appliances
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Less energy, less pollution, and greater savings. Some dilemma.
David Owen blames a host of evils on efficiency, but fails to back up his accusations with facts.
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The climate clock ticks faster, a solar campus, butter as biofuel, and 7 more green tales
Ten stories you might have missed from the greenosphere.
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Raising appliance efficiency: A big win for consumers and the climate
Investing in energy efficiency is often far cheaper than expanding the energy supply to meet growing demand. Efficiency investments typically yield a high rate of return, saving consumers money, and can help fight climate change by avoiding carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning additional fossil fuels.
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How to make energy programs work better (for free!)
I’ve written before (more than once) that energy reformers should pay more attention to behavior. Instead there is an almost universal obsession with technology and economic cost, narrowly construed. If you think of people as rational interest maximizers, as per reigning economic folk theory, price is all that matters. You want to change behavior, you […]
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Could AlertMe be the Apple of energy efficiency?
AlertMe iphone app.Photo: Courtesy of AlertMeI’m sitting in a conference room at a PR agency on the San Francisco waterfront when the chief executive of AlertMe, a British energy management startup, pulls out his iPhone to check on a colleague’s kilowatt consumption back in the U.K. The executive, who has the Vonnegutian name of Pilgrim […]
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New reports show successes and failures of Energy Star
The media has been taking the Department of Energy (DOE) to task over a recently released audit by the Inspector General (IG) which highlighted some well known shortcomings in the Energy Star program. The conclusions were not surprising — there needs to be more testing of products to ensure compliance with Energy Star requirements and […]
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DOE and EPA Agree to Make a Brighter Energy Star
Last week the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the Energy Star program. Who runs Energy Star, the extremely successful program for promoting efficient appliances, equipment, and buildings, and how they run it has been a point of tension between the agencies that are […]
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Umbra on replacing appliances
Dear Umbra, I’ve done the research, and I’m ready to buy my first front-loading washing machine. And then a pesky friend starts asking the tough questions. “Does your existing machine work?” Yes. “Are you going to sell it to someone else who will keep using it?” Yes. “So, two machines where there used to be […]