Editor Outpost
Mandatory Efficiency Requirements in Boulder?
Unsatisfied with the energy reductions achieved through voluntary incentives, the Flatirons City is considering creating a mandatory energy-efficiency program for the commercial and industrial sector.The program would be similar to the city’s SmartRegs program, which introduced energy-efficiency requirements for rental housing.
21May2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Solar Disarray
The divide between manufacturers and installers is a symptom of the U.S. solar industry’s problems, not the cause. And the causes are not as simple as either side makes them out to be. China isn’t the only reason companies like Evergreen, Solyndra, and BrightSource have struggled.
4May2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
What’s Slowing the Mainstreaming of Green Building, and What Homeowners Can Do about It
Twenty-five percent of new-home sales are ENERGY STAR-certified, and utility programs across the country are providing rebates to overhaul existing homes. But appraisers have been the big buzz kill at the party. As an industry, they’ve refused to assign higher valuation to energy-efficient or green features that save homeowners money on utility bills and create healthful environments.
16Apr2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Study Advocates Western Power Switch From Coal
to Nuclear
While some previous studies have emphasized the high cost of carbon taxes or caps, the new study shows that replacing coal with more gas generation, as well as renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal energy, would result in only a moderate increase to consumers in the cost of electric power – at most, 20 percent.
4Apr2012 | admin | 1 comment | Continued
Support for Xcel’s Bid To Limit Boulder Programs
Economic development groups and chambers of commerce in the Denver metro area and in Grand Junction are asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to support Xcel Energy’s bid to restrict energy-efficiency programs and solar rebates in Boulder.
26Mar2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Wind-Power Sector Loses Luster With Investors
U.S. investments in turbine farms and wind-energy businesses tumbled 38 percent last year to $9.7 billion, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Venture capitalists have practically left the sector altogether. They invested only $177.6 million in wind startups last year, down 71 percent from the year before.
6Mar2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Will The World Warm To Solar Shingles?
Those shingles on your roof have nothing better to do than soak up the sun all day long—why not put them to work in powering your home as solar power producers? It’s a commonsense concept, and one that Dow Solar has been working on for a while. But new research from Australia may go one better, by helping to develop solar shingles that also heat your home.
21Feb2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
People Power for DG
It will take a lot of “People Power” to overcome the stranglehold on renewable energy progress in Colorado and much of the U.S., argues Ceal Smith of the San Luis Valley Renewables Community Alliance. She offers three actions you can take now to support point of use “rooftop” distributed generation.
7Feb2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Shale Gas = $Billions in U.S. Savings
Natural gas prices that slumped to a 10-year low this month could save U.S. consumers $16.5 billion on home energy bills over the course of a year, according to a senior economist at the Federal Reserve. Projected over several years, the savings could exceed any proposed tax cut.
5Feb2012 | admin | 2 comments | Continued
Millions of Green Jobs? Beyond the Fantasy
There is another way of looking at the critical question of how to address the resource constraints, environmental challenges (including climate change) and social issues that are the underlying impetus for all the current noise about creating a new, green economy.
13Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | Continued
Millions of Green Jobs? Well … NO!
Searching Google for “millions of green jobs” yields over 380,000 references. Every week there’s a new report showing how, if the U.S. plays its public policy cards right, we’ll soon be producing most of our energy from “clean”, renewable wind and solar sources, driving around in electric cars that will deliver power back to the grid, and living in super-energy-efficient homes.
5Jan2012 | admin | 2 comments | Continued
A Cleantech Venture Who is Unconvinced of Man-Made Climate Change
Go ahead — call me a hypocrite. I claim to be a cleantech venture capitalist yet I tell you here and now that I am not convinced of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change (aka global warming). And I will audaciously tell you that my convictions on climate change in no way run contrary to my strong belief in the need for a cleantech revolution.
19Dec2011 | admin | 1 comment | Continued
What Would Adam Smith Do?
There is nothing more dismaying to football fans that a referees call that goes against their team and changes the course of game. The cry goes out: “Hey, ref let’em play.” The battle over energy policy these days has devolved to the same cry of “let’em play” as energy subsidies and tax breaks have become targets for all sides. The feeling expressed by some is that energy sources and technologies ought to compete mano a mano in the open and free market and let the solar chips fall where they may.
1Dec2011 | admin | 0 comments | Continued-
Mandatory Efficiency Requirements in Boulder?
Unsatisfied with the energy reductions achieved through voluntary incentives, the Flatirons City is considering creating a mandatory energy-efficiency program for the commercial and industrial sector.The program would be similar to the city’s SmartRegs program, which introduced energy-efficiency requirements for rental housing.
READ THE FULL POST »
We need to promote export terminals to liquify and ship natural gas to markets in Asia and Euroupe. The US ...
Natural Gas can be consumed so efficiently that the WATER can even be recovered from the combusted exhaust gases.
Going ...
Lack of funding is a serious obstacle for implementation of audit recommendations. Even small rebates will have little impact ...
Re: Natural gas generation wasn’t included in the final analysis but is generally assumed to emit about half as much ...
Disclosure MIGHT prevent pollution if there was a watchdog agency that ruled yes or no on particular chemicals before they ...
Having just read Tom Gray's article 'Fred Udo's bogus numbers' I get the feeling I haven't understood whats going on. ...
I agree with you kirsch. I knew this article had the stench of industry money as soon add I read ...
Can someone explain how disclosure prevents pollution? They can still release air toxins and they are still not held ...