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Energy Star

Jul 30
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Bling not Required

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Rant fans are getting a break this week.  This post exemplifies a smashing success in energy efficiency and is a bit of a spinoff on capitalizing energy efficiency as I discussed in Facility Management, Taliban Style and Better than Doritos. The story begins with a board meeting for the Iowa Association for Energy Efficiency.  BTW, this is the least expensive, far and away, greatest-benefit-per-dollar-invested energy efficiency organization in the country. The board meeting was at an apartment complex, Sun Prairie, in West Des Moines or thereabouts.  As I pulled in with 134F heat at 9:30 AM, I was thinking, “Is…
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May 29
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Misguided Benchmarking

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Unfortunately, some products and services in life still require cash – coins or paper.  Some of the last places I use these anachronisms include taxis, and… and tips, or an occasional soda machine.  Oh and the beloved antique parking meters and toll roads in some places.  Here is something to consider: if the meter only takes coins, skip it.  You’ll spend $50 of your time finding a few bucks of quarters somewhere and running to the meter every hour or two – all to save a $10 parking ticket. A few times a year when traveling with others, we need…
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Jan 30
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Dodging the Absurd

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
In Stalin Lives, I mentioned our plan for securing an ENERGY STAR® clothes washer and dryer for our house.  What I did not mention was that the local appliance stores do not even stock gas-heated dryers. Think about how stupid it is to generate electricity with maybe 35% thermal efficiency, lose 10% of it to line losses, as discussed last week, in it’s transport to the home and then use this high-value energy as a toaster coil to dry clothes.  We, as well as I am sure millions of households, use “gas”, natural gas in our case and propane in…
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Jan 16
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Replacing the Burger

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Sustainability 2 Comments
The race is on to develop and deliver next generation successful energy efficiency programs.  There is indeed innovation in the marketplace.  The days of what I call “hamburger selling” will end, probably in the next decade.  Selling EE in these cases is like selling hamburgers – who can sell the most and the cheapest hamburgers that people will eat.  The product is unsophisticated – lighting, primarily.  The market is huge and opportunities ubiquitous.  Marketing and selling the burger is the name of the game and will be for a few more years. In the past five years, energy efficiency has…
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Jan 09
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Stalin Lives

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
Various areas of the country have various weird oddities.  When we moved to the La Crosse area last decade, or the one before that, we found that apartments come with laundry hookups but no washer and dryer.  What the?  How about a friggin wash machine and dryer to fill that hole and plug into those pipes and wall socket?  So we went to a now defunct appliance joint and picked up an Amana washer and dryer – electric of course because a rental joint isn’t going to provide natural gas. I think I’ve finally talked my wife into getting the…
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Jan 18
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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,…
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Jul 13
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The Nebulous Green Job

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, LEED, Renewable Energy, Stimulus, Sustainability One Comment
“Green jobs” have been all the buzz for quite some time, probably before Barack Obama was elected president, but I don’t know for sure.  What the heck is a green job anyway?  Some real answers include those like we have at Michaels Engineering with 20+ engineers working full time on real energy-saving projects.  Another example is the guy who operates the humongous crane that helps erect humongous wind turbines. But politicians and academic eggheads aren’t talking about jobs like we have at Michaels, although they probably do agree the crane driver has a green job, but it goes far beyond…
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May 25
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EE Lemmings

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff No Comments
Automobiles have really changed over the past 30 years, and in some ways for the worse.  Back in the 1970s before hardly anyone purchased imports, imports were small and domestic vehicles were hulking behemoths.  Then it was the second, or was it the third or fourth – doesn’t matter – energy crisis hit in the late 1970s and domestic cars shrunk in a big way.  The Ford Mustang went from a muscle car to feeble runt.  A 1982 Mustang was the first car I owned.  It was also by far the crappiest car I ever owned. This was the first…
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Apr 06
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Energy Star Black Eye

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Sustainability No Comments
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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Dec 22
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Beer or Air

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, LEED, Sustainability No Comments
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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All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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