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Feb 04
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DoGooder Equity

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
Upon reading some manager/principal/owner interviews in business publications, the publisher asks, “What keeps you awake at night?”  My answer to that would be: Nothing.  The reason for this is utilities are regulated monopolies and the energy efficiency program portfolios they run are cost effective.  I.e., we, as an industry, are contributing to net wealth generation for consumers and not just redistributing it – it’s EE or power plants, poles and wires and either way, the consumer pays, and we are helping them pay less. A major reason I am a huge advocate of EE programs is that they are cost…
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Oct 22
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Retro-commissioning Savings

Old School EE

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Retrocommissioning (RCx), Tax Stuff, Utility Stuff One Comment
Forging on from last week’s Arthur Fonzarelli crash into Arnold’s chicken stand, this week I will posit some challenges and problems presented with state takeovers of energy efficiency programs.  Per last week’s post, Wisconsin has fallen from 8th place in the nation to 17th place since the state essentially took over its energy efficiency programs.  This is according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, ACEEE, a well respected national think tank (my term) and advocacy organization for energy efficiency. One problem is the money moves further away from where it is collected.  The further program spending is…
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Sep 10
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Delta Lambda Jamba Effect

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
I was recently pushed over the edge again by multiple opinion pieces declaring that energy efficiency is a waste of time and money because of rebound effect.  Rebound basically means that if consumers buy an efficient appliance, car, or light bulb, they will simply use it more and therefore save less, or even use more energy at the proverbial “end of the day”. First in this series was an opinion piece from a Cal State Fullerton professor published in The Wall Street Journal.  Below is my response to the journal: Robert J. Michaels’ commentary on August 20th suggests energy efficiency…
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Sep 04
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Free Riding Poachers

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about nationalizing pieces of energy efficiency programs, namely technical resource manuals from which energy impacts (savings) and measure costs are derived.  The post explained why this is a bad idea for a number of reasons.  This week features chaos at the state level. It seems states with their energy efficiency policies are parallel to people who go to Washington DC and operate in the alternate universe inside the beltway.  The longer they exist, the more schizophrenic and/or demented and/or dysfunctional they become. Utilities are forced, for lack of a better term, by regulators to meet…
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Aug 20
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Tea Party On, Dudes

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff No Comments
Jeff Erickson of Navigant Consulting presented an interesting paper at last week’s American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Summer Study for Buildings.  The title was, “Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Battle over Energy Efficiency.”  I thought it was just clever (aka bait and switch) advertising, but the presentation featured, almost exclusively, how the free market, small government tea party and the profit-bad, regulation-good occupiers might view energy efficiency. The tea party would favor consumer choice for incandescent light bulbs and gas guzzlers over government regulation of these common, and other uncommon for that matter, consumer goods. …
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Aug 13
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GHG and NG

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
E Source reported last week that green house gas (GHG) emissions are falling fast in this country, as shown in the chart nearby.  Emissions tanked with the economy in 2009, and as I recall, the summer of 2009 was also cool, resulting in lower electricity sales.  Even so, when adjusted for economic output, GHGs are falling fast. The reason for this is rather obvious if one follows the electricity market.  It is much easier to get a natural gas power plant approved for construction as compared to a coal-fired plant.  I have not done the analysis myself, but it is reported…
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Aug 06
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Nationalize EE – Boooo!

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff 2 Comments
The widget world of energy efficiency is governed by the Technical Resource Manual, or TRM.  A technical resource manual includes energy calculations requiring baselines and efficient equipment specifications, hours of use, and duty cycles.  It also includes cost differences for baseline and efficient equipment.  Costs and savings from TRMs are used across the board for mass market, and even in some cases large, far too large in my opinion, equipment. Technical resource manuals may be held at the state level, which may apply to all programs/utilities in the state, or at the utility level.  Some in our industry are advocating…
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Apr 02
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A Radical Idea

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Tax Stuff, Utility Stuff One Comment
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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Mar 26
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Petroloons

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Tax Stuff, Utility Stuff No Comments
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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Feb 27
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Evil V Clueless

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus, Sustainability, Tax Stuff 2 Comments
This week I have an I-can’t-take-it-anymore topic: gasoline prices.  It is not the gasoline prices that chap me, but the pouting, mud throwing, food fights, whining and probably worst of all the stupid solutions to the so-called problems. Gasoline is like any other product or service that is a must-have in society and therefore, like electricity and natural gas, consumers feel entitled to all they want at a negligible price.  And by the way, why all the hype right now?  It’s around $3.50 per gallon.  Being an election year obviously feeds the flames and I guess there just isn’t enough…
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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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