I stay in hotels/motels probably 40-50 nights per year, at least it seems so. If lodging facilities were in a league of teams competing to be the greenest facilities, these guys would be the Detroit Lions. Most franchise motels, those not located in downtown high rise buildings, are built with the cheapest, crappiest stuff possible. The only thing that is decent in them is the TV but sometimes even that is a junky 19 inch CRT clunker. Who has spent a night in room with through-wall air conditioner/heater with a temperature control knob that spins round and round like the…
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As mentioned on these pages before, stuff that doesn’t work well for me will be tolerated for maybe a couple bad experiences before I move on to something else. When something starts to go haywire, you don’t want to be around me and you certainly don’t want your children around me. Probably the worst thing to go haywire is a computer because I know I can’t take my frustration out on the computer since that will obviously make things worse, so the vocabulary gets a little extra spicy. Back in about 1983, I was shopping for my first car. Growing…
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I was pretty much like every other 12 year old boy. I liked fire, explosions, and crashes. If you think I’m crazy, why are movies sometimes beginning to end filled with the same? Enough said. Growing up on the farm there were always plenty of things to burn. One time I asked my dad if I could burn an old cattle feeder that we no longer used. No problem. You never see these things anymore but they were wood structures, like a weekend cabin that could withstand an F4 tornado, except it was all wood, nails and fasteners – solid…
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Back from vacation this week. I hope I didn’t ruin your week! Hahahaha! (this week or last, you decide) This week is more of a rave than a rant. I want to share some energy efficiency and sustainability successes and trends that make sense. If you have read many rants, I typically rail against dumb policy and technologies that are roads to dead ends. Energy efficiency and sustainability, in my opinion, must either cost next to nothing or have a decent return on investment, even though that ROI may be difficult to quantify. First cases come from a month and…
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You know what torques me off, or make that torques us off more than anything else? I’m saving it for a future rant. Stay tuned. No really, it’s “prospective” clients, many times end users that have screwed up buildings beyond reproach or wasting energy as though they just want to release all the carbon locked up in fossil fuels and get it over with. They ask for help but in no way intend to pay for it or take action for anything substantial. We may have even demonstrated, clearly by benchmarking or other means with specific measures that they could…
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The Wall Street Journal this week weighed in on the ban on incandescent from the energy bill of 2007 signed by Bush to phase out the incandescent light bulb by 2014. Naturally, their opinion is that banning products that are essentially harmless and in demand from citizens is bad policy. As usual, I have multiple points of view on this issue as well. First, I agree with the WSJ that ramming things like this down peoples’ throats is never a good idea. It appears that next month we are going to see the political fallout of such lawmaking processes. In…
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Many posts ago, I wrote “The More You Spend, The More You Save” explaining how poor system control wastes energy but results in even greater energy savings for efficient equipment. For example, consider an air handling system that wastes heating energy provided by an efficient boiler. The boiler saves x% versus a conventional model, so x% multiplied by greater use (wasted energy) results in “more” savings. Recently I picked up on buzz that argues greater efficiency results in greater energy consumption. At one point I recall reading in the Wall Street Journal an editorial that argued more efficient vehicles just…
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“The Arrow. Does the arrow move when the archer shoots it at the target? If there is a reality of space, the arrow must at all times occupy a particular position in space on its way to the target. But for an arrow to occupy a position in space that is equal to its length is precisely what is meant when one says that the arrow is at rest. Since the arrow must always occupy such a position on its trajectory which is equal to its length, the arrow must be always at rest. Therefore motion is an illusion.” I…
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As a sub-consultant or as a prime contractor we must do about 25 “major” proposals per year. By “major” I mean there is a formal request for proposals (RFP), sometimes there is an “intent to bid” form to submit, formal question submittals to the buyer, formal distribution of all questions and answers to all bidders, and then bids are due. All questions from all bidders and their answers are provided to all bidders to help maintain a level playing field. I think I/we have only asked questions when there are contradictions within the RFP. For example, the due date is…
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We do a LOT of energy efficiency program evaluation and measurement and verification work all over the country; make that North America. Program evaluation consists primarily of process evaluation (process) and impact evaluation (impact). Our work is almost entirely in the impact side and I know just enough to talk dangerously about process. Impact is the analysis of what energy savings are really attributable to the program. This includes verifying the physical installation and determining the actual savings using some sort of engineering analysis. This actual savings is known as gross savings in the business. It also includes determining whether…
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