Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Since diving into the deep end when it comes to energy issues, almost every day sees new fascinating concepts, approaches, and technologies. Fascinating … exciting … even hope inspiring at times. And, as well, as the passion builds, so many of these are truly Energy COOL.
The concept of Silver Bullet solutions concerns me and [...]

[Read more →]

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu took on conservative economists in comments this evening, where he spoke with strong praise for regulation and standards for driving energy efficiency in appliances and other energy-related systems.
Chu explained that writing regulation and setting standards are — without exception — the lowest cost move with the highest payoff to the [...]

[Read more →]

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has advocated cool roofing as a very high payoff tool to improving energy efficiency in the built environment, reducing heat island impacts, and helping to move us forward in climate change mitigation. Yesterday, Secretary Chu announced a series of initiatives to spur cool roof deployment in (on) Department of [...]

[Read more →]

This is part of a series of brief posts on ‘clean energy jobs‘ opportunities for sparking meaningful employment, quickly, in the United States as discussed in Clean Energy Jobs: Stimulate Me.
Clean Energy Jobs Fill Labs: $4 billion per year for 60,000 jobs
.
Congress created the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) in 2007 but ARPA-E didn’t really [...]

[Read more →]

One Senator has chosen to pay attention to The Solar Decathlon on the Mall and issue a challenge. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has issued A Challenge to Universities. He opened with a strong statement of praise and support for The Solar Decathlon.
Every two years at this time of year, an exciting thing happens on the [...]

[Read more →]

Solar innovation has come to The National Mall from the north as part of the 2009 Solar Decathlon, with two Canadian teams out of the 20 energy efficient solar powered homes. Team Ontario/BC took their geography to heat, forming Team North to North House to Washington, DC.
Considering where they come from, no surprise [...]

[Read more →]

Thronging The National Mall at this time are thousands of curious people, visiting the Solar Decathlon with the 20 energy efficient solar powered homes, being awed by their designs, their technologies, and their visions for the future.  Team Boston has centered their entire project around that very sense of curiosity, with CURIO House having as [...]

[Read more →]

As we struggle to Energize America, there are many challenges … from mistaken impressions as to the costs of options, people seeking silver bullet (single point) solutions (X will solve everything … fill in X), priority challenges, and so on.
One of the key challenges, however, might be bureaucratic inertia.
Energy efficiency — saving power (Negawatts) — [...]

[Read more →]