Related Posts for Energy efficiency
April 23, 2010
By Kyle Hopkins at the Anchorage Daily News: Two prototype homes, one designed for the state’s wind-beaten coast and one for the Arctic, will be built in remote villages this summer as researchers look for low-cost answers to the housing crunch in rural Alaska. In rainy Quinhagak, where a recent report found that dozens of 1970s-era houses may be rotting and potentially unsafe to live in, the village plans to build an easy-to-heat, eight-sided home meant to resemble traditional Yup’ik dwellings. The three-bedroom house could cut energy bills by 50 percent and cost as little as $200,000 to build, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. Read more
April 21, 2010
By James Cartledge at brightenergy.org: Organic food retailer Whole Foods Market has announced a plan to cut its energy consumption by 25% per square foot by 2015. The company, which has its HQ in Austin, Texas, has been supporting wind energy projects through the purchase of renewable energy credits for the past three years, and as well as continuing this strategy said it will make its stores more efficient. New stores are being designed to be more energy efficient, with Colorado’s South Glenn store using roughly 35% less energy than two older stores nearby in its first few months and the Santa Barbara store in California using 45% less energy than a comparable store.
Whole Foods has been working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of a Retail Energy Alliance partnership with the US Department of Energy to test and develop more efficient buildings. The aim of that work is to design a building that is 50% more efficient than current efficiency codes require. Read more
March 15, 2010
Here’s some good news……
By Kate Galbraith at the New York Times Green Inc. blog: While solar and wind manufacturers struggle to fend off Chinese competition, energy efficiency equipment seems to have no such problem. According to a recent study commissioned by efficiency advocates, equipment like caulking and insulation — basic tools for retrofitting the country’s homes and businesses — is almost entirely made in the United States. About 96 percent of caulking used domestically is made here, the study said, and various types of attic and wall insulation, as well as spray foam and duct sheet metal, are all over 90 percent American-manufactured. Even 96 percent of replacement windows for American buildings are made here. Read more
January 11, 2010
By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times
When octogenarian Arthur H. Rosenfeld vacates his utilitarian office at the California Energy Commission this week, one of his final tasks might seem of little consequence: He’ll turn off the lights. But that simple act — some would say compulsion — has transformed California into a world leader in energy efficiency.
California homes are loaded with personal computers, widescreen TVs, iPods, PlayStations, air conditioners, massive refrigerators, hot tubs and swimming pool pumps. Despite that, Golden State residents today use about the same amount of electricity per capita that they did 30 years ago. For that, they can largely thank Rosenfeld, a slight, bespectacled nuclear physicist fueled by a passion to wring the most out of every kilowatt. Polite and affable, with a knack for making science understandable to people who couldn’t screw in a lightbulb, Rosenfeld, starting in the 1970s, provided California energy regulators the data they needed to enact some of the toughest efficiency standards in the world. Read more
December 23, 2009
*This story’s interactive graphics showing the different techniques to make energy-neutral buildings are worth a click. Lots of good ideas.
From Jim Carlton at the Wall Street Journal: The green building movement is targeting a goal once thought virtually unattainable: zero net energy use. While the trend is nascent, dozens of “net zero” and “near net zero” developments — projects designed to use only about as much power from the public grid as they can save or produce on their own — have sprung up across the U.S. over the past five years.
In Greenfield, Mass., nonprofit Rural Development Inc. has completed eight of 20 planned duplex homes that use almost no net energy. In Berkeley, Calif., ZETA Communities Inc. plans to build a 30-unit net-zero apartment building after opening a factory that can construct 400 to 500 prefabricated net-zero homes a year. And in Green Valley, Ariz., builder Pepper Viner Homes says it plans to incorporate green techniques into a senior housing community so that it reduces energy use more than 50%. U.S. officials are working to wean federal buildings off fossil fuel by 2020, a step they say will help the buildings become almost net-zero energy users. Read more
October 27, 2009
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the DOE national laboratories are releasing technical support documents that suggest how to achieve 50% energy savings in four key commercial building sectors – general merchandise, grocery store, lodging, and medium office buildings. This is taking place less than two years after launching the Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative, which aims to achieve marketable net-zero energy commercial buildings by 2025. The technical support documents, which include specific recommendations for reducing energy use, were created by the DOE national laboratories under the direction of DOE’s Building Technologies Program. To read more, and to download the reports which include specific recomme, click here
October 21, 2009
The New York Times’ Green Inc. Blog reports on a study ranking states by energy efficiency: California again claims the prize for most energy-efficient state, while Wyoming is holding steady in last place, according to new rankings from an efficiency advocacy group. Massachusetts has leaped from seventh in last year’s rankings to second, and Maine rose from 19th place to crack the top 10 for the first time, according to the survey, which was conducted by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Read more
October 2, 2009
Anchorage mayor Dan Sullivan announced an emergency plan for averting a gas crisis this winter that unaddressed could leave homes in Southcentral without electricity and heat. The plan got lots of coverage so I won’t go into details here beyond giving you the links to the stories. The gist of the problem is that on a really cold winter day, when demand for heat and electricity spikes, there won’t be enough gas to maintain pressure in the lines. Too little pressure and the gas stops flowing, kind of like how a balloon loses its oomph as it deflates. The emergency plan involves monitoring the pressure, and putting out public alerts to have utilities and residents cut back their energy usage before we reach critical point.
Alaska Dispatch
APRN
Anchorage Daily News
October 2, 2009
Requests for those FREE Kill-A-Watt energy meters are piling up fast. The waiting list, as of today, is up to 65 people at the Anchorage library. That’s just a few days after media reports about the program (started by Eagle Scout Garrison Wilts), which lets you check the energy meters out from the library. The meters are simple to use. You plug them into your appliances and, on the display, it shows you just how much energy that refrigerator, lamp or old freezer uses. Once you have those numbers, you can figure out if it’s time to replace that old Frigidaire. For more information, see this story from the Anchorage Daily News. To get on the waiting list for an energy meter, go to anchoragelibrary.org. Click on “search the catalog” and type in “energy monitor.”
October 1, 2009
There may be few better places to test energy-efficient home building than in Anaktuvuk Pass, which lies above the Arctic Circle and is known for its cold temperatures. The average temperature in January is minus 14 degrees. Now more villages may be following Anaktuvuk’s lead, according to this story by Alex Demarban of Alaska Newspapers which talks about a super efficient home recently built in Anaktuvuk and and plans for an upcoming housing design forum in Point Lay that will be hosted by the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. Read more
ADN reporter Kyle Hopkins also wrote about problems with housing in Quinhagak on his The Village blog with this link to some pictures of the Anaktuvuk home.
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