do think it’s curious to wonder if indeed my third explanation, that Shell sees renewables as a competitive threat, has any merit. Wind power has been growing very fast. Solar is making technical and scaling breakthroughs that change the equation a little. Obama isn’t equivocating about climate change, cap-and-trade, energy independence, or any other issue that tend to favor renewables and hurt fossil fuel companies. The science is not getting any less clear on climate change, and the regulatory landscape is solidifying.

Perhaps if I were Shell, I might realized that I had better damned well figure out if there’s any way in hell that carbon sequestration will work, and meanwhile, clean up my act a little and save some money doing it … but by no means cut into my core business. I think this is a (classic) short-sited, reactive, self-protectionist business response that has been the death knell of many former large enterprises. It makes sense, but only in the most narrow, unintelligent was of looking at the world. But then again, we’re not talking about people, who have capacity for intelligence — we’re talking about corporations. The two are different.

Suffice it to say that while I may have not gotten the correct explanation of Shell’s failure to adapt to the inevitable future, I am confident that in three years, I’ll be able to link back to this post, and the others I have written, and report how the fortunes of Shell and ExxonMobil have become more clear, and how they failed to do the right thing to evolve their businesses. Even when the facts were as easy to see as the back of your hand.

Also Available in White

Their primary market is commercial real estate, corporate installations, and agriculture, but if your house is in even an ok location, it sounds like ROI could be pretty quick. Ed Begley (Living with Ed) is putting one on his house. Based on what I understand, the cost outlay for a house is pretty modest.

So if you are thinking about something for your house, or business, property (or billboard!) check them out: Arc Renewable Energies. (more…)

I have spent the last several weeks testing the HighSierra FCS-200 water saving shower head; it costs about $25, provides a great shower experience, uses only 1.5 gallons per minute (GPM) and I highly recommend it.

I have now done five low flow shower head reviews so far (sorry, no nude shower scenes in this one) and the HighSierra wins hands down on price and is a strong contender for the best feeling shower of those we have tried.

A water saving shower head can help you conserve water, and in particular hot water which means you’re also save energy.

The other very good water saving shower heads I tested are larger, and considerably more expensive. Don’t be deceived — the HighSierra model might look like those really cheapo, painful shower heads that they put in locker room showers. But HighSierra’s clever low flow design makes it really a totally different beast. Simple is good; the manufacturer claims that it is less likely to become clogged with mineral deposits, it’s very small, and solidly built.

Here are some criteria I use for water saving shower head reviews: (more…)

How it pains me to say this, but WalMart, indeed corporations as a whole, may not be villainous scalawags. At least not completely.

WalMart has beaten their goal of reducing its internal goals of increasing fleet efficiency by 25% in three years. And with the introduction of a fleet of new hybrid and not-just-diesel fueled trucks, they claim they’re on the way to their goal of doubling fleet efficiency, right through to (drum roll) sustainability.

Well damn, I am as cynical as they get, but even I can see that this is a pretty great thing. And I take credit. No, not full credit, but all of those of us who formerly reviled WalMart for their environmental turpitude guilt-ed them into helped them understand that they were leaders and what they do matters. A lot. Michael Moore and his ilk might have had a little more influence than I, but I am in better shape.

Oh, sure, WalMart still treats their employees like crap (more…)