Recently, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released its annual state rankings for energy efficiency. We noticed Wisconsin slipped a few pegs to 16 while Iowa remains near the top at 11. The top states for EE programs include the usual suspects: California, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York. As we discussed the rankings in house, my comment was, you probably don’t want to be in the top 10 on this list because those states are on the business-unfriendly end of the spectrum. They have big EE spending congruent with heavy regulation. So you guessed it; this rant…
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I had a really bad week last week – nothing significant occurred to me in the world of EE, and nothing really enraged me or even made me snicker, although I could always rant about federal spending on EE and renewable energy. Actually, if you are so inclined, Kim Strassel from The Wall Street Journal takes it to Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, if you are interested. Who would name their kid “Mitt”? What kind of a name is that? Is that short for Mitchell? Mitt for short, with two ts? Or is it short for Mitten? Why are there…
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In 1984 was not like 1984, I talked about greeting change with gusto to win the future but with few specifics. This post will cover one such “innovative” way for all stakeholders to benefit from energy efficiency. The typical utility-sponsored energy efficiency portfolio works like this: A small percentage of billed energy consumption, aka a rider is paid by customers to fund EE programs. Programs provide incentives for energy efficient equipment and in some cases services such as studies. Evaluators determine impacts attributable to programs and make recommendations for improvement. Regulators oversee it all to help ensure consumers aren’t being…
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Warning: I am not a CPA or tax attorney, and I do not have 63 years available to determine for myself that all contents of this rant are correct. A couple years ago I wrote an Energy Brief about the need for life cycle cost analysis to make the right decisions for selecting the best option for an energy project. Since that time, we haven’t exactly been living up to this ideal, in large part because we’ve been doing a lot of work for profit-driven enterprises. Life cycle cost analysis for non-profits is pretty easy. It includes first cost, borrowing…
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Many states have opt-out provisions for major consumers of energy so these consumers do not have to pay into EE programs. The reasoning typically goes something like this: They are major users of energy so they naturally are going to cut energy cost to increase profit; they can take care of themselves They shouldn’t have to provide outside subsidies to these programs They don’t participate in the programs so why should they have to pay in The facts are these concessions are required to get EE laws (bills) through legislatures and/or governors. Consider that typical opt-out regulations require that these…
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I swear we were introduced to the food pyramid when I was in grade school but a little web searching gives me just a couple – the one from 1992 and the new and improved one in 2005.The 1992 edition is shown in Figure 1. If you can’t read it, good. The 2005 vertical colorful edition with the stickman and skewers for hands and feet is shown in Figure 2. For 2011 (Figure 3), the USDA has switched to this brilliant “plate” that looks like a pie chart developed by a group of kindergarteners employed by Microsoft, except I really…
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We interrupt this rant for this special announcement. Our cold spring in the northern plains is wreaking havoc in the form of tornadoes in the southern and middle parts of the country. I think the weather phenomena had a lot to do with my interest in mechanical engineering. Growing up on the farm in the flatlands, I had seen a great many black clouds approaching on the horizon. As they drew closer, they would either brighten to a lighter gray and rain, or they get ugly. If the approach is led by a dark band of clouds followed by blue-green…
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Now that I’m an old man, defined as being over 40 years of age, career half over, graduated from college 20 years ago, kids of classmates are graduating from high school, kids born when I was partying in college are graduating from college, and other depressing facts, I can say experience in anything can be almost worthless and in some cases, it is worth less than nothing. At Michaels, we have interfaced with engineers, particularly ones who were in sales and it was stunning how little they knew about buildings, control systems and how equipment and systems use energy. It…
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It seems like every time I visit my mother, at some point, maybe the night I arrive or the next morning over coffee, she starts dumping the local rubbish on me. So and so are “separated”. What’s her name is pregnant. Jimmy got busted for a DUI. Ronnie has cancer. I went to four funerals last week. And always something about my brothers, who as you may know run a large farming operation, are taking too much risk or can’t possibly afford this or that $300,000 piece of equipment. Being the anti-gossip and direct guy that I am, I ask,…
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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? …
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