A couple weeks ago, the National Academy of Sciences released a study that summarized the findings of the general public’s perceptions of energy consumption and potential savings from various end-uses in their daily lives. You can check out the curves in the linked article above and take my word for it or risk brain damage reading the thing. To me there are several significant findings, none of which surprise me. These are in no particular order and are only a subset of the findings. Finding #1 – When asked open ended questions about ways to save energy, people overwhelmingly selected…
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Well here I am again – a prisoner in the penitentiary that is the Minneapolis Airport. Northwest Airlines now part of Delta Delta Delta can I help ya, help ya, help ya (YAH! – you can get me the hell out of here) can’t fly through a swarm of mosquitoes without being delayed. This is the burnt crust on the dessert that was otherwise a great week. And as usual, I can’t help but sit here and ignore the MASSIVE amount of energy gobbled up by this place. It’s a bowl of hot soup outside. It is about 68F inside…
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Is there anything as mysterious as the price of a car, especially a new one? I’ve heard the various prices so much, long ago, that I’ve pretty much blocked them out of my mind. There is the sticker price, dealer cost, factory invoice cost, blah, blah…blah, blah, blah. Sooner or later the dreaded haggling begins. I’ve heard that the buyer should always have the seller make the first offer. I don’t think it matters. I think the last time I bought a car I scrounged about on Kelly Blue Book’s web site, which has dealer suggested retail, private party (for…
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As you may have heard, this year China powered past (cheesy pun warning) the United States in total energy consumption. Apparently, back in 2007, they surpassed the US in carbon emissions. This makes sense as almost 70% of China’s electricity is derived from coal as compared to just under 50% in the United States. In the U.S., nuclear and natural gas make up most of the other 50%, roughly split evenly with renewable energy rounding out the 100%. In recent years, or especially since President Obama moved into the White House, there have been multiple verbose incomprehensible cap and trade…
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A couple weeks ago I beat up electric automobiles for being overpriced and unpractical due to their short driving ranges and cripplingly long charge times. This week I present a saner approach to substantial energy and emissions reductions. The electric car is the equivalent of installing renewable energy sources before making conventional systems and technologies as efficient as possible in buildings. Like buildings, we can cost effectively cut personal transportation energy consumption substantially, without sacrificing anything with readily available technologies - rather than pouring gobs of money into technologies that are just five years away from prime time; like they…
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