Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Sad-to-say, the air waves and oped pages and blog posts have been filled with Steven Levitt’s and Steven Dubner’s shallow, truthiness-laden Superfreakonomics.   The continued attention feeds on itself, as ignoring the deceptions and the mediocre interviews booked due to the authors’ Super(freaky)star status has the problem of giving it credence due to non-truthful truthiness [...]

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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.
Humanity has treated natural resources as boundless. [...]

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The University of Minnesota’s Solar Decathlon team’s handout to visitors to the DOE Solar Decathlon, which opens Thursday on the Mall in Washington, DC, (which I had a chance to visit earlier today) is subtitled “A New Tradition”. Their ICON Solar House hopefully is just that, a representation and sign of “a new tradition” [...]

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Every day, I strive to Make Energy CENTS from the Home to the Globe. Whether programming the thermostat to low temperatures overnight to providing comments on national energy policy drafts to opening discussions as to Energy COOL technologies and concepts, my efforts to Energize America to a prosperous, climate friendly future cross a broad [...]

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Stimulate
Etymology: From Latin stimulatus past participle of stimul? (“goad on”) .
Verb: to stimulate: To encourage into action. To arouse an organism to functional activity.
Synonyms: encourage, induce, provoke, animate, arouse, energize, energise, excite, perk up
Antonyms: de-energize, sedate, stifle
For eight long years, this nation has been de-energized, had productive advancing of the economy stifled, and good [...]

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Having a readout on miles per gallon gets most drivers to drive better, in ways that increase safety and reduce fuel usage. With minimal additional cost, these feedback systems can help to improve fleet fuel efficiency through fostering changed behavior by the users (the drivers). This is an impact that better car design, hybrid [...]

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Carbon offsets are something that trouble me, with the analogy to medieval indulgences clearly seeming relevant for at least some who embrace them.  On the other hand, Energy’s Three Rs make much sense to me:

Reduce energy use (through efficiency and conservation)
Use Renewable Power as much as possible
Remediate for any remaining polluting energy use

Remediation can take [...]

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Red State. Blue State.  Through EcoDriving we can all be green states.
Hit the link and you will be greated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (and Governor Bill Ritter) introducing the power of Eco-Driving for making a real difference when it comes to the nation’s gasoline use and, therefore, carbon footprint.
The average driving could seen a 15 percent reduction [...]

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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.
This is a somewhat different path of discover [...]

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A brief discussion about the economic imperatives for greening the nation’s taxi fleets. But, first, acronym definition:

CtB: Cost to Buy: acquisition price, how much to purchase something
CtO: Cost to Own: total ownership costs, from purchase through operating to disposal

Quite simply, moving our collective mindset from CtB to CtO is a societal imperative.
But, to question [...]

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