Looking for a great tax free investment? Wishing for an operating manual for your house? Longing to know how to evaluate your energy using appliances and home heating systems? Puzzled why your electric bill was so high? Frustrated trying to learn what to do about it? Now there are solutions to your problems with a new book by Godo Stoyke.
Energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins has said it for decades. When it comes to electricity generation, saving energy equals constructing energy supply. Now we have a tool to help us reduce the need for more power plants and save cash at home, all at the same time. And, the best part is that if you pick the right energy conservation efforts, you’ll have a better return on investment then anything you can do in the stock market even when the stock market was doing well.
The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Handbook by Godo Stoyke (New Society Publishers) is the next best thing to an owner’s manual for your home. Chapter by chapter, step by step, this easy to read book lays out choices that you can make in your home to live better, reduce your impact on the globe and keep more money in your pocket and out of the utility company’s cash register.
The best part about saving energy with this book is that it’s short. In only 131 pages, LEED accredited graduate of the University of Alberta Master of Science program, lays out a clear picture of concrete steps you can take to identify your home’s energy appetite, search for unwanted energy hogs and quickly learn what can and can’t save you money.
“The purpose of this book is to show you the most effective and most cost effective ways to reduce your carbon emissions and the best ways to reduce your family’s energy bills.” Stoyke goes on to describe products and technologies that do just that. He explains the way of the Carbon Miser, whose only mission is to get the best return on investment (ROI) versus the Carbon Buster whose emphasis is reducing negative environmental consequences.
In nicely designed appendices Stoyke provides tables that list Efficiency measures with their corresponding carbon reductions, cost savings and payback years. He even lists energy conservation steps according to best return on investment.
This should be one book that everyone has in the house.
© Mark Daily, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
SHOP FOR ENERGY EFFICIENT APPLIANCES
Shopping for appliances isn’t fun. I usually don’t shop for an appliance until the one I have breaks down. Then, it’s a mad dash to the store to find a quick replacement. When a season’s worth of frozen vegetables is melting in your busted freezer, energy conservation is the last thing on your mind.
Unfortunately a hasty decision in the appliance selection process can cost you extra cash over the next fifteen years, the average life of most home appliances. “When you buy an appliance, you commit to paying both the first cost and the operating cost for as long as you own it. And over the life of an appliance, the energy cost to run it can be many times greater than the first cost. So it pays to buy an energy-efficient appliance,” says the introduction to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s Consumer Guide.
A refrigerator or freezer that costs an extra $200 but saves you $100 per year in energy bills, will not be $200 more expensive than the cheaper model. Actually in fifteen years it will have been $1,300 less expensive due to the higher operating costs of the cheaper model. So, if you really want to save money on appliances don’t compare price, compare efficiency ratings instead.
When shopping for appliances there are two stickers that help you compare. One is the Yellow Energy Guide. The other is the Energy Star Label.
The Yellow Energy Guide label shows a comparison of the highest and lowest energy consumption or efficiency estimates of similar appliance models, based on test procedures established by the US Department of Energy. This information lets you compare the features, size and energy usage of different models. From “uses least energy” to “uses most energy,” a scale shows how a model stacks up against the competition. Since 1980, the Federal Trade Commission has required the Energy Guide labels on refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, clothes washers, room air conditioners, water heaters, furnaces, boilers, central air conditioners, heat pumps and pool heaters. Labels are not yet required on clothes dryers, portable space heaters, kitchen ranges, microwave ovens, lights or on-demand tank-less water heaters.
Energy Star labels are not on all appliances, but you should always look for this sticker to get the most efficient appliance possible. To earn the ENERGY STAR, these appliances must meet strict energy efficiency criteria set by the US Environmental Protection Agency or the US Department of Energy. They use less energy and reduce your contribution to green house gas emissions from power plants.
More than 70% of American households recognize the Energy Star label. DOE estimates that $16 billion dollars was saved by consumers on 2007 utility bills.
According to the DOE Energy Star website here is what you can expect in savings by purchasing the following Energy Star appliances.
-Qualified refrigerators are at least 15% more efficient than the minimum federal efficiency standard.
-Qualified TVs consume 3 watts or less when switched off, compared to a standard TV, which consumes almost 6 watts on average.
-Office equipment that qualifies automatically enters a low-power "sleep" mode after a period of inactivity.
-Qualified light bulbs (compact florescent or CFL) use two-thirds less energy than a standard incandescent bulb and must meet additional operating and reliability guidelines.
-Qualified furnaces offer a rating of 90% AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) or greater, which is about 15% more efficient than the minimum federal efficiency standard.
So buying Energy Star appliances ensures that you are buying the most efficient models possible. You also save money by getting appliances with the “least energy used” per model category. Shop now, but don’t buy until you really need a new appliance. After all, these standards may change again and manufacturers are always coming up with more energy efficient models. That shouldn’t keep you being prepared by shopping ahead of time.
© Mark Daily, 2008
Unfortunately a hasty decision in the appliance selection process can cost you extra cash over the next fifteen years, the average life of most home appliances. “When you buy an appliance, you commit to paying both the first cost and the operating cost for as long as you own it. And over the life of an appliance, the energy cost to run it can be many times greater than the first cost. So it pays to buy an energy-efficient appliance,” says the introduction to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s Consumer Guide.
A refrigerator or freezer that costs an extra $200 but saves you $100 per year in energy bills, will not be $200 more expensive than the cheaper model. Actually in fifteen years it will have been $1,300 less expensive due to the higher operating costs of the cheaper model. So, if you really want to save money on appliances don’t compare price, compare efficiency ratings instead.
When shopping for appliances there are two stickers that help you compare. One is the Yellow Energy Guide. The other is the Energy Star Label.
The Yellow Energy Guide label shows a comparison of the highest and lowest energy consumption or efficiency estimates of similar appliance models, based on test procedures established by the US Department of Energy. This information lets you compare the features, size and energy usage of different models. From “uses least energy” to “uses most energy,” a scale shows how a model stacks up against the competition. Since 1980, the Federal Trade Commission has required the Energy Guide labels on refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, clothes washers, room air conditioners, water heaters, furnaces, boilers, central air conditioners, heat pumps and pool heaters. Labels are not yet required on clothes dryers, portable space heaters, kitchen ranges, microwave ovens, lights or on-demand tank-less water heaters.
Energy Star labels are not on all appliances, but you should always look for this sticker to get the most efficient appliance possible. To earn the ENERGY STAR, these appliances must meet strict energy efficiency criteria set by the US Environmental Protection Agency or the US Department of Energy. They use less energy and reduce your contribution to green house gas emissions from power plants.
More than 70% of American households recognize the Energy Star label. DOE estimates that $16 billion dollars was saved by consumers on 2007 utility bills.
According to the DOE Energy Star website here is what you can expect in savings by purchasing the following Energy Star appliances.
-Qualified refrigerators are at least 15% more efficient than the minimum federal efficiency standard.
-Qualified TVs consume 3 watts or less when switched off, compared to a standard TV, which consumes almost 6 watts on average.
-Office equipment that qualifies automatically enters a low-power "sleep" mode after a period of inactivity.
-Qualified light bulbs (compact florescent or CFL) use two-thirds less energy than a standard incandescent bulb and must meet additional operating and reliability guidelines.
-Qualified furnaces offer a rating of 90% AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) or greater, which is about 15% more efficient than the minimum federal efficiency standard.
So buying Energy Star appliances ensures that you are buying the most efficient models possible. You also save money by getting appliances with the “least energy used” per model category. Shop now, but don’t buy until you really need a new appliance. After all, these standards may change again and manufacturers are always coming up with more energy efficient models. That shouldn’t keep you being prepared by shopping ahead of time.
© Mark Daily, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Clear Skies is a Lie
I can’t figure out why the public isn’t outraged over the obvious disregard for human health that comes with provisions of President Bushes’ Clear Skies Act. This is just one in a long list of legislation proposed by the Bush administration that does the exact opposite of its title. The Clear Skies Act makes our skies less clear by so many measurable standards that the title could only have been selected by a room full of comedians. Clear Skies? I don’t think so.
According the National Resource Defense Counsel, “The Clear Skies legislation sets new targets for emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides from U.S. power plants. But these targets are weaker than those that would be put in place if the Bush administration simply implemented and enforced the existing law! Compared to current law, the Clear Skies plan would allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. It would also delay cleaning up this pollution by up to a decade compared to current law and force residents of heavily-polluted areas to wait years longer for clean air compared to the existing Clean Air Act.”
Zachary Roth writing for the Columbia Journalism Review put it this way, “It’s not just that the Clear Skies reduction targets are “little different” from what would be achieved by simply enforcing the Clean Air Act. It’s that Clear Skies, despite its name, would actually lead to more pollution than the existing Clean Air Act, because current law calls for further reductions over time.
In other words, either Clear Skies or strict enforcement of the Clean Air Act would make the air cleaner than it is today. But enforcing current law will achieve greater reductions than would Clear Skies”.
According to Energy Central Ken Silverstien “In February, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to make mercury reductions mandatory. Instead, the Bush administration had proposed a voluntary cap-and-trade system that it says would have reduced mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018.”
Yet cap and trade means that those that can trade, create hot zones of mercury pollution that may exceed responsible mercury pollution standards.
The NRDC says that “Mercury can cause serious neurological and developmental damage, including birth defects, subtle losses of sensory or cognitive ability, and delays in developmental milestones such as walking and talking. Power plants are responsible for 34 percent of all mercury emissions, which settle into our waters, where they accumulate in fish. In 41 states, officials warn against eating fish from mercury-contaminated lakes and rivers.”
Are people really so busy that they can’t rally enough vocal opposition to this blatant attempt to court irresponsible industries? Are we so strapped financially that we can’t keep our air clean enough to avoid health problems?
If this is all about money why aren’t the taxpayers outraged at the expense of treating air pollution related illnesses and diseases. It has to be less expensive to prevent the pollution than it is to treat all of the health problems associated with dirty air. Yet, people remain focused on complaints about the high cost of electricity without realizing that they are going to have to pay more money for health problems than they would for prevention programs.
I just don’t get it. Can someone out there explain it to me?
According the National Resource Defense Counsel, “The Clear Skies legislation sets new targets for emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides from U.S. power plants. But these targets are weaker than those that would be put in place if the Bush administration simply implemented and enforced the existing law! Compared to current law, the Clear Skies plan would allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. It would also delay cleaning up this pollution by up to a decade compared to current law and force residents of heavily-polluted areas to wait years longer for clean air compared to the existing Clean Air Act.”
Zachary Roth writing for the Columbia Journalism Review put it this way, “It’s not just that the Clear Skies reduction targets are “little different” from what would be achieved by simply enforcing the Clean Air Act. It’s that Clear Skies, despite its name, would actually lead to more pollution than the existing Clean Air Act, because current law calls for further reductions over time.
In other words, either Clear Skies or strict enforcement of the Clean Air Act would make the air cleaner than it is today. But enforcing current law will achieve greater reductions than would Clear Skies”.
According to Energy Central Ken Silverstien “In February, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to make mercury reductions mandatory. Instead, the Bush administration had proposed a voluntary cap-and-trade system that it says would have reduced mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018.”
Yet cap and trade means that those that can trade, create hot zones of mercury pollution that may exceed responsible mercury pollution standards.
The NRDC says that “Mercury can cause serious neurological and developmental damage, including birth defects, subtle losses of sensory or cognitive ability, and delays in developmental milestones such as walking and talking. Power plants are responsible for 34 percent of all mercury emissions, which settle into our waters, where they accumulate in fish. In 41 states, officials warn against eating fish from mercury-contaminated lakes and rivers.”
Are people really so busy that they can’t rally enough vocal opposition to this blatant attempt to court irresponsible industries? Are we so strapped financially that we can’t keep our air clean enough to avoid health problems?
If this is all about money why aren’t the taxpayers outraged at the expense of treating air pollution related illnesses and diseases. It has to be less expensive to prevent the pollution than it is to treat all of the health problems associated with dirty air. Yet, people remain focused on complaints about the high cost of electricity without realizing that they are going to have to pay more money for health problems than they would for prevention programs.
I just don’t get it. Can someone out there explain it to me?
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Electric Rates- Consumers Must Wade Through the Hype and Speak Up
Writing about energy issues isn’t easy. There are a host of dueling experts that love to aggressively champion their ideas. Some even have secret motives tied to parts of the energy industry. Are these objective writers? It’s hard to say frankly. I once had a person reading my material wonder aloud “which side are you on”? That really is the whole point of my writing. I don’t want to be on a “side” unless it is the side of getting the most accurate and honest information out to the most number of people.
As general consumers I believe we still have a rather naive view of electric energy and electric energy issues. Many people still hold the idea that there are these robber baron capitalists that are cranking out copious amount of “dirty” electricity trying to make the most money for the least investment possible. Of course, this is the American way some would argue.”What’s wrong with that? ”, some might say; Nothing, actually. That may well be the goal of most utility companies and their investors. Yet each state has its own utility commission that reviews utility rate increases and keeps a lid on potential abuses from the private sector. Municipal Utilities have tax payers that theoretically are keeping an eye on things and can vote the scoundrels out if rates climb beyond reasonable expense recovery and, member owned public power districts and member owned rural electric cooperatives also have the “membership vote” regulation in play.
So, if these regulating functions are doing their jobs no one should be paying more than absolutely necessary for electricity and no utility company should be getting windfall profits from the sale of electricity. And, I think that this has largely been the case with the California mess and Enron being the main exceptions to the rule. Fingers pointing in so many directions on those debacles that everyone got a little of the blame there.
In fact with those exceptions, regulators have been doing their jobs so well that in many states prices per kilowatt hour had actually gone down in the 90’s as a result of deals made between regulators and utilities over electric utility de-regulation. Unfortunately increasing fuel costs for all utilities have cancelled out the anticipated price reductions and left many companies in the red begging for rate increases in recent years. Our memories are short when it comes to electricity prices, so the feelings consumers have today are strictly based on recent and nation-wide rate increases and any residual positive perception from the rate decreases of the 90’s has long evaporated in the angry and heated response over the most recent bill.
So, what’s a consumer to do? The main thing a consumer can do is get familiar with their electric bill. How much are you paying per kilowatt hour? What is your monthly kWh use? How much does your monthly use fluctuate with the seasons? What appliances do you have that contribute the most to your electric bill? These questions all go to the heart of the concept – “if it’s not being measured, it’s not being managed”, and if you aren’t trying to manage your electric bill, then you deserve whatever bill you get. And, whatever bill you get is your fault, not your utility’s.
The next best thing you can do is let your elected representative know that you are tired of them spending so much time worrying about what’s going on in public bathrooms and private bedrooms and get back to the job we elected them to do, which is to research, propose and adopt legislation that encourages us all to take a long range view of energy issues.
As general consumers I believe we still have a rather naive view of electric energy and electric energy issues. Many people still hold the idea that there are these robber baron capitalists that are cranking out copious amount of “dirty” electricity trying to make the most money for the least investment possible. Of course, this is the American way some would argue.”What’s wrong with that? ”, some might say; Nothing, actually. That may well be the goal of most utility companies and their investors. Yet each state has its own utility commission that reviews utility rate increases and keeps a lid on potential abuses from the private sector. Municipal Utilities have tax payers that theoretically are keeping an eye on things and can vote the scoundrels out if rates climb beyond reasonable expense recovery and, member owned public power districts and member owned rural electric cooperatives also have the “membership vote” regulation in play.
So, if these regulating functions are doing their jobs no one should be paying more than absolutely necessary for electricity and no utility company should be getting windfall profits from the sale of electricity. And, I think that this has largely been the case with the California mess and Enron being the main exceptions to the rule. Fingers pointing in so many directions on those debacles that everyone got a little of the blame there.
In fact with those exceptions, regulators have been doing their jobs so well that in many states prices per kilowatt hour had actually gone down in the 90’s as a result of deals made between regulators and utilities over electric utility de-regulation. Unfortunately increasing fuel costs for all utilities have cancelled out the anticipated price reductions and left many companies in the red begging for rate increases in recent years. Our memories are short when it comes to electricity prices, so the feelings consumers have today are strictly based on recent and nation-wide rate increases and any residual positive perception from the rate decreases of the 90’s has long evaporated in the angry and heated response over the most recent bill.
So, what’s a consumer to do? The main thing a consumer can do is get familiar with their electric bill. How much are you paying per kilowatt hour? What is your monthly kWh use? How much does your monthly use fluctuate with the seasons? What appliances do you have that contribute the most to your electric bill? These questions all go to the heart of the concept – “if it’s not being measured, it’s not being managed”, and if you aren’t trying to manage your electric bill, then you deserve whatever bill you get. And, whatever bill you get is your fault, not your utility’s.
The next best thing you can do is let your elected representative know that you are tired of them spending so much time worrying about what’s going on in public bathrooms and private bedrooms and get back to the job we elected them to do, which is to research, propose and adopt legislation that encourages us all to take a long range view of energy issues.
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