energy efficiency

A match made in heaven?

Energy efficiency and renewable power together are better than either alone, according to a recent report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the American Council on Renewable Energy. Not a shocking conclusion, but an important one, especially in a world where it seems that all types of zero-carbon power are competing against each other for funding.

The report finds that synergies between renewables and efficiency would cut greenhouse-gas emissions more effectively than either alone. What kind of synergies?

The world’s expert on recycled energy discusses … recycled energy

All across the nation, factories and power plants are wasting energy — lots and lots of it. If that energy could be captured and put to good use, greenhouse gas emissions could be substantially reduced, at a profit. Thomas Casten has been proclaiming this good news for almost 30 years now. Not only that, he’s […]

Two crazy environmental stories via podcast

I've been catching up on a backlog of podcasts this week (I haven't used my iPod in weeks; in New York City you almost feel alien if you walk the streets without cables in your ears). From one of my favorites, the NPR Environment podcast, two surprising stories.

The first is from their excellent Climate Connections series, created in conjunction with National Geographic. Who knew that Nigeria's natural gas flares are so big they can be viewed from space? As horrifying as it sounds, apparently, "every year, millions of dollars are literally going up in smoke in Nigeria," as oil-drilling companies burn off unwanted natural gas produced during crude- oil extraction.

What makes this practice so egregious, beyond the fact that it contributes more CO2 to the atmosphere than any other activity south of the Sahara, and beyond the fact that the noxious fumes are destroying the respiratory health of Nigeria's people and dirtying their drinking water, is that the very people who live next to these perennial blow torches often don't have electricity themselves.

Debunking the notion that walking is bad for the planet

Sheesh. Wouldn't you know it, the "walking is bad for the planet" meme has reared its head yet again, this time in a British newspaper:

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk ... than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes.

This made its way to the top of Digg over the weekend, and it's little wonder. It's got all the characteristics of a "sticky idea": it's simple, it's memorable, it seems credible, and most of all, it's unexpected -- which makes it perfect for passing around at the water cooler.

Yet it's actually nothing new. Versions of this idea have been circulating since at least the 1980s. I blogged about a similar claim a year ago. Moreover, as I found out when I ran the numbers, there's a good reason this claim is so counterintuitive: it's false!

New York Sports Club kicks in to conserve

The other day at the gym I was engaging in classic attention-deficient media trawling -- attempting to read my magazine, watch the morning newscast, and work up a sweat all at the same time.

So it didn't bother me too much when the TV kept shutting off. The equipment at these high-traffic fitness clubs is renowned for breaking down, so I chalked it up to an electrical glitch. Today I learned that in late July, the New York Sports Clubs reprogrammed their televisions to automatically turn off when not in use (this doesn't account, I guess, for those who want to watch without listening, but you can always plug in your headphones without putting them on).

When one person makes an effort to conserve energy, it's a good thing; when a facility with as much daily energy consumption as the NYSC network tries to conserve, it's great. Hat tip to the sports clubs for a simple and effective step in the right direction.

Back(ground) in black

It's called Blackle -- a black version of Google -- and according to this blogpost, it could save 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year globally:

Information is power

The day is sweltering, air conditioners are cranked up, and the power grid is straining to meet demand. Today is a "needle peak" day -- on the annual power demand chart, it shows up as a spike. Out of the year's 8,760 hours, needle peaks will occupy 200 hours or less. An extreme day like this is why the grid maintains roughly twice as much power generating and transmission capacity as it uses on an average day. Even though power plants and lines are idle most of the year, this costly overbuilding is needed to cover all contingencies. The grid is built to be there "just in case."

But what if another power resource were available that could dramatically reduce that peak demand, one that involved generating and transmitting no power at all? No, this isn't some weird "zero energy" thing. The paradoxical sounding resource I'm talking about is already in use. It's the demand, also known as the load, itself. The basic idea is that the grid can meet overall needs not only by supplying power, but by adjusting power use. The word for this is demand response, and it's a fundamental aspect of the smart grid.

A conversation with energy guru Amory Lovins

If politicians think in sound bites and intellectuals think in sentences, Amory Lovins thinks in white papers. His speech is studded with pregnant pauses — you can almost hear the whirs and clicks as an enormous mass of statistics, analyses, and aphorisms is trimmed and edited into a manageable length. I’ve talked to experts who […]

Making electricity visible helps reduce consumption

Here's what might be an ingenious idea, as reported by Wired: