Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

The Facts of Cap-and-Trade from Clean Energy Works on Vimeo.

Yep. It’s that simple.

A Beginner’s Guide to Home Energy Conservation

by Marcy Tate
 
Energy conservation is not only good for the planet, it’s also good for your pocket. It’s pretty simple to conserve energy at home and you’ll notice the savings right away. Still, changing your energy habits isn’t easy for every homeowner. Start by picking a few energy conservation techniques and gradually add a few more each month. As you go along, remind yourself how much of a help your efforts are for the planet and how much lower your utility bills will be. That should give you the inspiration to turn your energy conservation habits into a way of life. The tips below do not involve high investments. 
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It snowed this weekend.

I shoveled my driveway.

With a shovel.

It took longer.

My back is a little sore.

But…

I am in better shape

and

I emit less CO2 than the snowblower I have in my garage, now unused for my third winter.

Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed in the Times today — he continues to be one of the few money guys I look at and think, “What a smart man he seems to be.”

His editorial piece, titled Greenback Emissions is about fiscal restraint, or the lack thereof, expressed as inflation — the inevitable outcome of deficit spending. His argument is not that we should stop spending (on the contrary), only that we must be wary … cognizant of the what will happen next. Where many proscribe actions, Buffett instead warns our Congress of the likely future outcome.

What struck me as interesting is that Buffett bracketed his editorial with a parallel to the challenge facing Congress with the pending climate legislation. To be fair, this article was not “about” climate change. But the opening and closing phrases were. (more…)

Cap and trade seems incredibly complex, counter-intuitive, unfair, and misguided — if that’s your view, you have it about right, but the funny thing is, it will work — here’s why. The recent passage of the American Clean Energy Security act (ACES) in the House is a big milestone for cap and trade, but it will only pass the Senate if people understand what it is, and why it’s a good thing.

The first thing to know, is that the main part of cap and trade is the cap. The cap says: no more than a certain amount of CO2 can be released in a given year — major polluters are given a limit. Every year the cap gets tightened according to a predictable schedule. We are aiming for a target, and know what we have to do to get there.

The trade part is what makes things seem complicate and strange. So if I am an electricity utility executive, and I have a bunch of coal plants, I may find that I am releasing more CO2 than my limit. What makes trade cool is that if I don’t want to lay off my work force, I can decide to buy credits from another company — I can pay to pollute. Sure, it makes my costs go up, but now I have more incentive to clean up my act.

And no, it doesn’t mean we have more pollution, just more flexibility. My competitor, who had the foresight (more…)

Days over 90° in Boston (click to enlarge)

This is how I summarize the report issued today titled Authoritative Assessment of National, Regional Impacts of Global Climate Change from the United States Global Change Research Program. All regions of the country are discussed, so pick yours and see if you like what’s coming. Here’s a link to the summary of my region, the Northeast US (pdf).

Right now Congress is considering the Waxman-Markey Bill (officially, “American Clean Energy and Security Act”, and the official summary).

Views from the right and left have taken issue with the legislation. In my book, this is a sign of a bill that is about as good as a bill can get. That’s not to say it’s “great”, but it is a start.

To those who would hold out for something more perfect, I encourage you to carefully look at the Assessment report that came out today. (more…)

The Times posted a very thoughtful article explaining why a carbon Cap and Trade policy is now the favored approach making its way through Congress now.

In the end, the merits of the system are mostly that it is expedient, politically and from a management perspective. No one likes a tax, even if it may be the far simpler solution to the problem. But if no one likes a tax, then it’s kind of a tough sell.

Some argue that cap and trade is just a tax wrapped in a politically tolerable icing. They’re pretty much right. (more…)

My Mom is visiting, taking a well-deserved rest from care of my father, who is no longer able to care for himself. After a few days of catching up, I found myself unable to restrain myself from reciting my manifesto. Sorry, Mom.

Condensing the details into a big picture that makes enough sense for a smart, but not-so-technical, and not-as-young person as I is a good opportunity. Throughout my life, I have observed that I only really understand something when I am able to present it in straightforward, no-jargon and instructive manner. For example, I have taught several software development languages to novice computer users — I often learn as much as the students I have taught.

Clean Coal?

We discussed clean coal and carbon sequestration, amongst other things. The simple explanation (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…)

News like yesterday’s is welcome amidst a sea of recent bad tidings — there was a lot of good news, but the most important for the world was an announcement by the EPA.

Sure, the stock market rose 500 points. But that’s only the mercurial stock market.

Yes, some of AIG’s lucky lottery winners bonus recipients have relinquished their ill-gotten gains. But that’s a (mere) $80M or so.

Yes, another $75M of Madoff’s ill-gotten gains have been identified, bringing the total to near $1B. But that’s less that 2% of the ultimate charlatan’s loot.

Yes, Mr. Geithner, recently down on his luck seems to have struck the proper nerve to stimulate our flagging banking system. But that’s … ok, well, if it sticks, this one’s pretty significant. But only in the context of, as my Mom calls it “The Winter of Our Discontent”. All in all, a pretty good news day.

But of all the news I read today, by far the most important bit was that Greenhouse Gasses (GHGs) will (finally once again) be considered a pollutant by our Environmental Protection Agency.
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I came across this excellent, straightforward, and compelling page describing how cap and trade works in the Green Room blog of the Environmental Defense Fund. If anyone knows of such a clear explanation of how a carbon tax would work, please let me know and I’ll post it.

Update, 3/17/09, Here’s another article with a good explanation of cap and trade, in particular with a good contrast with carbon tax.

There have been a number of news items lately about how coal-fired plant projects are being canceled or deferred (the good news); but so are renewables projects like wind and solar installations (the bad news). But the cause is different. In the case of renewables, the main cause of reduction seems to be the absence of investment capital — last year was great, but now, things are drying up. Coal companies, on the other hand, seem to be responding to the increasing number of roadblocks being encountered in the building of new coal plants.

Two years ago, it was business as usual. But Fred Krupps and Environmental Defense lawyers had a rather major victory last year when they facilitated a reversal in which a planned 11 new coal plants in Texas were scuttled (well 8, actually) in favor of new investments in wind farms. To me, this seemed to be the turning point in the tide; since then a number of coal plant projects have been deferred or scrapped outright … in fact, most of them. During the Presidential campaign, the idea of clean coal was raised by all candidates, but this perhaps clarified the notion that good ol’ regular coal was dirty (which it most definitely is).

Then as “clean coal” kept coming up, some groups started pointing out that clean coal is fantasy. (more…)

A lot of issues have arisen around “green” things having various different names: energy independence, gas prices, cap and trade, green jobs, economic meltdown, clean coal, conservation, polar bears, glacial melting, water shortages, food shortages and prices, and on, and on. Each affects various groups of citizens of the world in different ways. But they are not really different issues, they are facets of the same issue: global warming.

A lot of talk during the US election process centered around energy independence. Ok, good enough for me, because addressing energy independence in many ways results in solutions we need, such as higher fuel efficiency in cars, significant investment in alternative energy and conservation. Sort of.

As our economy bit the big one, talk moved towards jobs, and rightly towards green jobs. Ok, good enough for me, because addressing economic issues through investments in important infrastructure like a smart electrical grid, wind, solar and geothermal, that’s a good thing. Sort of.

But now we’re seeing reality, which is that if people only really understand and care about things like gas prices and jobs, the political pressure for change will be directed at gas prices (ok, well, that one’s “solved”) and jobs.

But jobs is an issue, but it’s not the the issue. The issue is global warming. We were reminded of this today in a rather stark report suggesting that CO₂ doesn’t just “go away”. In fact, the thinking is that CO₂ released is kind of there for a loooooong time, effectively forever.

My first thought on hearing this report is that global warming skeptics will conclude that we were already unsure of whether human efforts to mitigate global warming would do any good; now we know it’s pointless. This is not the right conclusion: Susan Solomon, the scientist reporting this finding asserts

I guess if it’s irreversible, to me it seems all the more reason you might want to do something about it, because committing to something that you can’t back out of seems to me like a step that you’d want to take even more carefully than something you thought you could reverse.

Clearly Dr. Solomon has never been to a casino. (more…)

I have several household energy reduction projects in mind and am hoping to get some advice about which one I should take on first. I am considering:

• Tankless (on-demand) Hot Water Heater
• Foam Spray Insulation combined with Energy Audit
• Geothermal Heat Pump
• Solar (PV or Water Heat Assisted)

I have a lot of questions about which ones make sense, how to tell which one is best, how much they’ll cost, and how to measure all of it. (more…)

Projections are usually wrong when they are based solely on what has already happened — but this method is considered the most reasonable approach. When the projections are then considered predictions we start making bad decision — in other words, the status quo tends to rule the way we think about what we can do. We need to step away from raw data and factor in common sense. This may seem contradictory from someone who regularly argues that we must consider what has happened in the past as a lesson for what might happen in the future; it is not.

Today I read or skimmed a 360 page report by BP titled US Energy In Perspective: Data & Analysis of US Energy Supply, Production & Consumption (pdf). This report is truly incredible as a resource, and despite my occasionally less-than-favorable views of oil companies, this report generally seems to present the full picture of where we have been, and where we are with US energy with very little bias. The report also presents some projections, typically through 2030.

What struck me was that 2030 will play out an environmental (and political, economic and other) disaster if we actually do follow the path of the projections.

It also struck me that the very analytical, solid, fact-based analysis presented could easily be read as a foregone conclusion of what will happen. Or, if you are of a careful mindset, that which might be skeptical of “bold new plans” and other things that politicians have been heard to say from time to time, you might ask for the most reasonable set of facts and predictions available — the CEO of a major oil company might take this approach. The BP report cites numerous government studies, as well as many university and other scholarly works. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the methodology, that I can see.

Except that its implied predictions are dead wrong. (more…)