This was a dopey high school cheer of my older brother’s and sister’s sporting days in high school. “Go bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Go bananas!” How lame. What does it mean? I much preferred, “Watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon rind. Look at the scoreboard and see who’s behind. You! You! You! You!” This was always led by the rowdy crowd after the opposing team’s cheerleaders would do a dopey skit, like the banana thing. One of the first posts I wrote was Renewable NIMBY, that people purport to be in favor of renewable energy unless they have to look at it or pay for…
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We, as an industry, have our work cut out for us in coming years. Months ago an industrial energy efficiency consortium that puts on training events held a two-day workshop on motors. Motors! Talking about the common Swingline stapler for two days would be more interesting. The efficient motor uses less energy in the amount of the difference in the reciprocals of old minus new. I.e., (1/eff – 1/eff). Multiply by nameplate horsepower then by 0.5 (don’t ask, just do it) then by annual hours of use. Bingo! There are your savings. Two days! There are more complex issues that…
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AAAAAAAAHHHH! Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off! Disclosure: I am not a nuclear physicist but I do have the equivalent of a MS degree in nuclear engineering from a classified (as in secret) U.S. nuclear laboratory. A week ago I was sitting here writing my blog in the aftermath of the Japanese devastation: Billions of dollars of damage, at least 10,000 fatalities, and parents finding their deceased children or elderly parents in smashed vehicles and destroyed buildings. What is the media absolutely obsessed with? Why of course, something they know absolutely nothing about. I have never seen…
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Like any respectable pets, our dogs Bailey and Atlas have us trained, very well. I roll out of bed on the weekend, slog downstairs to make a strong mug of coffee, light a fire (in the wood stove), sit in my chair to read the paper and then the dogs position themselves in their kennels with their entitlement look. They were trained since puppyhood to like being in their kennels so when they kennel up, they get a b-i-s-c-u-i-t. We have to spell certain things out or use aliases to avoid undesired reactions. For example, we say “There is a…
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Although I don’t appreciate talking about it, we have a black list of companies and organizations for which we will not again partner with, work with, or bid their request for proposals. What type of activities land somebody on this list? Companies or organizations that take our business development efforts and give it to someone else. We are working on retro-commissioning for a major player in the Midwest grocery market. As with most of our investment-grade studies for energy retrofit or retro-commissioning, we like to use contractors to provide us with pricing because we expect they will get the work…
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A senior sales director for MXEnergy, “the fastest growing natural gas and electricity retail provider” states, “As we observe the unrest in Egypt and other parts of the world, we recognize the volatility of the natural gas market.” What? He like many others “on both sides of the aisle” use the Middle East and our real dependence on foreign to twang the audience’s emotional strings. The goings on in Egypt will have nearly zero affect on natural gas prices here in the mainland, U.S. Why? Because nearly all of our natural gas is produced here and we import from hostile…
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Some weeks I struggle a little to decide on a topic. It isn’t for lack of topics for they are like natural gas reserves – at one time I wondered whether I’d be able to find a topic every week. But like natural gas reserves, as I “worry” about running out of topics, the topic list is vastly outstripping demand. This week it was easy. I watched the state of the union address last week, or I should say I started watching the state of the union. It doesn’t matter who is president, from Reagan through Obama, I can only…
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Last week I attended the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) national conference in Orlando at the Disney World Hilton. Thankfully, it wasn’t actually in the park – hey, I don’t know man. I would otherwise not go within 2-3 states of a crowded black hole for cash like that. The conference expo hall “infrastructure”, including booth structure consisting of pipe framing and curtain dividers, chairs, tables, power and other things is outsourced to a company that travels from venue to venue like carnies. For a couple thousand dollars or whatever, the exhibit space is all you get. A $30…
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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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As I discussed in The Delectable Light Bulb back in October, I think it is bad policy to force things onto people, or similarly banning a product that is essentially harmless. Ratcheting up the minimum energy efficiency ratio, perhaps better known as the EER or SEER of air conditioning units is one thing. The deliverable (cold air) is the same. Not so with compact fluorescent light bulbs and incandescent bulbs. The do-gooders of California lead by the Governator are “leading the nation” with the ban on incandescent light bulbs, starting this year. You can say it isn’t a ban like…
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