Anthony is a Principal at Light Partnership, a communications firm dedicated to helping companies in the Energy Efficiency and renewables space.
He has worked with Cambridge Energy Alliance for the last 15 months on a variety of web and graphic design projects.
You know when they are publishing energy saving tips for the financial bigwigs who read Forbes, things are getting serious. we encourage you to read the whole list, but number 3 struck us as particularly noteworthy:
3. Switch off phantom power. Plug any electronic equipment and appliances with clocks or timers into power strips you can conveniently turn off. As much as 75 percent of electricity used by home electronics is consumed when devices are (supposedly) turned off. Look for the Energy Star logo and choose the most efficient model you can when buying new appliances.
The details of an interesting program to encourage energy efficiency in Utah just crossed our desk here at Warm Home Cool Planet.
The Energy Services Efficiency Program… eases the financial burden of making large changes that lower the energy load on the power grid, such as better insulation, more efficient air conditioning systems and improved swimming pool pumps.The rebates could pay more than $500 for improved attic insulation, $350 for a new air conditioning unit and up to $125 for a better swimming pool pump.
Warm Home Cool Planet supports this idea because it achieves two things. It ties the reduction of energy use in each house to specific improvements, and it helps the homeowner make the capital investment in what are becoming tough times for all. Looking at the photo below, it seem like the folks in Utah are getting with the program too:
Larry Morrison, also with Morrison Insulation, said when he learned about such rebates last year, he started alerting all of his customers to the possible benefits. He said it costs about 50 cents per square foot for a typical installation, while rebate programs would reimburse for 35 cents per square foot – as both the St. George and Questar programs do.
If you’re like Warm Home Cool Planet, you’ve probably seen a lot of ads on TV with the little green ‘we’ logo. This is part of a campaign from an organization called REPOweR AMERICA. It’s all part of a plan to build up grass roots support for developing alternative energy and putting it on the grid. Al Gore wants to send a message to your local congressman. Let them know we need to include the development of alternate energy in the economic stimulus plan being developed by the Obama Administration. You’ve seen what the power of Internet can do for politics. Let’s see what it can do for our country-and our planet.
As part of the Obama administration’s Economic Recovery Plan, the Senate Finance Committee today passed 31 billion in tax breaks and other incentives to boost alternative supplies and promote energy savings. Warm Home Cool Planet feels this is a step in the right direction.
When compared to the estimated 97 to 215 billion spent per year in military expenses needed to secure oil and natural gas reserves around the globe, though, that 31 billion seems more modest. Some of the things the money will go toward include:
Doubling the number of plug-in electric vehicles eligible for a purchaser’s tax credit to 500,000.
Increase the tax credit for service stations that install pumps that dispense alternative energy fuels.
Give homeowners a tax credit equal to 30 percent (capped at $1,500) of the amount they paid for energy savings improvements.
Authorize $1.6 billion in new clean renewable energy bonds to finance facilities that generate electricity from wind, biomass, geothermal, small irrigation, hydropower, landfill gas, ocean currents and trash burning.
Allow states to issue $2.4 billion in conservation tax credit bonds to finance loans and grants to individual homeowners to retrofit existing housing.
Provide individuals with a 30 percent uncapped tax credit for buying solar water heating property, small wind energy property and geothermal heat pumps.
The Democratic-controlled Congress hopes to work out differences between the Senate and House economic stimulus bills and have a final package on Obama’s desk for his signature into law by February 16.
While Warm Home Cool Planet was setting up our new web server last week, we missed Time Magazine’s cover story that declared energy efficiency the most immediate and effective way to lessen energy demands and–perhaps–innovate our way out of recession. To which we can only say ditto. [read more]
Human beings have been tinkering with the environment since the invention of fire. Civilization can be seen as an unintended side-effect of humanity’s earliest geo-engineering— irrigating primordial floodplains as we moved from hunting-gatherer to agricultural societies.
Large-scale, intentional geo-engineering designed to counter-effect all the unintended consequences of our carbon-intensive energy systems are now being seriously studied.
Having spent decades battling acid rain and sulfur emissions, the idea of piping hundreds of millions of tons of sulfur into the upper atmosphere to simulate a volcanic eruption feels wrong.
Our personal favorite? The Hugo-Gernsbackian cloud-making fleets. Reflective clouds of vaporized sea-water seems a lot less toxic, and more easily reversible than mimicking volcanoes. Plus, they’re cool looking.
Dr. Seuss designed fleet of gigantic cloud ships saves the planet!
But should global warming pass a tipping point, and enter into a positive feedback loop, well, some of these ideas might suddenly seem more practical. Particularly to those of us living in coastal regions.
Humanity’s track record with accidentally messing-up ecosystems (the transportation of invasive species,human-caused desertification) guarantee that, should we be lucky enough to live in a geoengineered world, we will doubtless experience the apocryphal Chinese curse. Interesting times indeed.
I think we can all agree 2008 was an historic and constantly surprising year:
The folks over at Marketing Profs also noted 2008 was the year major companies and major brands saw that terms like carbon footprints, CO2 emissions, alternative energy and energy efficiency weren’t going away. OK, so Warm Home Cool Planet is now part of the mainstream. What does that mean and where can we expect ‘green’ marketing to go in 2009.
Here are the some of the trends worth noting:
Green campaigns are being created and awarded. On the other hand, organizations who engage in ‘greenwashing’ (i.e. making false claims about their environmental record or the carbon footprint of their products) will be found out and called out by the many watchdog and activist groups using the Internet to make life difficult for these companies.
The bottled water industry has taken a beating recently as people began to realize there was something wrong with drinking a bottle of water transported from thousands of miles away when there is perfectly good drinking water coming out of tap just a few feet away. This kind of information-the kind that changes consumer perceptions–and behavior–is now being shared on the web at lightning speed.
If the car industry in America is ever going to make a comeback it will have to be within the next four years. They are in position to be first to market with an entirely electric car, which if it gains widespread acceptance will help them meet tougher emissions standards. If a universal health care plan is passed, it will also allow Detroit to compete with car companies located in countries where employers do not have to add employee healthcare costs to the price of their products.
In other words, despite the grim economics news, there is enough financial incentive, consumer demand, technological innovation and government assistance to make green products and the marketing of those products grow even more prevalent in 2009.
With energy savings of up to 80% over Halogen, retrofitting your MR16 track lighting with LEDs would seem to be a no-brainer. The problem is, well, it’s complicated. The prices on this type of lighting are falling fast, and the bottom line is; making a big investment now might not make sense.
According to Wikipedia, there are few standards for MR16 and MR11 compatible LED lamps, and with a large variety of designs varying significantly in beam control, light quality, efficiency and luminous power, getting the right light for your model of track lighting may be difficult. Or impossible. Most LEDs run on DC current; halogens most often run on 12 volt AC current. So your bulb will need to have an integrated rectifier.
If this is all greek to you, it’s probably not the greatest idea to tackle this solo.
Think twice before placing a huge wholesale order from the Pacific Rim. With reputable sources selling dimmable LED halogen replacements for 30-70 dollars a bulb, you have to wonder about the longevity of a 10 or 15 dollar generic knock-off.
In the pioneering spirit of Warm Home Cool Planet, we appointed ourselves guinea pig and ordered fifty bucks worth of the, ah… affordable bulbs to test in one of our living rooms. We’ll keep you posted on the results.
We’re looking forward to these bulbs hitting the mainstream residential market in the next few years. Stay tuned to this channel.
