As I created Widget Man last week I couldn’t get Elton John’s Rocket Man out of my head, so naturally I started to think parody. A warm up may be good to get your rhythm. Willie Widget Man goes sumpin ike iss: They set my goals so high, I cried Two percent, holy crap! Why they gotta be high as a kite like that? I miss the fruit so low, I miss old code It’s not easy for me now It’s such a mindless rite And I think it’s gonna be a damn hard time No light bulbs anywhere for…
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Widgetitis: Obsessive compulsion to build canals with teaspoons – or meet program goals with showerheads. A short story about economist Milton Friedman from The Wall Street Journal sort of sets the stage for effectively meeting program/portfolio goals in big chunks: “Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which…
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Last week we looked at the financial benefits of energy efficiency as compared to the stock market. I’m going to take this a few steps further, as forewarned last week.In both cases we start with the $39,000 investment and the stock market simply grows at its long-term average of 7.5% (Dow Jones Industrials). Obviously, a smooth appreciation of your investment is not the case and if you don’t have a strong stomach, you should avoid equities. Why is it called the Dow Jones Industrial Average anyway? It’s full of service companies, banks, and retailers. It includes Microsoft, but not Apple,…
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Possibly the greatest thing about energy efficiency is there is no limit to learning. In what other occupation can engineers work with social scientists, urban planners, economists and 16th century Mongolian art majors? Last week I attended a presentation by Christopher Russell, energy efficiency and finance swami, or is it guru? The higher ranking one. Or maybe I should just call him Colonel Russell. His presentation started with the tale of two college campus facility managers, Doug and Dave as I recall, with names changed to protect the guilty. I’ll call them Dick and Harry for double protection. It doesn’t…
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The New Scientist published an article by an economist saying that now is the perfect time to implement “long-overdue environmental regulations requiring US power plants to reduce emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic metals”. And the added cost will be a boon to the economy. That’s what the textbooks say, so it must be right! As the article states in one place, yes, retrofitting power plants will create jobs somewhere, and the higher cost will be passed on to consumers. Do they equally offset on a macroeconomic level? I severely doubt it but no one can prove that. In…
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We are from the government and we are here to help. Kaboom! That would be my door slamming in their collective faces. A number of years ago, and just recently I was reminded of it again, the federal government was selling it’s handouts to citizens – actually advertising free stuff, food or services are common. This is perverted. We do not have people starving in the streets of this country and this is a lock because if we did, the media would be all over it like flies on watermelon rinds. Quite the opposite: we have a type 2 diabetes…
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This week I was gleeful to find American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy released a study on my two favorite subjects on which to rant: taxes and energy efficiency! Yeah! I blogged about tax-distorting effects of EE about a year ago in EE V IRS,with many of the same arguments noted in the recent ACEEE paper. The ACEEE paper points out that: Since the cost of energy is a business expense, it is tax deductible and therefore, the tax code penalizes to the tune of 35% the bottom line improvement from saving energy. As I mentioned in EE V…
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A few weeks back in Evil v Clueless, I attempted to clarify populist, rhetorical BS that crops up in times of rising gasoline prices. True to form, a couple really stupid death-spiral proposals have surfaced: ending “tax breaks” for oil companies and reigning in speculators. Bashing big oil has surfaced this gem again: we need to end tax breaks/subsidies for big oil. The angry mob of medieval grunts raise their clubs and swords to the air and roar approval. The “tax breaks” they are talking about are the same ones every company in the US uses and rightly so: depreciation…
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One of the most rewarding aspects of our business is ensuring people get it right and customers get the legitimate energy and monetary savings they should be receiving. My answer to “why should we pick you?” is: we are passionate about what we do; we get things right; and we want to make a difference – improve things. The problem occurs when others don’t give a rip about these things. Michaels’ primary thrust in the evaluation arena is impact evaluation, which is – what difference does the program make? The questions are (1) what is happening versus what would have…
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Remember the old kooks who thought they knew better, gave you stupid rules, and warned you about things you would come to regret because you ignored them? They were your parents. If you are old enough, maybe a parent yourself, or maybe not, you should realize that OMG! I’ve turned into my parents! It’s wisdom through experience and in particular from making mistakes and failure. As a supervisor, one thing I learned, and is unfortunately a fact of life, is that you have to let staff make their own mistakes because no matter how many times you tell people not…
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