Archive for Energy efficiency
October 7, 2008 at 10:22 am · Filed under Energy efficiency, Politics, Renewable Energy ·Tagged California, Prop 1, Prop 10, Prop 7
I’m not a California voter, but my father is, so he asked me my advice on the energy propositions. Here are the intiatives I see as affecting the clean energy global warming picture.
Prop 1: High Speed Rail Bonds. Yes. Rail is the most efficient form of transport we have.
Prop 7: Renewable Energy Generation Initiative Statute. Yes. This bill raises targets for CA’s RPS, but lowers the level of penalties for noncompliance. However, it does make the penalties slightly more enforcable. See CEERT for more details.
Prop 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy Bonds Initiative Statute. Nah. This bill would mainly subsidize conversion of vehicles to natural gas and subsidize natural gas transport infrastructure. This would be an improvement over gasoline, but is not renewable. It would also be a windfall for T Boone Pickens and his Pickens Plan. Clean Energy Fuels, a company which Pickens Controls (and I own some stock in) would be the greatest beneficiary… it’s also the primary funder.
In addition, there are some worries that California would be subsidizing conversion of vehicles to natural gas, and then the vehicles would leave the state. If your main concern is global warming and energy security, however, natural gas vehicles would help both, no matter where they are in the country. But it is rather unfair to ask CA to subsidize the rest of the nation. I’d like this much better if it were a national initiative, rather than just California; the fairness issue bothers me most.
My dad’s voting for Prop 10… but he’s more enthusiastic about natural gas vehicles than I am, and seems unfazed by the fairness issue.
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February 11, 2008 at 11:08 pm · Filed under Energy efficiency, Tooting my own horn ·Tagged Energy efficiency, magazine
5/24/10 note: If you’re looking for GreenerMoney.com: I have no idea where it is. However, I have written a series of free articles intended for people interested in green investing. You can find it here: Green Investing for Beginners.
The new edition of Smart Energy Living Magazine is out, including the first of a regular series of columns called “Greener Money” by Yours Truly, discussing investing in clean energy.
The new editor (Rebecca Cantwell) has totally revamped this magazine about how to live energy efficiently. My column will be familiar to readers of my blogs, but you will likely learn something about other aspects of green living. You can sign up for a free copy here.
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December 10, 2007 at 2:01 pm · Filed under AES, Energy efficiency, Health, Home Improvement
Does it seem totally unfair to you that the young, who are typically much more environmentally aware, are often stuck living in cold, drafty, unhealthy, and expensive to operate rentals, while it’s the old and the wealthy splash out on gigantic mansions with multiple low efficiency furnaces and air conditioners?
It does to me. Well, if you’re one of those green renters, you can do something about it. I’ve put together a checklist to use that can help you sift out the efficient buildings from all the cold, drafty ones.
Since it’s not really about stocks, I sent it over to Jetson Green as a guest post. But if it’s stocks that might benefit from the trend in energy efficient homes you’re looking for, I list several in the intro I wrote for it at Alternative Energy Stocks.
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October 26, 2007 at 3:09 pm · Filed under Denver Metro, Energy, Energy efficiency, Events, Nonprofits, Renewable Energy
I’m often aghast at the price conference organizers ask for people looking to
learn about alternative energy, when there are so may great inexpensive
opportunities available, sponsored by nonprofits a and other organizations
whose mission is to get the word out about our energy options. Here are
three monthly events that Denver area residents can go to… I go to most of
these regularly.
- The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Brown Bag Analysis seminar … Free, but make sure to bring photo-ID.
- The Colorado Renewable Energy Society’s Monthly Meetings. ($5 or $40 annual membership – snacks usually served afterwards.)
- The Colorado Cleantech Initiative monthly meeting. ($10 with RSVP – you get dinner & free beer.)
- Smart Energy Living Workshops (Usually about $10-15, lower with membership)
- Clean Energy Action monthly meetings (Boulder)
Please leave comments if I forgot (or don’t know about) your regular free
or almost-free event.
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October 25, 2007 at 8:03 am · Filed under Denver Metro, Energy efficiency
Once again, I’m proud to live in Denver. The new plan for electric and gas rates (if approved by voters) is one of the least expensive ways to imporve conservation measures. Link to and excerpt from Denver post article below. It will also improve the economice of net metered distributed generation.
Mayor backs ‘green’ plan for Denver
By: Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
October 24, 2007
Mayor John Hickenlooper today formally adopted Denver’s Climate Action Plan, a series of steps intended to reduce the city’s per capita greenhouse emissions 10 percent by 2012.
The plan is the result of more than a year’s work by a 33-member Greenprint Advisory Council, which studied best practices from across the country to determine the top 10 opportunities to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“With adoption of the Climate Action Plan, our real work as a community begins,” Hickenlooper said. “If there is only a 3 percent chance that 95 percent of the world’s top scientists are right about the consequences of climate change, we all have a responsibility to act now. Denver remains committed to leading by example.”
Included among the 10 recommendations are:
Incentive Energy Conservation. Subject to voter approval, it would apply a tiered rate structure to electrical and gas usage. Similar to water rate charges, tiered rates would impose a premium charge for excessive electrical and gas usage. Funds generated would support energy conservation and greenhouse gas reduction programs, especially for lower-income neighborhoods.
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September 15, 2007 at 4:16 pm · Filed under Energy efficiency, Home Improvement
I’ve accepted an offer to write an investment column for Smart Energy Living, a quarterly magazine put out by the Colorado Energy Science Center, which focuses on clean enrgy solutions for homowners.
I’ve been a subscriber since I arrived in Colorado in 2005, and I find them an excellent resource for home imporvement. They have plans to go national with the next issue, and recruiting me to write for them is part of that move.
The column will tentatively be called “Greener Money” and will focus on helping small investors green their portfolios.
You can sign up for a free copy here. If you read my blogs, there probably won’t be a lot that you’ll learn from my columns, but if you’re interested in energy efficienct home imporvement, it’s well worth getting for the other articles.
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September 7, 2007 at 10:41 am · Filed under Colorado, Denver Metro, Energy efficiency, Events, Home Improvement, Nonprofits, photovoltaics, PV, Renewable Energy, solar energy, solar thermal
Preview the Denver Tour of Solar Homes Online
The Denver area Tour of Solar Homes takes place in less than a month, and this year you can preview some of the buildings involved online.
Check out the Sneak Preview on the right-hand side of the
Tour of Solar Homes page on the CRES Web site
.
The 2007 Tour of Solar Homes will take place on Saturday, October 6 in Denver and most locations around the state. However, some of the activities are slightly different.
The Boulder tour will take place on Saturday, September 30.
And the tour in Pueblo will span two days: October 6 – 7.
See a complete listing of solar home tours in Colorado on the American Solar Energy Society Web site.
National Solar Tour
Outside of Colorado, people you can find tour in your own community by visiting the National Solar Home Tour website.
Volunteers Needed for the Tour of Solar Homes October 6
CRES needs volunteers to help with the Denver Metro-Area Tour of Solar Homes on Saturday, October 6. If you step forward, you will assist homeowner with visitors.
There are two shifts: morning from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and afternoon from noon to 4 p.m.
Volunteers are welcome to spend the half-day they are not working touring homes themselves. Volunteers are also invited to attend a workshop free of charge from 6 – 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4 titled "Solar Photovoltaics and Xcel Energy’s Solar Rewards Program" and presented by Jeff Scott of SolSource and Juliea Gauthier of Xcel Energy. The
workshops take place at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Visitor’s Center at 15013 Denver West Parkway in Golden, which is two blocks west of the Denver West Marriott at I-70 and Denver West.
Following the workshop, veteran volunteer John Avenson will give a brief orientation for volunteers about the duties the day of the
Tour of Solar Homes. To volunteer, contact Patty Roberts via email at: patty at pacificmillimeter dot com
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September 2, 2007 at 6:44 pm · Filed under biofuels, electric grid, Energy efficiency, energy storage, investing, Investing information, LEDs, PHEV
Mea Culpa, I’ve been falling behind keeping this blog updated… but most of you probably realize that the real stuff goes on at AltEnergyStocks these days. Over the last two weeks, I wrote a series of companion pieces to a series of articles that were published on energy Tech Stocks, based on a long interview Bill Paul, the writer did with me. Here’s an index to them (and they each contain links to the interview articles.)
1. Large Scale Electricy Storage
2. Plug-In Hybrids and Battery Stocks
3. & 4. Improving Transmission and my Ambivalent stance on Biofuels
5. Light Emitting Diode (LED) Stocks
6.Cellulosic Ethanol and Sustainable Forestry.
7. Alcoa and Blue Chip Stock Picks
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August 19, 2007 at 9:53 pm · Filed under AES, Compact flourescent lights, Electric Regulation, Energy efficiency, Hybrid Cars
In my Alt Energy Stocks column this week, I take a look at what business needs to do to sell energy efficiency to the consumer. I look at the examples of the Prius’s sucess, despite only marginally imporved economics over non-hybrid vehicles, the CFL’s slow path to acceptance, and difficulties in selling geothermal heat pumps. I conclude that the economics of an energy efficiency measure have very little to do about how well it sells. To find out what does, you can read more here.
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July 25, 2007 at 2:09 pm · Filed under AES, Energy efficiency, investing, Investing information
I have now posted the last two articles in my series on the WGA Energy Efficient Buildings Workshop.
The third article (here) talks about some of the “above code” standards, such as Energy Star and Built Green, why I feel the code should resemble these standards a lot more than it does now (above code should mean measures that are not viable on a pure economic basis, but that people want because it makes them feel good… when total cost of ownership is taken into account, these “above code” standards actually produce homes that are cheaper to live in and own than houses built just to code.)
I also talk about several companies that my benefit from a move to wide adoption of these above code standards, as well as from energy retrofits of existing homes.
Article number four (here), talks about the trend to performance contracting, where a building owner contracts for a certain level of service (lighting levels, temperature, etc.) with a third party, and that party upgrades the building’s efficiency, with the savings from efficiency gains not only paying the energy bills, but also paying for the upgrades (which can include solar panels and other renewable energy projects as well as energy efficiency upgrades) as well as a profit for the contractor.
Investing in Energy Efficient Homes
Investing in Performance Contracting
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July 22, 2007 at 4:00 pm · Filed under AES, Colorado, Denver Metro, Energy efficiency, Events, Politics
This week, I’ll be covering the WGA’s Energy Efficient Buildings Workshop, which took place in Denver on July 17 and 18. I have drafts of 4 articles, the first two of which are an overview of the workshop, and a Western States Energy Efficiency Political update, which I just published on AltEnergyStocks. I’ll be publishing articles on Homebuilding and Performance Contracting later this week.
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July 8, 2007 at 2:57 pm · Filed under AES, electric grid, Energy efficiency, Energy Investing, investing
Many energy advocates are concerned about the construction of new conventional electricity generation. This is not only due to the harmful effects of mining, using, and disposing of the waste from coal, natural gas, and uranium, but also because there is only so much electricity demand. My Alt Energy Stocks column this week exproles the possibility of utilites building too much conventional generation to need any renewables at all.
Utilities often say that they will have trouble meeting future demand… this was the justification for the coal plants (now mostly replaced by nuclear) planned by TXU. But these projections massively underestimate the potential of imporved energy efficiency which most studies put at about 1.2% acheivable savings per year, but I believe could be much higher with changes to the regulatory landscape.
To read the entire article, click here.
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July 1, 2007 at 7:02 pm · Filed under AES, electric grid, Energy efficiency
I forgot to post about this one, but better late than never. Here’s an article I did for AltenergyStocks on Smart Metering, and how giving people feedback about how they use eletricity can lead to better decision making.
I’ll have another article tomorrow, on rooting out stock scams (it’s easier than it sounds.)
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June 3, 2007 at 10:45 pm · Filed under AES, Energy efficiency, LEDs
This week’s AltEnergy Stocks column is about the recent, and well deserved attention the LED stocks are getting, especially one of my long-time facorites, Cree, Inc. (A stock I and many of my clients own a lot of.)
I think (and hope) that this is the beginning of a new trend of the market starting to recognize that Energy Efficiency technologies, such as LEDs are the first step to reducing our carbon footprint. If you think so too, I have a few suggestions in the column of stocks that might benefit (as well as Cree, which may have a lot farther to run.)
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May 8, 2007 at 3:59 pm · Filed under Colorado, Energy efficiency, Events, Nonprofits, Renewable Energy
Next month is the annual Colorado Renewable Energy Conference, held this year from June 8- 10, 2007 at the Steamboat Grand Hotel in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Keynote speakers are Dr. Chuck Kutscher and Patty Limerick.
CREC is a great place to fnd out what’s happeninging renewable energy in Colorado, and to network with people in the business here.
If you’re really desperate for something to do Saturday Evening from 4-5pm, you can go to a panel led by some guy named “Dr. Tom Konrad” on “Investing in Renewable Energy Stocks.” If you’re lucky, it will be dark in the back of the room and you can take a nice nap.
LINKS:
CREC 2007 Flyer
Registration
More info
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April 10, 2007 at 12:45 pm · Filed under Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Coal, Concentrating Solar Power, Energy efficiency, Global Warming, Nuclear Power
A Wall Street Journal article today reports that TXU is planning on using nuclear power to replace the coal plants which they shelved recently.
This drives me batty. I do think that nuclear power is better than coal, and even better than IGCC, but basically substituting nuclear power for coal power is just replacing one nasty externality (CO2 emissions) with another: adding to the risk of nuclear terrorism and waste disposal problems.
When expected costs of CO2 are factored in, the price of nuclear power does looks good. But I ask the same question people are finally asking about global warming: “What’s the business case for destroying the planet?”
Here’s what we should be thinking for our baseload energy needs:
Energy Efficiency…. 1-3 cents per kWh
Concentrating Solar Power with thermal storage…. 10-15 cents per kWh (and dropping)
Wind power, combined with pricing mechanisms to shift demand…. 4-6 cents per kWh
And for peaking power:
Demand Response
Time of Day Pricing
Concentrating Solar Power with large scale thermal storage and an oversized turbine
Eight steps forward… six steps back. Do we really need to dig up mountains for uranium instead of decapitating them for coal?
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March 9, 2007 at 8:33 pm · Filed under AES, electric grid, Energy efficiency, investing, Investing information
I have written another article for AltEnergyStocks.com on the IPO of a company specializing in Demand Response.
Another way of thinking of Demand Response as “dispatchable demand.” In general, the electic utility matches supply and demand of electricity by controlling supply and trying to keep it in sync with demand from customers. But the other side of this coin is to allow customers to respond to price signals from the utility to allow them to choose to use electricity when it is easier and cheaper for the utility to supply. I see the widespread use of demand response (along with energy storage) as essential if we are going to meet our energy needs with intermittent resources such as solar and wind.
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