Skip to main content
Category

Stimulus

Evil V Clueless

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus, Sustainability, Tax Stuff 2 Comments
This week I have an I-can’t-take-it-anymore topic: gasoline prices.  It is not the gasoline prices that chap me, but the pouting, mud throwing, food fights, whining and probably worst of all the stupid solutions to the so-called problems. Gasoline is like any other product or service that is a must-have in society and therefore, like electricity and natural gas, consumers feel entitled to all they want at a negligible price.  And by the way, why all the hype right now?  It’s around $3.50 per gallon.  Being an election year obviously feeds the flames and I guess there just isn’t enough…
Read More

Beware the New Guy

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Renewable Energy, Stimulus, Sustainability No Comments
One thing I’ve learned many times over with approaching or ongoing energy efficiency projects with clients, mostly end users, is that when the decision maker is replaced for whatever reason – the guy took a different job, retired, moved to a different place in the company – you name it, it is time to pull over to the side of the road. The most common thing a new guy (androgynously) does upon taking over the helm of whatever ship he’s driving is say no, to everything.  I’m not sure why this is but I think it possibly has something to…
Read More

Green is Dead

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Investments, Stimulus, Sustainability, Tax Stuff No Comments
This week in Coon Valley, where I’ve lived for 15 years, we were hit with frost that ended the growing season for unprotected plants.  I have said for years that the first killing frost is always around the first of October, depending on the timing of cold fronts, but this year was earlier than normal – earlier than its been for many years I think (I’m getting old so I’m becoming a walking almanac like your grandfather is/was). To the point, I thought, the killing frost may be symbolic of the death of “green,” I don’t think the death of…
Read More

EE, Policy, and Irony

By Energy Efficiency, Government, LEED, Stimulus No Comments
As my crop of silver hair continues to expand, I have become more of a historian, particularly when it comes to cause and effect, and peoples’ behavior.  I step back and observe what is happening and what has happened as a result of this or that policy.  Theories are nice, and they may be well thought out and make sense but if they fail miserably, should we double down and try it again?  Policy isn’t like launching rockets or breaking the speed of sound. For those things, you can test, observe failure/problems and make adjustments.  For example, Chuck Yeager was…
Read More

Choose Solutions, Not Facts

By Energy Efficiency, Government, Stimulus, Sustainability, Tax Stuff No Comments
State and federal budgets are headed for the cliff to varying degrees with few exceptions.  Here in Wisconsin, we’ve had the Battle Royale fight to the death cage match with the repubs on one side and the unions on the other while the dems were hiding out in a witness protection plan. Meanwhile at the federal level, we are on a dangerous trajectory unseen in my lifetime.  People have whined about the deficit and debt since my adolescence – the Miracle on Ice days against the Soviet Union.  I kept saying, “It’s not a problem.  It’s not a problem.”  Why? …
Read More

Pregnant Snake Armpits

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus No Comments
Although I don’t appreciate talking about it, we have a black list of companies and organizations for which we will not again partner with, work with, or bid their request for proposals.  What type of activities land somebody on this list? Companies or organizations that take our business development efforts and give it to someone else. We are working on retro-commissioning for a major player in the Midwest grocery market.  As with most of our investment-grade studies for energy retrofit or retro-commissioning, we like to use contractors to provide us with pricing because we expect they will get the work…
Read More

RFPs from the Edge

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus One Comment
Last month, the one session I attended at the AESP national conference was how to write a better request for proposal (RFP).  It was sort of a forum led by our friends at Tetra Tech.  Essentially, it was full of people like me, for whom a major responsibility is business development and marketing – responding to RFPs.  For a while I sat there like a lump, thinking, eh, just deal with it and quit whining.  Toward the end of the session I started getting fired up. Here are some guidelines for writing RFPs: If you’ve already decided who you are…
Read More

Green Jacket, Cigar, Gold Rings, and Disneyland

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, LEED, Renewable Energy, Stimulus, Sustainability One Comment
I attended the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance last week and it was an interesting environment, to say the least.  This was the 4th or 5th MEEA conference I have attended. Behavioral stuff is an up and coming topic/issue in the EE industry.  I am planning to do a rant that to save energy, people have to give a crap.  I just need something to push me over the edge.  After all, just about all lasting energy efficiency requires behavioral changes.  Only inanimate, stationary, non-energy consuming stuff, e.g., insulation, doesn’t require behavior change.  Everything else has a behavioral component for maintenance,…
Read More

Feral Cat, What Say You?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, LEED, Stimulus, Sustainability One Comment
Back in August I came close to posting a blog “Enough of the Empire State Building Already” but that one faded away.  In case you never read anything about energy savings and sustainability, the building is undergoing a $20 million renovation to improve energy efficiency.  The project would shave the facility’s $11 million energy bill (a cool $4 per square foot) by 38%.  Johnson Control ran ads in every trade magazine I get and various publications, including major newspapers, ran articles by the dozens. Coming in a close second to the Empire State Building was the Northland Pines High School…
Read More

Cool Milk, Raisin Bran, and I’m Fine

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus, Sustainability One Comment
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…
Read More