Energy Rant

Aug 17

Of Car Dealers and Bathroom Tissue

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

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…

Jul 20

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A Frivolous Novelty

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Renewable Energy, Stimulus, Sustainability 9 Comments

For this week’s publication, I was trying to think of an expensive, short-lived, duplicative, inconvenient, limited use, frivolous novelty. Did I mention expensive? After a half-hour of wonderment, the best I could do is a Homer Simpson bottle opener. But really the Homer Simpson bottle opener will last longer and at least be useful (note, I didn’t say serve it’s purpose, which is to make people laugh) probably for a far longer period than the electric car. Twenty years ago “they” were talking about developing electric cars, I guess to save us from carbon dioxide, but I don’t recall the…

Jun 29

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Planet of the Alpha Ape – EE Killer

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, LEED No Comments

I know next to nothing, no, make that nothing about anthropology. However, on several occasions I have read that throughout the animal kingdom, every social group, pack, pod, litter, colony, team, board of supervisors, has an alpha that leads the bunch. This holds true for humans although the outward authority of the alpha differs a lot from one group to another. Take for example a board of directors for a non-profit, a school board, and for-profit enterprises. The alpha may simply guide discussions at meetings, keep things on track and moving along and assist the group in coming to a…

Jun 22

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LEED and Immortality

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, LEED, Sustainability No Comments

I was recently reading a letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal where the reader blasted ag biotech companies like Dow Chemical and Monsanto for creating “superweeds”. Monsanto transformed crop farming with the development of Roundup herbicide, which kills practically anything with roots but is otherwise quite benign (oxymoron alert). They later developed genetically modified seeds for plants that are immune to the weed killer. But weeds, like bacteria, have morphed to become immune to Roundup. The letter goes on to compare the superweeds to antibiotic–resistant organisms. Except, nobody is going to be killed by a superweed. So…

Jun 01

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Oil Slick Musings

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant, Government, Sustainability No Comments

It’s been about a month since I prognosticated and reflected on the BP disaster in the golf. Let’s see how things have unfolded. My predictions: Political food fight Underestimated disaster Lack of “what if” on BPs part Where is the outrage? First, I said politicians would engage in a political food fight while Rome burns. Sure enough, less than a week after that post, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee assembled a dog and pony show to poke executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton with a stick in the eye. Actually, it was like a dog show alright –…

May 04

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Disaster in the Gulf

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant, Government, Sustainability No Comments

Like millions of people around the world, I have been following the slow nightmare that is unfolding in the gulf. Many topics and thoughts come to mind. First, our company mission is “make every project a positive experience for our clients”. It’s simple but guides everything we do. When there is a potential mistake or an angry client calling or emailing us complaining about something we are involved with, it’s a code red in our office. Engineers and managers meet immediately to plot the course of events leading to where we are and we clearly define the problem and plot…

Apr 27

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Greenpeace – Don’t Let Facts Get in the Way

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Renewable Energy, Sustainability No Comments

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…

Apr 20

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Wind Energy and the Utility Business Model

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant, Government, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Utility Stuff One Comment

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…

Feb 03

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Jacque – Fix My Car

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments

There is a running joke in our business that electrical engineers don’t know anything about energy efficiency. It is only a joke. One of the sharpest energy guys I have interviewed was a physics major who started on the ground floor of an energy efficiency consulting firm filling orders of equipment they also happened to sell. In 10 years he worked his way up to really understanding how buildings and their complex systems work and he became a manager of a team of energy engineers teaching his group how buildings work and how to model them. This article made laugh…

Nov 03

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The More You Spend, The More You Save

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant, LEED, Retrocommissioning (RCx) 2 Comments

Talk about an oxymoron. Years ago this was a favorite saying of my roommate and I as we lambasted dopey ads on TV, on paper, or over the airwaves. Fewer years ago, once I got into this energy efficiency profession, I was speaking with a utility energy-efficiency program guy who frequently interacts with regulators. This was during a stakeholder meeting for quantifying energy saving potential by sector and by technology. (technology = lighting, furnaces, chillers, etc.) Knowing buildings systems rarely work as they are supposed to, I asked, “Have you considered retrocommissioning (RCx) as an energy efficiency program?” His answer…

Are You Serious About the Climate Apocalypse?

Of Car Dealers and Bathroom Tissue

A Frivolous Novelty

Planet of the Alpha Ape – EE Killer

LEED and Immortality

Oil Slick Musings

Disaster in the Gulf

Wind Energy and the Utility Business Model

Jacque – Fix My Car

The More You Spend, The More You Save

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