energy efficiency

McCain’s economy plan fails to substantially address energy efficiency

John McCain takes the "conserve" out of "conservative." His entire energy efficiency strategy would fit on one side of a very small file card and can be summarized as follows: Ban Porsches, green federal buildings, and applaud homeowners who do stuff on their own!

His repackaged new economic plan, "Jobs for America" has precisely three paragraphs that deal with efficiency:

CAFE Standards: John McCain has long supported CAFE standards -- the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet. Some carmakers ignore these standards, pay a small financial penalty, and add it to the price of their cars. John McCain believes that the penalties for not following these standards must be effective enough to compel carmakers to produce fuel-efficient vehicles.

Seriously. That's all he has to say about fuel economy. McCain's entire fuel economy strategy is to force a small number of "higher end auto companies like BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes" to make their cars fuel efficient. What a transformative, addiction-ending idea -- I bet it would reduce U.S. oil consumption at least one-tenth of 1 percent:

Umbra on fans versus AC

Dear Umbra, I’m a girl trying to make it in a big, hot, airless city — New York, that is. We’re in the middle of a heat wave that will soon end, but the longer heat wave we call summer will continue, so I wonder: when the interior of my apartment is up to 93 […]

California plans to cut 169 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020

How do you return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 while promoting jobs, competitiveness, and public health? Conservatives in the U.S. Senate think it can't be done. California knows it can.

The Air Resources Board has just published their "Scoping Plan." How do they cut 169 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020? Efficiency, efficiency, renewables, renewables, and even some conservation:

Day four of the UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration

The UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration rolls on today with a discussion prompt submitted by On Day One user teiki:

A key to the massive use of fossil fuels in the U.S. is gross overconsumption. We use way more than necessary, through a combined dependence on the automobile and an infatuation with big, gas-hungry cars, trucks and SUVs., through wasted energy consumption in our homes and offices in everything from their construction to "phantom loads" and light bulbs, and through the amount of green house gas emitted by livestock supplying an overconsumption of food. We must learn to use less.

David Roberts, Tony Kreindler, media director of the National Climate Campaign at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Timothy B. Hurst respond below the fold.

GOP candidate calls for energy efficiency in a California speech

John McCain gave yet another address on energy and environmental issues today (the third in the past week, if you’re counting), this one focused on energy efficiency, which he says should begin at home with the federal government. “Energy efficiency is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue,” he told a crowd […]

Home Depot will collect CFLs for recycling

Home Depot announced Tuesday that it will collect compact fluorescent light bulbs and send them off to be recycled. The home-improvement behemoth hopes the new program will keep the bulbs, which contain a small amount of mercury, out of household trash and recycling bins. IKEA also collects CFLs for recycling but doesn’t have the market […]

Development in waste-heat-to-electricity technology

Here's a 200 year old idea with merit: A Stirling engine, modified to capture the waste heat of industrial processes to make electricity. Gar noted Stirling Energy Systems' efforts in this vein to make electricity from solar thermal collectors using a Stirling engine a year ago, but instead of the sun, a startup in my neighborhood, ReGen, is developing a Stirling that will specialize in using the low to moderate heat generated by landfill gas systems, paper mills, steel mills, chemical and petroleum refining facilities, glass ovens, cement plants, and similar locations:

Refrigeration without electricity

Here’s Adam Grossner’s brief TED talk, on his effort to create a refrigerator that doesn’t use electricity: (thanks LL!)

Considering recycled energy will politically facilitate a national clean energy plan

There is a tendency to frame the politics of clean energy as a debate between the enlightened, forward thinkers on the coasts and the paleolithic environment-hating coal barons in the Southeast and Midwest. It makes a good sound bite, but confuses the ends and the means. Yes, there are strong vested interests in the coal belt and the rust belt that consistently resist GHG caps and clean energy policy. But so long as we frame the clean energy conversation as a wealth transfer from dirty states to clean states, our success will remain contingent upon our ability to get senators, representatives, and voters in those states to act against their near-term economic self interest.

Three maps below clarify the problem, and suggest a solution.