Category Archives: energy conservation measures

Cancun And Trains – I keep trying to focus on the residential market

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But stuff just keeps coming up that is too wild or too woolly to not at least post it.  I mean why in the world would you turn down money for high speed rail? The upgrades and new crossings and crossing guards are worth it.

http://www.forconstructionpros.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=25&id=18770

Calif., Fla. Big Winners as U.S. Redistributes Rejected Grants

Jason Plautz, E&E reporter, E&E News PM

California and Florida were big winners as the Obama administration announced the redistribution today of more than $1 billion in high-speed rail grants abandoned by incoming governors in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood officially killed projects in those states after a monthlong dispute with the two Republican governors-elect, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich.

Both Republicans campaigned against the rail projects, saying they would leave their states on the hook for operating costs and take away road-repair money. And both requested permission to redistribute the funds to other transportation projects.

But the Obama administration insisted the states’ stimulus grants be spent on high-speed rail, sparking protests by Wisconsin manufacturers that had been banking on the rail project and jockeying among states seeking fresh cash.

The administration has now reshuffled $1.195 billion — $810 million from Wisconsin and $385 million from Ohio — and is sending it to 14 states. The biggest grant, $624 million, will go to California, while $342.3 million will go to Florida and $161.5 million to Washington state.

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Then there is all the mucking around in an alleged Climate Change Conference. Here is what the Climate Change disbelievers have to say. But really for all they are accomplishing couldn’t they teleconference?

http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/10/hypocrisy-alive-and-well-at-cancun-climate-conference/

Hypocrisy alive and well at Cancun climate conference
By Amanda Carey – The Daily Caller

From November 29 to December 10, delegates from 194 countries gathered in sunny Cancun, Mexico to “lay the ghost of Copenhagen to rest,” as one dignitary put it. After last year’s chaotic, disastrous and worthless climate change conference in Copenhagen, the goal this year was simple: avoid further embarrassment.

The focus has been on hashing out details for a global climate fund, extending the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, and establishing an official agreement among developed countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 percent by 2020.

But in the middle of all the global-warming demagoguery and calls for developed nations to shell out $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate reparations to help less-developed countries cope with the unfair burden of climate change, one thing has very obviously not changed: the hypocrisy.

Yes, hypocrisy was present in Cancun just as it was in Copenhagen in 2009, Ponzan in 2008, Bali in 2007, and the many other climate change summit cities before them. As hundreds of officials travel in gas-guzzling jets and carbon-dioxide emitting cars to the conference site and stay in luxurious, high electricity-consuming resorts, the carbon footprint of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is ironic, to say the least.

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More next week

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Household Energy Consumption – Wikipedia blows it totally

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Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge on Earth, doesn’t do so well with some energy issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_energy_consumption

Domestic energy consumption

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
  • It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve it by citing reliable sources. Tagged since October 2008.
  • Its introduction provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Tagged since February 2009.
  • It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. Tagged since February 2008.

Domestic energy consumption is the amount of energy that is spent on the different appliances used within housing. The amount of energy used per household varies widely depending on the standard of living of the country, climate, and the age and type of residence. In an average household in a temperate climate the yearly use of household energy can be composed as follows:

Average domestic energy consumption per household in temperate climates
Heating 12000 kW·h/yr (1400 watts)
Hot water 3000 kW·h/yr (340 watts)
Cooling/refrigeration 1200 kW·h/yr (140 watts)
Lighting 1200 kW·h/yr (140 watts)
Washing and drying 1000 kW·h/yr (110 watts)
Cooking 1000 kW·h/yr (110 watts)
Miscellaneous electric load 600 kW·h/yr (70 watts)

Note that for households in the developing world these overview data are incorrect (area heating almost reduced to zero, and less and different consumption of energy).[clarification needed]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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A paragraph and a graph. I am bowled over. More tomorrow.

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Railroad Consolidation Study Comment Deadline Is December 5th

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The deadline is my birthday on December 5th. That should be easy to remember.

Please note the corrected date from the previous email: Comment forms are due by Sunday, December 5.

To view the open house information and complete a comment form, click here.

Thank you,

Springfield Railroad Corridor Study Team
www.springfieldrailroad.com

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Anyone Who Does Not Compost Is Part Of The Problem

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No one and I repeat NO ONE should be throwing out food. Everyone can compost. If you can’t use the resulting dirt (everyone should have house plants if they value their health) then you can just throw it outside. It doesn’t matter if you live in an apartment in a urban center or a house in the country, the message is stop throwing food in the garbage. The problem starts at the store though. Please stop overbuying food…especially meat.

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http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/07/opinion/la-oe-bloom-food-waste-20101107

Help the planet: Stop wasting food

Producing it and then getting rid of leftovers require a lot of fossil fuel. Just taking a few simple steps can ease the problem.

Op-Ed

November 07, 2010|By Jonathan Bloom

Let me guess: You’re concerned about the environment. You recycle, buy the right light bulbs, drink from a reusable water bottle (preferably one made of metal) and wish you could afford a hybrid. You try to remember your reusable shopping bags when you go to the market and feel guilty when you don’t.

But there’s something you could be doing that would make a much bigger difference, and it’s not one of those really hard things like carpooling to work or installing solar panels on your roof.

All you need to do is minimize your food waste. If you buy it and bring it home, eat it. That alone is one of the easiest ways to aid the environment.

About 40% of the food produced in the United States isn’t consumed. Every day Americans waste enough food to fill the Rose Bowl. And our national food waste habit is on the upswing: We waste 50% more food today than we did in 1974.

Squandering so much of what we grow doesn’t just waste food; it also wastes the fossil fuel that went into growing, processing, transporting and refrigerating it. A recent study estimated conservatively that 2% of all U.S. energy consumption went to producing food that was never eaten. To give you a sense of perspective, every year, through uneaten food, we waste 70 times the amount of oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico during the three months of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

That waste of resources continues after we throw away food. There is the energy required to haul the discarded food to the landfill. And once there, food decomposes and creates methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent a heat trapper than carbon dioxide. Landfills are the second-largest human-related source of methane emissions, and rotting food causes the majority of methane there. It’s climate change coming directly from your kitchen.

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America should be ashamed. More tomorrow.

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He Is Not A Survivalist – He just likes to do things the hard way

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MY favorite quote that I shall only paraphrase is, I could just jump in the car and go to the store for a lot of this stuff..but.

http://www.straight.com/article-357270/vancouver/peak-oil-spurring-locals-selfsufficiency

Brennan Wauters believes that the world has reached peak oil production, and that learning how to do things such as grow your own food and fix household items will help you take care of yourself.
By Carlito Pablo, November 10, 2010

What if you woke up one day and found that the world as you knew it had ceased to exist? It’s a thought that has probably crossed the minds of many and perhaps been quickly dismissed by most as silly.

For Brennan Wauters, this prospect is real. That’s why he’s preparing for what he describes as a “collapse”.

From Wauters’s perspective, the game changer is peak oil. He believes that in the past five years, the world has reached the point of maximum production of oil, and that the supply of this fuel source is on the decline. One day, the pumps may run dry.

But the 42-year-old Vancouver man is not the type to hunker in a bunker. He isn’t storing food, buying gold, or stocking up on weapons to survive in a post-oil world.

“I’m more a survivalist in the sense that I think we have to be psychologically prepared,” Wauters said. “I concentrate on being able to do things with as little as possible. It’s also an exercise to me, like there’s many things that I could just go to the store for. But I deliberately take a harder route just to test my own capabilities, to give me confidence that whatever happens, everything will be fine.”

Learning to grow food is one of those things. Peppers were ready for picking when Wauters showed the Georgia Straight the vegetable plots at the East Side house where he lives with a number of other people. There were also chickens and honeybees out back.

“If there’s a general economic collapse, people are not going to have jobs,” he said. “So they’re going to have time on their hands. And that probably means growing food so that they don’t have to depend upon some larger infrastructure. That’s the clear objective.”

Wauters is also collecting books on edible and medicinal plants. That way, when the Internet is no longer working, he’ll have something to rely on for farming information.

He’s also learning “wildcrafting”, or methods of gathering food from the wild and living off the land. He likewise considers knowledge of canning and smoking food to be important.

Wauters builds sets for movie productions for a living, and that partly explains why he has a large collection of tools. He particularly values hand implements—drills, saws, and sets of screwdrivers—which he said will all be useful when power devices can no longer be plugged into wall sockets.

He can also fix a bicycle, noting that this human-powered conveyance will eventually become more valuable than the automobile.

According to Wauters, neighbours come to him to repair various broken household items. The house where he lives has a shed that stores numerous tools, such as pickaxes, shovels, and rakes.

“The survival aspect is really two things,” he said. “It’s a mental exercise which helps you cope with adversity, and then the other thing is that it prepares you to be creative. You have to be creative to solve those problems that we’re going to face. We can no longer run to the store to buy something to solve our problem.”

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More tomorrow.

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Cap And Trade Rises From The Ashes – It made it into the Senate

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It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ16hEpB_Sk

Conventional post election wisdom has the Cap and Trade legislation being declared dead. But, it is sitting in a Senate that the Democrats control. Will they bust it lose during the end of the year session. Who knows, but I think the issue will not go away so sooner or later something will have to be done. I mean Russia caught on fire. How much more does it take than that.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/4/clean-coal-is-as-dead-as-cap-and-trade/

MILLOY: Clean coal is as dead as ‘cap-and-trade’

Mitch McConnell had better study up on the election results

By Steve Milloy-The Washington Times

While we shouldn’t expect our left-wing elitist president to understand Tuesday’s electoral rejection of his “progressive” prescriptions for America, we should expect Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, to get it.

But Mr. McConnell seems to have missed the message, at least when it comes to “cap-and-trade” – odd for a coal-state politician. The day after the election, Mr. McConnell said, “The president says he’s for nuclear power. Most of my members are for nuclear power. The president says he’s for clean coal technology. Most of my members are for clean coal technology. There are areas that we can make progress on for the country.”

Aside from the canard of President Obama sincerely supporting nuclear power and the fact that Republicans ought to avoid the loaded and already co-opted-by-the-left word “progress,” so-called “clean coal” is a form of Obama-think – a discredited cap-and-trade concept that was more trap than sincere policy.

Some in the coal industry and some coal-burning electric utilities had been talked into supporting cap-and-trade, provided that taxpayers and ratepayers forked over billions (if not trillions) of dollars for so-called “carbon capture and sequestration” (CCS) – that is, burying utility carbon-dioxide emissions deep underground and hoping they stay there safely.

But to the extent that any so-called environmentalists paid any lip service to clean coal and CCS, it was only to lure coal and utility suckers into cap-and-trade. Does anyone really believe, after all, that the greens would allow utilities to inject underground billions of tons of highly pressurized carbon dioxide all over the nation? They fought tooth-and-nail, after all, to prevent the storage of sealed casks of spent nuclear fuel one mile underground in the Nevada desert.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm-pFqdqcZY&feature=related

Which would they prefer, a tax on carbon? This guys lists all the reasons for cap and trade mechanisms to be set up by the Federal Government and heavily policed by the Federal Government. Nonetheless he likes carbon taxes because they supply more stability. But his belief that it won’t be passed on to the customer is asinine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSJdjb6K5i4&feature=fvw

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http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/cap-and-trade-legislation/810

Cap and Trade Legislation is Fatally Flawed

My First Ever Mea Culpa

By Nick Hodge
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

We may never see cap and trade in this country.

Those are words I never thought I’d write.

In fact, I’ve been touting the benefits of a cap and trade market since 2007. But new ideas, unraveling facts, and recent events have changed my thinking.

So today, I’m publishing my first ever mea culpa.

Cap and Trade Legislation is Fatally Flawed

My First Ever Mea Culpa

By Nick Hodge
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

We may never see cap and trade in this country.

Those are words I never thought I’d write.

In fact, I’ve been touting the benefits of a cap and trade market since 2007. But new ideas, unraveling facts, and recent events have changed my thinking.

So today, I’m publishing my first ever mea culpa.

Carbon Should Still be Priced

To be clear, I’m not saying that carbon shouldn’t have a price. By all means, it should.

What I’m saying is that cap and trade isn’t the way to implement it.

At the end of the day, carbon dioxide is a harmful waste product that needs to be handled. Companies don’t get free passes for treating and disposing of other waste streams their businesses generate. Why should carbon be any different?

Not charging companies for emitting carbon is giving them free reign over something they cannot and will not ever own: the atmosphere.

We don’t let companies freely dump waste into rivers or lakes… We don’t allow companies to dump waste in forests… So why, then, are we still letting companies dump a known pollutant into the atmosphere unchecked?

This is why everyone speaks of how cheap coal is. It’s not really that cheap, we just don’t include the price of carbon in its costs.

Carbon isn’t a business externality — meaning, companies that produce it can shift the cost to society — and it can no longer be treated as such.

The Trouble with Cap and Trade

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You can go to the article for the rest. I personally support a carbon tax. But I have always said that Cap and Trade is what we get because high finance wants it that way. More Monday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdAhR-c–20&feature=related

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White House Goes Solar – Finally after they refused earlier efforts

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There answer in September was NO!

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/white-house-spurns-solar-panel/

September 10, 2010, 11:54 am

White House Spurns Solar Panel

By JOHN M. BRODER

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The answer in October is YES! Wonder what changed?

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/122559-solar-panels-heading-to-white-house-roof

White House roof to get solar panels

By Ben Geman – 10/05/10 10:06 AM ET

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced plans to install solar panels on the White House roof.

“This project reflects President Obama’s strong commitment to U.S. leadership in solar energy and the jobs it will create here at home,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a statement. “Deploying solar energy technologies across the country will help America lead the global economy for years to come.”

The action highlights Obama’s support for low-carbon energy at a time when environmentalists are smarting from the collapse of climate legislation — a bill that was not the top White House priority.

Chu and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley announced the plan Tuesday at CEQ’s GreenGov symposium hosted by George Washington University.

The Energy Department-led project will install two White House solar systems — one that converts sunlight into electricity, and a solar hot water heater for the White House residence.

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More tomorrow

Energy Conservation According To Google – Mixed record

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Google has this Feeling Lucky button that just sucks when it comes to energy issues. The company itself has a mixed bag. They helped push an energy fuel cell of a dubious nature by installing 3 of them on their main campus. They do like solar and wind and have both in operation or have bought energy from those sources. But this button is just rotten. I am usually bored with posting when I do this now, but in the beginning I was excited. I know you say, “How could Doug be bored with the exciting field of residential conservation”? I guess I want another oil spill or maybe Russia to catch fire again. Sick isn’t it. The first three you get if you used the regular search are not much better:

  1. Residential Energy Efficiency

    www.ServiceMagic.com Get an Energy Audit For Your Home. Free Auditor Listings. Search Now!?

  2. Residential Energy Efficiency

    www.Dow.com/HealthyHome Show Us How By Sharing a Video. Win A Renovation Makeover Package!

  3. Energy Efficient Building

    www.energyefficientbuilders.com Green construction & contracting Save 50-80% on heating and AC

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I mean DOW?

And too my surprise you can not even use the get lucky button anymore. Really? Why do they even have it up there. Apparently the “read your mind” algorithm they just introduced broke the get lucky thingie because as soon as you type in a single letter that option goes away. But when you just click on it empty it thinks you want to get lucky about the google LOGO. These people are dorks.

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-just-effectively-killed-the-im-feeling-lucky-button-2010-9

Google Just Killed The “I’m Feeling Lucky Button”

Nicholas Carlson | Sep. 8, 2010, 1:35 PM
Google just effectively offed one of it’s oldest, quirkiest features – the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

The good news is that in the process, Google added at least another hundred million dollars in revenue.

It used to be that you could go to Google.com, type a search query into the search box and then, by clicking “I’m feeling lucky,” go directly to the page that would have been listed as the top search result.

But then today happened, and Google announced “Google Instant.” Now, when you go to Google.com and start typing a search into the search bar, Google instantly begins showing search results. Users no longer have a chance to click the “I’m Feeling Lucky Button” before they begin seeing search results. Yes, the button is still there on Google.com – but essentially, the feature is dead.

So, how does killing the “I’m feeling lucky” button gain Google more than $100 million?

In 2007, Google search boss Marissa Mayer estimated that 1% of all Google searches go through the I’m Feeling Lucky button – skipping Google’s search results pages entirely

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More Tomorrow

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Living Roofs Are Possible Even On Smaller Roofs – Try it on an outbuilding

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http://earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/alternative-waterproof-membranes-for-living-roofs/

Alternative Waterproof Membranes for Living Roofs

July 12, 2010 by Owen Geiger

There’s growing interest in living roofs or green roofs. The difficulty is deciding on the waterproof membrane. Rubber pond liner (EPDM) is the most waterproof and durable material, and the most common choice due to proven performance, but it’s also very expensive and made from nasty petro chemicals.

Living roof at Heartwood HomesteadsLiving roof at Heartwood Homesteads

I think a number of less toxic, more affordable materials are possible, including recycled materials in good condition. One reader suggested pool covers. Heavy duty trucker tarps are another option. You could add 6 mil poly (plastic sheeting) underneath and/or above these other materials for extra moisture protection.

For my dome, I used 2-1/2 layers of 6 mil black poly and have had no leaks so far after about three years in a rainy climate. (The half layer is a small piece on the very top.) You need to cover 6 mil poly carefully to avoid punctures. Some use old carpet or cardboard against it while adding soil. (Screen out rocks.) In our case, we simply packed soil on the plastic, starting at the bottom and working up, with no protective cardboard, etc.

Recycled vinyl billboards are another possibility, but I wouldn’t use them because of the health hazards of leaching chemicals into the soil around the house.

Roof pitch is another consideration. Steep roofs shed water faster and are less prone to leaks. But you need to strike the right balance or top soil and nutrients will wash away, and your roof will dry out too quickly.

Another consideration is the value of the structure. It’s no big deal experimenting with alternative waterproof membranes on a simple $2,000 guesthouse. But you might want to use better materials or multiple layers on expensive homes.

Photo credit: Heartwood Homesteads

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More Tomorrow.

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Residential Energy Efficiency Can Start With The Roof

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But even with the subsidies and incentives it will cost you double. So you have to ask yourself, is buying the last roof I ever will purchase worth it.

http://www.metalroofing.com

MRA
September 20, 2010

Don’t Miss Out On The $1500 Tax Credit!

Tax CreditThe $1500 tax credit for energy efficient upgrades to homes is still available. Homeowners who make energy efficient updates to their home, including the installation of a painted or coated Energy Star® labeled metal roof before December 31, 2010, may be eligible for a tax credit worth 30 percent of the installation costs (materials only), up to $1,500 per home.

To Receive The Tax Credit:

  1. Find a Contractor near you to discuss a new metal roof for your home.
  2. Confirm that the metal roof you select is a prepainted or coated Energy Star-labeled metal roof with pigmented coating/paint film specifically designed to reduce heat gain, and obtain certification from your contractor or the manufacturer
  3. Have the metal roof installed on your principal residence between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010. For further information on the requirements for tax credit eligibility click here and/or consult with your tax advisor.
  4. Fill out IRS Form 5695 Residential Energy Credits when filing your taxes for 2009 and/or 2010.

Find a metal roofing contractor in your area today to take advantage of this great opportunity for savings before it’s too late. Visit MetalRoofing.com for more information or contact Alli@MetalRoofing.com for questions about the tax credit.

Why Metal? Tell Us Your Metal Roofing Story and Win

For the past decade we have been telling homeowners and contractors about the many benefits of residential metal roofs. Now, we’re turning the tables, and asking you to tell us why you chose metal in our “Tell Us Your Metal Roofing Story” Facebook contest.

All you have to do is tell us why you chose metal and submit a photo of your beautiful roof via our application on the MRA’s Facebook contest page. Get 10 people to “Like” it via Facebook and you are entered in the contest. The lucky winner will be rewarded with a $500 gift card to Home Depot. Plus, we will be making a donation in the winner’s name to their local Habitat for Humanity chapter and the contractor that installed the winning metal roof will receive a free Silver Level Metal Roofing Alliance membership or $1,000 towards a Gold level membership.
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More tomorrow

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