Energy policy is a rather complicated domain. That complexity is worsened when factual errors (whether purposefully driven or accidental) enter into the discussion. In the weeks since the news broke about U.S. refined products now being a net export, rather than import, marketplace, it is hard to overstate the number of times where people have [...]
Entries Tagged as 'electricity'
Trumka gets a key fact wrong …
January 12th, 2012 · 1 Comment
Tags: coal · electricity
Energy and the tragedy of the commons: the condo-building and master metering
March 15th, 2011 · Comments Off
Two years ago my husband and I, empty nesters for more than 20 years, moved from our four-bedroom split-level house to a three-bedroom condo and from a car-dependent life to an apartment community one and a half blocks from Washington, D.C.’s Metro. As part of the renovation of our new home we purchased Energy Star [...]
Tags: Energy · electricity · energy efficiency
Deception re Texas Blackouts threatens American Prosperity and Security
February 5th, 2011 · No Comments
In the face of the winter storm that hit the nation, Texans suffered a series of rolling blackouts as some 50 fossil-fueled power plants (coal and natural gas) shut down due to frozen pipes and other problems. (See: Blacked Out Texas: Seeking understanding or Falsely laying blame?) In the face of readily available information, [...]
Tags: Energy · Right Wing Sound Machine (RWSM) · electricity · national security
Blacked Out Texas: Seeking understanding or Falsely laying blame?
February 5th, 2011 · 2 Comments
Black-outs in the face of winter storms is a problem too often faced by too many Americans due, in no small part, to under-investment in our aging electrical system that experts suggest merit a D minus grade (perhaps on a sliding scale). Washington, DC, storms regularly see blacked out neighborhoods and the Maryland utility [...]
Tags: Energy · electricity · energy efficiency
Getting to a better building …
February 3rd, 2011 · 1 Comment
Construction and use of buildings account for a major share of global warming emissions. Depending on how one calculates, allocating roughly 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to this built infrastructure is roughly correct. Heating … cooling … lighting … building materials … etc, it all adds up (and up … and up). [...]
Tags: Energy · Obama Administration · President Barack Obama · building green · clean energy jobs · climate change · electricity · emissions · energy efficiency · environmental
Duh … incentivizing action leads to action: getting utilities to focus on energy efficiency
January 24th, 2011 · 1 Comment
The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released a report today examining the impact of incentive structures for sparking greater utility investment in energy-efficiency programs. The press release opens:
The ability for utilities to profit from their energy efficiency programs provides strong motivation to create, support, and deliver successful programs …
My initial reaction: ‘duh [...]
Tags: Energy · electricity · energy efficiency
Slay Vampires for Halloween … and help defeat the Climate Zombie Invasion
October 31st, 2010 · No Comments
Vampires are among us. When you aren’t looking (or, when you are looking but not seeing), when you are sleeping, when you aren’t paying attention, Vampires are sucking up vital juices, threatening our very existence.
For Halloween, kill some Vampires and contribute to defeating the invasion of Climate Zombies!
Tags: Energy · electricity · energy efficiency
Don’t forget your own words, Harry, “Coal makes us sick!”
July 21st, 2010 · 1 Comment
Two years ago, Harry Reid stared into Faux and Balanced cameras square on and spoke truth:
Coal makes us sick …
Whether particulates driving asthma, black lung afflicting miners, diseases due to polluted waters from mountain top removal and coal waste, mercury in our food stream reducing IQs, or otherwise, burning “coal makes us sick“.
There is [...]
Tags: Energy · carbon dioxide · coal · electricity · environmental · politics · pollution
Feedback systems and ECSTASY
May 18th, 2010 · 1 Comment
As any who regularly read my work should be aware, I have a fascination with the power of feedback systems to foster behavioral change (and here and …) and help foster more Energy Smart practices and to hasten the adoption of Energy Smart/Energy COOL technologies. This guest post by Milly Watt (which, in this context, [...]
Tags: Energy · electricity · energy cool · energy smart
Local Electric Transport and the Energy Independence Levy
May 17th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Another guest post from the extremely thoughtful and insightful BruceMcF. Bruce’s thoughts, writ large, about transport policy and, more specifically, electrified rail merit attention and action.
If we reduce our oil consumption by 5% a year over each of the next twenty years, that allows use to be free of our oil addiction if [...]
Tags: Energy · electricity · guest post · rail · the five percent solution