Back in the day when I was in the nuclear Navy, Greenpeace was not so infrequently pulling stunts like running their zodiacs up on the top of submarine hulls to make their unfounded statements of radiation releases to the environment. Since 9/11, you can bet they stopped this practice. Even back in the early 1990s the hatch was guarded by a burly guy sporting a short barrel shotgun with the largest shell chamber I’ve ever seen. Stopping power. The fact is, the US Navy runs the cleanest nuclear plants in the world with thousands of operating reactor YEARS and not…
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The masses want power on demand without interruption or failure. They want it at a practically negligible cost and more so every year, they want it without emissions or other unpleasant byproducts. In the upper Midwest, energy without emissions means wind energy. Wind energy sounds great. It’s “free”. No emissions. But it comes with a load of drawbacks compared to conventional sources of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. First, utilities can’t count on it for peak load generation. I searched a while for this and found nothing but the bottom line is there is no guarantee there will be any…
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For years, beginning in the 1990s through just a few years ago I considered ENERGY STAR® to be fluffy foo foo feel good goo – kind of like eating meringue smothered in corn syrup after chopping wood all day. Then they introduced the ENERGY STAR rated homes and ENERGY STAR rated commercial buildings. Both of these seem to be solid “programs”. ENERGY STAR for commercial buildings is based on energy intensity, which is energy consumption per square foot, climate region, type of facility and a few other things. To “earn the ENERGY STAR” commercial buildings must be in the 75th…
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Thousands, make that millions of people, including some smart people and congress people, when talking solutions for our energy efficiency low-carbon future are continuously babbling about “technology” that will save us all. Bill Gates says we need Miracles. Whadahyou talking about man? The White House announces $130 million for a new building energy efficiency effort - “a multi-agency initiative to spur regional economic growth while making buildings more energy efficient.” It will be “an Energy Innovation Hub focused on developing new technologies to improve the design of energy-efficient building systems”. Get ready for cold fusion to reemerge. Let me tell…
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Carbon taxes or cap and trade seem to have been a foregone conclusion in our industry of energy efficiency. I’m not so sure. I, like many other engineers in the energy efficiency business have always been cynical about global warming, which for some reason is now known as climate change. I would argue that a relatively small portion of anti-carbon people are true believers, that carbon is having or will have a significant effect on the climate and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the vast majority of people and organizations who…
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Some of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or “stimulus”) targets energy efficiency and green jobs training. Wisconsin just announced $2 million in green jobs training. Oregon: $6 million. First off, I’m skeptical of these curricula. Who will be teaching? What is the curriculum? At a cost of about $6,000 per graduate, it’s close to one year of in-state tuition and fees at a public university. Wow. Who is going to attend these courses? I would say a significant portion would be laid off construction workers and skilled trades workers. Once they are trained to weatherize homes, which does…
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Last week these columns featured Wal-Mart and its silencing of critics via green and sustainable business practices. Are they really saving energy compared to their peers? Skylights, dimming fluorescent lights, and LED refrigerated case lights triggered by occupancy sensors – but what’s the totality? Lexus makes hybrid vehicles. One is a $110,000 sedan with a 5 liter V8 with fighter-jet horsepower weighing in at 20 miles per gallon. A Caterpillar earth mover may get that kind of highway mileage. The point is, a facility / organization can be green in name only. Note that in no way am I inferring…
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Unless you were living in a cave four or five years ago, you know Wal-Mart was under relentless assault by, I’ll just call them activists. Complaints included: They weren’t providing health care to enough people. They weren’t paying overtime. Their goods were manufactured in sweat shops overseas. When unions tried to organize their meat cutting operations, Wal-Mart exited the meat cutting business. Their executives were making too much money. The company was making too much money. Part of the real gripe was that Wal-Mart had saturated the rural and small town markets and they had started to impinge into larger…
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