cogeneration
-
Meatpacking plant turns into net-zero-energy vertical farm
Soon, a former meatpacking plant in Chicago will replace carcasses and rendering vats with bakers and brewers and fish farmers and mushroom growers. The Plant (ho ho, a double meaning!) is gathering together a bunch of food-makers to create a self-sustaining system in the 93,500-square-foot abandoned space. As Fast Company reports, a former meatpacking plant […]
-
The U.S. electricity mix in 20 years: A prediction
What will the U.S. power mix look like in 10 to 20 years? It’s impossible to predict for certain, of course, because there’s no way to know what regulators will do. Given the heavily regulated nature of the electric sector, even in so-called “deregulated” markets, surprises tend to come from regulatory reform, not innovation. (The […]
-
How to buy (and price) clean power
You get what you pay for. Clean power mandates in the US mandate that we buy megawatt-hours of clean energy, but they don’t mandate that those sources be reliable. This isn’t to say that clean energy can’t be reliable, but rather that it is mis-priced. Increasingly, this is causing conflicts for utilities, who have purchase […]
-
The conflict at the heart of U.S. energy policy: domestic extraction vs. cheap energy
Imagine you’re out to dinner with your spouse. When the waiter comes, she says, “I’m trying to decide between the house salad and the deep-fried twinkie. Which would you recommend?” You might think many things, but “she sure knows what she wants” is not one of them. Now shift to Washington D.C., where we are […]
-
So what's EPA up to with its CO2 regulations?
This week we've gotten a glimpse at EPA's plans for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from "stationary sources" (power plants, factories, etc.).
-
Ending North Carolina's dependence on dirty coal
As a state that depends heavily on coal-fired power, North Carolina currently dumps more climate-disrupting carbon dioxide pollution into the environment from burning fossil fuels than 186 nations. But a new analysis [pdf] by a clean-energy advocacy group finds that it would be relatively easy to break the state’s dirty energy dependency — and eliminate […]
-
Sanders & Merkley introduce bill to fund waste heat capture [with video of cats flushing toilets!]
Sens. Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.) have introduced a fantastic bill that deserves to be part of the climate/energy package the Senate votes on later this year. The Thermal Energy Efficiency Act (S.1621) “would dedicate 2% of revenues from climate change legislation to fund combined heat and power, waste energy recovery, and district […]
-
US can easily meet 2020 emissions target while lowering the nation’s energy bill $700 billion
More than perhaps any other company, McKinsey has documented how an aggressive energy efficiency strategy sharply lowers the cost of climate action (see “McKinsey 2008 Research in Review: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero“). Today they released their most comprehensive analysis to date of this country’s energy efficiency opportunity, “Unlocking energy […]
-
Two homeowners, one monster, and a cutting-edge power source
There’s a monster in our basement. It eats fistfuls of dollar bills, guzzles No. 2 heating oil, and belches filthy clouds of soot and CO2. We have to kill it before it kills us. Only problem is, we and our tenants are dependent on it — this being New England, we need something down there […]