Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Putting aside any and all other issues, deregulation can offer several real advantages: disruptive options can enter markets; and, consumers can have choices.  Of course, while anyone comparing U.S. cellphone rates to European prices has legitimate reason to wonder about this uncertain benefit, at times real opportunities for positive change can emerge. This summer, consumers in […]

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The Washington Post‘s front page, 9 March 2012, featured an article entitled “Affordability award goes to $50 light bulb” (and the online title: Government-subsidized green light bulb carries costly price tag). Reading like a partisan hit job against the Department of Energy’s efforts to use ‘prizes’ to foster technological innovation into the market place, this […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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, including […]

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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 Pepco […]

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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). […]

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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 […]

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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!

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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“. […]

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